First, we backtrack a bit and look at the work of the sculptors who were working at the same time as the Abstract Expressionists. Although they followed tendencies from European Modernism (found object assemblage, balanced compositions, biomorphic shapes), and AbEx tendencies (the brushed aluminum surfaces of David Smith look like expressionist brushwork, for instance), these artists were also free to follow Greenberg’s advice that “each art should preserve it’s own opacity bla blah.” This meant that sculpture in the 1950s often worked in it’s own world, inventing modernism on it’s own terms.

Next we look survey the work of artists grouped under the name Minimalism. Unlike the Abstract Expressionists, or even the Pop artists, these are not artists who felt grouped in a common purpose. In fact they often occupied distinct perspectives on the work and their reason for producing it.

Robert Morris made boxes that were more about places to perform, or making the viewer aware of his or her body in space, than the craft of making them. Frank Stella painted lines, but never wanted to give up the history of painting or painterly illusion, even when his pieces resembled aluminum slabs suspended on the wall. Donald Judd wanted more than anything to upend traditional concepts of art, and creates the “Specific Object” that is “neither painting nor sculpture” by drafting plans for factory produced objects constructed of exotic industrial materials. Anne Hamilton also produces boxes, but hers are hand crafted, cared for, lovingly painted and talked about as if they were babies carried to term. Sol Le Witt saw that the Idea was as interesting as the piece, and produced descriptions of works that were then brought to term by assistants in his absence.

No matter the distinctions these artists made amongst themselves, they still created a collective body of work that felt cohesive enough to outside observers, and seemed relevant enough in it’s comments on modern life, assembly, and mass production, to earn the lasting label of Minimalism.

Similarly cohesive, yet distinct in it’s fascination with organic shapes, new and expressive materials, and interest in the actual means of production were the process artists who we look at next. And then finally, a quick look at Op art, which in our computer savvy world still impresses with it’s use of tight geometrically controlled lines.

After this class you should be able to

Define the following:

• Minimalism
• Op art
• Process Art

Recognize artwork by the following artists:

• Alexander Calder
• Louise Nevelson
• David Smith
• Dan Flavin
• Donald Judd
• Sol Lewitt
• Robert Morris
• Frank Stella
• Anne Truitt
• Eva Hesse

Answer the following:

• How do the work of sculptors from the 1950s differ from Minimalist artworks?
• How does work by Frank Stella differ from the work of Victor Vasarely?
• Why did Anne Truitt and Robert Morris dislike each other’s artwork?
• How did Frank Stella and Donald Judd disagree about Minimalism?

External Links for further reading:

• Louise Nevelson Foundation
• Donald Judd Foundation
• Anne Truitt Foundation
• Robert Ryman on PBS
• 1972 filmed interview of Frank Stella

definitions:

myth

a narrative, often based on or involving historical events, that illuminates the world view or customs of a people, or explains a belief, or natural phenomenon;

a popular belief or tradition that has grown up around something or someone;

an unfounded or false notion

mythology

an narrative that uses allegory ( symbolic representation ) to describe the human condition;

a body of myths of a culture or time period ( Greek Myths, Creation Myths );

the study of myth

What is myth?

Myth as a cultural story

For many of us, when we think of Mythology, old Greek Gods come to mind. And often for Western Civilization when we talk about Myth this is what we are referring to. But on a larger scale, these Myths, as we see in the first definition of Myth, exist in all cultures through all of history. So on a very safe level, we can look at the stories that were retold in any previous civilizations and refer to them as the Mythology of that civilization.

Yoshitora, Fox Wedding, 1850-60

Here we have a print from the Artitist Utagawa Yoshitora from 1850-1860. It depicts the Fox’s wedding procession, a popular explanation of a sun shower, the meteorological phenomenon in which rain falls while the sun is shining. Surprisingly, this mythology of the trickster getting married is a mythology that is linked to sun showers throughout the world.

Mythical Man, Mythical Woman

Often when we look at a myth it is an individual who comes to the forefront. Sometimes these mythological figures are Gods, like Zeus, Shiva, or Thor. Sometimes they are a hybrid of God and Man, History and Story, such as Hercules, Jesus, or the Buddha. Sometimes, like David battling Goliath, or Gandhi standing up to the British, they are the deeds of mortals whose courage or abilities propel them into the ranks of heroes.

Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1851

Take a look at this picture by Emanuel Lutze of Washington Crossing the Delaware from 1850. Here we see how one human can transcend the ranks of mere mortal an become a Myth. Images like this of Washington, or stories like Washington and the Cherry Tree; these bring humans out of the realms of history and into Mythology. If you’re curious, here is closer look at this painting, where is stays close to the truth, and where it strays from reality in order to propagate Myth.

Also, if you don’t mind a little swearing, be sure to check out this humorous rap that pushes the limits of the Myth of Washington.

Myth as Lies and Superstition

The term Myth often has a negative connotation, and because of this people can get touchy when you say The Myth of X if they believe in X. To call something a Myth sometimes has the underlying assumption that there is s little (or a lot) of truth missing from it. When I say “The Trickle Down Theory is a Myth” what I am really saying is that this was a lie used to put more money into the hands of rich people and it had no basis in truth.

Robert Colescott, George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware, 1851

We used parody in our last projects, so when I say this image by Robert Colescott called George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware from 1975 uses parody to make its point, this should come as no surprise to you. But what might be a little harder to figure out is, how is it using Myth?

For one, we see how by altering the picture by Leutze above, Colescott has called into question the validity not only of the Myth of George Washington, but also of the Myth of America. Because as we all know there are many sides to this United Stated of America, and some are darker than others. For every Washington we also have a Jim Crow.

What Colescott has done here, is used stereotypes and humor to point out the lies and fallacies inherent in the perception of the African American. And by drawing parallels through history, he has also raised figures such as Renaissance Man George Washington Carver into the level of Myth.

Modern Myths

Sociologists studying contemporary history like to draw parallels between the past and present, and so the question often comes up, “What are our modern Myths?” We have already crossed many myths that still pervade contemporary society. Religions stories, although often tied to events a couple thousand years old, still play a big part in our society. And the history of the recent past quickly elevates into the level of Myth. We have to look no further back than the presidencies of Kennedy or Reagan to see men whose facts are quickly mixed with fiction.

Another realm that is often mined for contemporary myth is that of the Superhero. Now, before you go off pasting together a vapid image of Wolverine or the Joker, I’m going to insist you read blog post linked to below call “Superheroes are not Mythology”, including the comments, and be ready to defend your work on ineffectual grounds.

One thing that is an interesting parallel here that I’d like to point out, is the loss of the author in both classical Mythology and Contemporary Superheroes. The story of Superman belongs to whoever retells the story, and the details they add or take away, much as the story of Hercules belongs as much to Homer as it does to Euripides. Although I’m not going to go into it now, this is tied to the notion of The Death of the Author, a term coined by Roland Barthes, who we will look at next.

Myths and Philosophy

French intellectual Roland Barthes wrote a book called Mythologies, where he dissected the culture and times in which he lived, and in essays originally printed in the newspaper, described the mythology that surrounds things as common as The World of Wresting, Toys or Soap-powders and Detergents , and as current as the Plastic and Margarine.

In The Jet Man he describes the Myth of the Astronaut and how this goes beyond the Myth of the fighter-pilot:

The pilot-hero was made unique by a whole mythology of speed as an experience, of space devoured, of intoxicating motion; the jet-man, on the other hand, is defined by a coenaesthesis [sensation as a whole] of motionlessness (‘at 2,000 km per hour, in level flight, no impression of speed at all’), as if the extravagance of his vocation precisely consisted in overtaking motion, in going faster than speed. Mythology abandons here a whole imagery of exterior friction and enters pure coenaesthesis: motion is no longer the optical perception of points and surfaces; it has become a kind of vertical disorder, made of contractions, black-outs, terrors and faints; it is no longer a gliding but an inner devastation, and unnatural perturbation, a motionless crisis of bodily consciousness…[The jet-man] no longer seems to know adventure or destiny, but only a condition.

If this seems a little hard to grasp, or if you’d like to see just how abstractly this myth can be depicted, take another look at the Star Gate sequence of 2001: A Space Odyssey

Digital Myth Making

Due: Monday March 5th, beginning of class

Concepts

Digital Erasure and Addition, Collage, Myth and Collective Storytelling, Fiction and Narrative

Techniques

Collecting and Managing Photo Archives, Color Matching and Adjustment, Erasing, Compositing, Cloning, Layers

Software

Adobe Photoshop CS5

INSTRUCTIONS:

Step 1: Select a Myth. Start by choosing a story you would like to reinterpret as an image. This can be a classic myth, a historical story, a creation myth etc. Imagine the component images you will need to piece this image together.

Step 2: Organize your Photographs. Start collecting photographs to use as pieces of your final image. Scan any physical images you want to use, import photographs from your camera or cell phone, collect images you find on line.

Step 3: Color adjustments. Using Bridge to organize your files, start to make color adjustments to your images so that they will work well together. Make sure to use non-destructive editing, so that you can continue to make changes.

Step 4: Cut and Paste. Start building your composition with the component parts, use masks and adjustment layers so that you can continue to refine your changes.

Step 4: Compose the image. Make sure the whole is greater that the parts. Rearrange the pieces until the final image both tells a story and works as a good visual composition.

References

• Superheroes are not Mythology
• Ways of Interpreting Myth
• Dada Photomontage and net.art Sitemaps
• Max Ernst
• Hannah Höch
• More Examples of collage by Derek Gores
• Andrew Venell Black Basement Origin Myth Collages
• Please do better than what you see here!

So, what was it that makes these artists so different, so appealing? With a little background into the Black Mountain College, and the work of John Cage, we take a peak onto the world of performance, and happenings, and how this work opened up possibilities for artists such as Rauschenberg and Johns. Possibilities which fit outside of the formalist, non-representational work that was receiving most of the attention. Contrary to Greenberg’s wish for each medium to be isolated, we see pieces with representation and narrative, paintings which are also sculptures, sculptures which also serve as backdrops for performance.

Often a distinction arises between the critical nature of British pop art, and the American Pop Art’s unapologetic embrace of consumer culture. But let’s not be too broad in this generalization, as the underlying unease we see in the Abstract Expressionists also shows up in pieces like F-111 by James Rosenquist, which features a young child blissfully having her hair done at a beauty salon, while a mushroom cloud erupts in the background. Or Andy Warhol’s pieces on the Birmingham Race riots, or the car accidents from his disaster series.

After this class you should be able to

Define the following:

• Pop art, and who fits into this category
• Black Mountain College
• Happenings
• encaustic, and who used it

Recognize artwork by the following artists:

• Jasper Johns
• Richard Hamilton
• David Hockney
• Alex Katz
• Roy Lichtenstein
• Claes Oldenburg
• Robert Rauschenberg
• James Rosenquist
• Wayne Thiebaud
• Andy Warhol
• Tom Wesselmann

Answer the following:

• Who was John Cage, and what was his piece 4’33”?
• How did performance art influence the work of artists such as Robert Rauschenberg and Claes Oldenburg?
• How do Pop artists continue Abstract Expressionism’s use of scale?
• Why does Andy Warhol say he wants to be a machine?

External Links for further reading:

• MOMA’s 1997 show of Jasper Johns
• A close look at Jasper John’s Perilous Night
• Claes Oldenburg website
• Claes Oldenburg interview
• David Hockney Website
• Alex Katz interview
• Andy Warhol – The Elvis Works

Single events of this war were captured in so many detailed photographs that everyone understood the horror of what the world had gone through. But when it came to understanding the magnitude of the war–6 million civilians killed in the concentration camps, 180,000 killed by a single atomic blast–we humans are simply left contemplating our own inability to conceive of such large numbers.

One thing was for sure for the artist’s who became known as the Abstract Expressionists, a new artistic method was required to express this new understanding of the world and our place within it. Before the war, dozens of Europe’s best artists fled to America, creating an artistic atmosphere around New York perfect for the education of our young artists. We look at two artists: Arshile Gorky and Hans Hofmann, and their influence on the Abstract Expressionists.

We then systematically dissect works by the most prominent of these figures, looking for two things. First, what was their artistic intent, and means of production? Some of these artists were only interested in what paint on a canvass meant in and of itself. Some were interested in exploring issues of social justice, and some were convinced that with color alone, they could create a truely spiritual and transcendent experience.

Whether formalist or metaphysical in intent, all of these artists had an interest in the abstract gesture (except, as we learn, Ad Reinhardt, the exception who proves the rule). Our second desire in this class is to begin to examine this gesture as a signature mark of the artists. Our class is as much a field guide as it is history. And we must look at these works not just as individual pieces, but as parts of the artists’ oeuvre, or body of work, and learn to spot other works with these same signature gestures, signature colors, signature compositions.

After this class you should be able to

Define the following:

• Abstract Expressionism, and who fits into this category
• Color Field Painting, and who fits into this category
• Second-Genration Abstract Expressionism
• Metaphysical
• Transcendental
• “Push-pull” and who used this term
• “Soak and Stain” and who used this term
• “Zip” and who used this term

Recognize artwork by the following artists:

• Helen Frankenthaler
• Arshile Gorky
• Hans Hofmann
• Franz Kline
• Willem De Kooning
• Lee Krasner
• Morris Louis
• Robert Motherwell
• Barnett Newman
• Jackson Pollock
• Ad Reinhardt
• Marc Rothko
• Clyfford Still

Answer the following:

• What happened in the 1930s that caused painters to search for a new kind of abstraction?
• How does Sartre’s Existentialism fit these artists’ work?
• What made Jackson Pollock so appealing as an image of the new American painter?
• Explain Ad Reinhardt’s “Rules for the new academy”.

Links for further reading:

• MOMA’s “Abstract Expressionist New York” show, with tons of on-line interactive features
• Review of the MoMA show, and additional information on the Ab-Exers
• Ad Reinhardt’s 12 rules, posted on a webpage that breaks almost all of them!
• Gestalt Principals explained, with graphic examples
• Gestalt Principals explained, with fine art examples
• Basic pricipals of color theory explained
• Arshile Gorky Foundation
• Hans Hofmann Trust
• Pollock and Krasner House and Study Center
• Robert Motherwell, the Dedalus Foundation
• Full text of Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias by Frederico Garcia Lorca
• Mark Rothko at the National Gallery of Art
• The Clyfford Still Museum under construction in Dever
• Clyfford Still, why you such a hater?