Contemporary art into the XXI century

At the beginning of the XXI century Contemporary art in the United States in general continues in several contiguous modes, characterized by the idea of pluralism. The "crisis" in painting and current art criticism today is brought about by pluralism. There is no consensus, nor need there be, as to a representative style of the age. There is an anything goes attitude that prevails; an "everything going on" syndrome; with no firm and clear direction and yet with every lane on the artistic superhighway filled to capacity. Consequently magnificent and important works of art continue to be made in the United States albeit in a wide variety of styles and aesthetic temperaments, the marketplace being left to judge merit.

Hard-edge painting, Geometric abstraction, Appropriation, Hyperrealism, Photorealism, Expressionism, Minimalism, Lyrical Abstraction, Pop art, Op art, Abstract Expressionism, Color Field painting, Monochrome painting, Neo-expressionism, Collage, Intermedia painting, Assemblage painting, Digital painting, Postmodern painting, Neo-Dada painting, Shaped canvas painting, environmental mural painting, Graffiti, traditional figure painting, Landscape painting, Portrait painting, are a few continuing and current directions in painting at the beginning of the XXI century.

Text-based tasks.

1) Text-based questions.

1. What is the difference between the arts and the sciences?

2. What are the roots’ meanings of “artificial” and “manufacture”?

3. What was the primary interest of painters back at the turn of the 18th and the 19th centuries?

4. What was the art’s reaction to the industrial revolution?

5. When was the Armory Show?

6. What are the two acclaimed centers of the art world, mentioned in the text?

7. When was the Declaration of Independence signed?

8. How were the painters back in the 18th century educated?

9. What was John Smibert’s and John Wollaston’s influence on American art?

10. What were the names of Peale's sons?

11. Where were the US government officials represented apart from paintings?

12. What else apart from the person was important in painting portraits?

13. What meaningful event in American art history happened 1820?

14. Who was one of the first important African American painters?

15. Why was John James Audubon famous?

16. When did American artists started to protest against traditional forms?

17. Who initiated the Harlem Renaissance?

18. What was the purpose of Roosevelt’s New Deal public arts programs?

19. What does PWAP stand for?

20. What were the art movements that developed during the Great Depression?

21. How can you characterize the American art of the XXI century?

2) What do these figures refer to?

1. 1864-1946

2. 1887

3. 1935

4. 21

5. 15,000

6. 1707-52

7. 1900

8. 1920,

9. 1820

10. 19

11. 1776

12. 1913

3) Explain these words in English.

1. Transcendent - …

2. Conventional - …

3. Artificial - …

4. Frontier - …

5. Icon - …

6. Essentially - …

7. Merchant - …

8. Prosperous - …

9. Tool - …

10. Squalid - …

11. Picturesque - …

12. Rural - …

13. Technique - …

4) Find synonymous verbs to the ones below:

1. To distinguish - …

2. To contribute - …

3. To encompass - …

4. To shape - …

5. To require - …

6. To increase - …

7. To elect - …

8. To adopt - …

9. To comprise - …

10. To relate - …

5) Make a crosswords based on the words from the text.

6) Underline all the irregular verbs in the text and give the three forms of them.

7) Humor. Read, understand, and enjoy the humor =)

Brenda and Terry are going out for the evening. The last thing they do is put their cat out. The taxi arrives, and as the couple walk out of the house, the cat scoots back in. Terry returns inside to chase it out. Brenda, not wanting it known that the house would be empty, explains to the taxi driver, “My husband is just going upstairs to say goodbye to my mother.”

Several minutes later, an exhausted Terry arrives and climbs back into the taxi saying, “Sorry it took so long, the stupid idiot was hiding under the bed and I had to poke her with a coat hanger several times before I could get her to come out!”

PART 2.

Discussion.

1) The “why”-questions. Provocative thinking.

1. Why does art inspire the human spirit?

2. Why did art really develop only in the late 18th century?

3. Why did New York replace Paris as the center of the art world after WW II?

4. Why was it only after the Declaration of Independence signed that the American national identity started to flourish?

5. Why were most of the early American painters self-taught?

6. Why was it so significant to show how much property a subject owned while painting a portrait?

7. Why would the Hudson River School be so important in American art history?

8. Why would controversy become a way of life for American artists at the turn of the XX century?

9. Why would Harlem Renaissance be a significant development in American art?

10. Why would Roosevelt’s New Deal produce such an impact on art?

11. Why did an "everything going on" syndrome prevail in the art of the XX century?

2) Research questions. Choose any movement in American art mentioned in the text and search for more information. Prepare a report and deliver it to your classmates. Be sure you follow the following plan:

-) the name of the movement

-) names of artists that represent it

-) the characteristic features

-) visual examples

3) Make a list of Top 5 Museums in America and say what they are notable for.

Follow-ups.

The Factfile.

Read the text, retell it and prepare a similar overview of any other artist in American history.

Notable Figure

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol, with Archie, 1973

Andy Warhol (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American artist who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture and advertisement that flourished by the 1960s. After a successful career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol became a renowned and sometimes controversial artist. The Andy Warhol Museum in his native city, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, holds an extensive permanent collection of art and archives. It is the largest museum in the United States of America dedicated to a single artist.

Warhol's artwork ranged in many forms of media that include hand drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, silk screening, sculpture, film, and music. He was a pioneer in computer-generated art using Amiga computers that were introduced in 1985, just before his death in 1987. He founded Interview Magazine and was the author of numerous books, including The Philosophy of Andy Warhol and Popism: The Warhol Sixties. Andy Warhol is also notable as a gay man who lived openly as such before the gay liberation movement. His studio, The Factory, was a famous gathering place that brought together distinguished intellectuals, playwrights, Bohemian street people, Hollywood celebrities, and wealthy patrons.

Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, books, and feature and documentary films. He coined the widely used expression "15 minutes of fame". Many of his creations are very collectible and highly valuable. The highest price ever paid for a Warhol painting is US$100 million for a 1963 canvas titled Eight Elvises. The private transaction was reported in a 2009 article in The Economist, which described Warhol as the "bellwether of the art market". Warhol's works include some of the most expensive paintings ever sold.

Read the text and decide whether the critics in Russia is similar to the one in the US.

American Critics

During many intense months that Robert Hughes spent on the road filming a new eight-hour television documentary about American art called ''American Visions,'' he frequently yearned for a break from his role as both scriptwriter and host. ''He'd always say, 'Let's not bother with this, let's go fishing,' '' the program's executive producer, Nicholas Rossiter, recalled recently.

That ambition, to tell the history of art in the United States from the Spanish pueblos of the 16th century to the massive art installations so common today, is coming true in several dimensions. ''American Visions,'' the 648-page book from Alfred A. Knopf, landed in bookstores in late April. The television series makes its debut on PBS on May 28. A home video edition will soon be available, Time is publishing a special bonus ''American Visions'' issue, and what not… America's art, still considered by many to be inferior to Europe's, has never had so much attention. And not since ''The Shock of the New,'' Mr. Hughes's 1981 PBS documentary about modernism, has art captured so much television time.

Pulling off this multimedia blockbuster, four years in the making, was no easy feat. Mr. Hughes and Mr. Rossiter, who works for the British Broadcasting Corporation, were determined to avoid a dull, static museum tour. So they filmed at more than 100 locations from Maine to Malibu – without the Hollywood conveniences. ''Whenever I'd see movie crews in SoHo, with their mobile toilets and makeup vans, I'd get jealous,'' Mr. Hughes recounted. ''Our makeup van was carried by a production assistant in her handbag. And when I was dripping in sweat, someone would produce a ratty package of Kleenex.''

The sheer volume of work was a bigger strain, threatening Mr. Hughes's marriage and sending him to a psychiatrist for the first time. ''After finishing the series about a year ago, I had severe depression,'' he said. He blamed overwork, a crisis of confidence and postpartum blues.

* * *

The history of American art criticism from the Armory Show through the end years of the Depression charts a diversity and continuity of attitudes toward art. Published in newspapers, general periodicals, and art magazines, art criticism has been written by professional critics, art historians, artists, collectors, and writers specializing in fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. Essentially these critics wrote in response to single and group exhibitions in varying degrees of depth. Specific paintings are barely discussed. Similarly, developed theoretical essays are rare. Issues are stated, left undeveloped, and continue to be controversial.

The major issues that American art critics debate during this period relate to both the particulars of America and universal ideas about art and culture. These include: 1. academicism vs. modernism 2. representation vs. abstraction 3. a socially useful art vs. art for art's sake 4. a national American art vs. internationalism in art.

Moreover, critics are uneven in their treatment of artists and exhibitions. For example, conservatives are enthusiasts of traditional art and write infrequently and cursorily about modern art. On the other hand, modernists expound on the significance of modern art and hardly comment on traditional academic art. As reporters and makers of taste, critics tend to spend the best of their energies on what satisfies their own taste. As such, it makes sense to examine the history of American art criticism in terms of its major contributors. This approach respects the integrity of each critics ideas, using entire and varied contribution as the basis for interpretation. In this dissertation the writing of representative critics for each decade are analyzed in depth. Each has been chosen for his relatively moderate viewpoint and writing on the widest range of topic within his representative category. Their writing is synthesized and related to sources and parallels in art and cultural history. It is interpreted as an individual's contribution as well as a reflection of the on going variety of general ideas.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 981