Art 107

Short Answer Question questions

25 questions will appear on the exam

CHAPTER 17: ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM AND THE NEW AMERICAN SCULPTURE

1. Briefly define Modern, Postmodernism and Contemporary?

2. What did the Abstract Expressionists (AE) take from Surrealism?

3. Why were the Abstract Expressionists such a close nit group?

4. Why is AE sometimes referred to as a “masculine” style?

5. Which psychoanalyst influenced the Abstract Expressionists (AE) and in what way?

6. What were some of the ideologies in relation to painting promoted by Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg?

7. Describe some of the key elements of existentialist philosophy?

8. Briefly describe Jackson Pollock’s approach to painting and the connection to Native American sand painting?

9. Why did Krasner dislike the ideologies of Surrealism adopted by many AEs.

10. What gender issues does she address in her Untitled painting from 1949 (fig. 17-10)

11. What is the metaphorical message in Krasner’s Milkweed?

12. What Nietzsche interpretation has been made of Rothko’s paintings?

13. How are you supposed to interpret a Rothko painting (see Chapel series)?

14. Why was steel an important material for David Smith?

15. What are totems (specific to David Smith’s sculpture)

16. How is Smith’s Cubi series similar to the formal elements of the Gestural and Color Field Abstract Expressionists?

17. What were Lee Miller’s early experiences with art and how did her beginnings enhance her role as a photographer?

18. Describe her techniques when taking surrealist photographs.

19. Why limitations did she face when becoming a documentary photographer during WWII but at the same time served to be beneficial?

20. What was the focus of Helen Levitt’s photographs?

21. What two styles are represented in her work an in what way?

22. Why are her works surrealist in terms of the concept behind them?

CHAPTER 18: POSTWAR EUROPEAN ART

23. What were some of the reasons for changes in form and content for some postwar European artists?

24. How does Giacometti’s standing figures relate to Existentialist philosophy?

25. What is symbolized in Richier’s Praying Mantis?

26. Why did the Surrealists use the Praying Mantis as a symbol?

27. What is meant by “slippage” (Dubuffet)?

28. Describe Assemblage.

29. Describe Art Brut.

30. Why did Jean Dubuffet focus on children and the insane?

31. What is “hourloupe and simulacres”?

32. What preoccupied Maria Elena Vieria da Silva?

33. Why is her painting The Invisible Stroller a statement about industrial expansion?

34. Why was Francis Bacon’s Painting/Head series seen as blasphemous to some?

35. What is the content/symbolism of Bacon’s paintings?

36. How does Bacon’s approach differ from the Surrealists?

37. What techniques does Freud’s utilize to capture the “physical presence of the sitter?

38. Describe the “psychology of the sitter” in Freud’s Girl with the White Dog?

39. With the return of the figure, images like Girl with… reintroduce what ideologies in relation to the female body?

40. Why did Barbara Hepworth shed her sculpture of all elements of the real world?

41. What is biomorphic sculpture and what are the biomorphic elements seen in Hepworth’s sculpture?

42. What was Doisneau hoping to capture in his photographs while walking the streets of Paris?

43. What ideas in relation to “the gaze” are represented in Robert Doisneau’s photograph from the series The Sideways Glance?

CHAPTER 19: NOUVEAU REALISM AND POP ART

44. What were Klein’s intentions with his monochromatic paintings?

45. How did Klein incorporate performance into his paintings?

46. What was the title of the series of performance paintings?

47. Why was Klein’s Ritual for the relinquishing of immaterial zones of pictorial sensibility a controversial performance?

48. Describe some of the characteristics of Nouveau Realisme.

49. What are “meta-matics”? (see Jean Tinguely)

50. What was the point of the Homage to New York?

51. How did chance play a role in the success of the Homage sculpture?

52. What are “shot reliefs” what personal and artistic commentary is associated with this process? (Nikki de Saint-Phalle).

53. What do Saint-Phalle’s Nana figures represent?

54. What is an Installation?

55. Describe the She installation, both the design and its symbolic meaning.

56. What types of environments were contained inside the She work?

57. Why did Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrap objects?

58. What was Christo and Jeanne-Claude trying to achieve with there large scale wrapped works?

59. What obstacles did they have to overcome to complete their works?

60. Describe the artistic elements of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s works.

61. Who were the members of the Independent Group of artists in Britain?

62. What was their goal?

63. Who coined the term “Pop Art”?

64. What were some of the objects in the “This is Tomorrow” exhibition?

65. How did Hamilton’s early career influence his work Just what is it that makes …?

66. How was Just what is this . . .supposed to be experienced?

67. What was he attacking with this work?

68. Who inspired Hockney’s coloristic style?

69. How is Hockney similar to Bacon?

70. What change occurred in Hockney’s work when he moved to Los Angeles?

71. Describe the effects of Hockney’s 35mm film images.

72. What are “joiners”?

73. Who were some of the “Beat” artists and what was their motivation?

74. Why was Marcel Duchamp such a strong influence on “Beat Generation” artists?

75. Why was John Cage an important figure in the development of Pop art?

76. How did Cage define “total soundspace”?

77. How ere Cage’s ideas incorporated into Merce Cunningham’s dance routines?

78. Why was Theater Piece #1 an important event?

79. Describe the purpose behind Rauschenberg’s “White paintings.”

80. What are “combines”?

81. What space were “combines” supposed to represent?

82. What was the importance of found objects in his works?

83. Who coined the term “Pop Art”?

84. What were Pop artists celebrating in their art?

85. How were images of Popular culture also political?

86. Why were Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg important figures in the Pop art movement?

87. Why were Rauschenberg’s silkscreen paintings an effective medium for the Pre-Pop movement?

88. Why was Rauschenberg’s Pelican performance Pop?

89. Who inspired Jasper Johns to switch to “found object?”

90. Why did Jasper Johns use flags and targets in his paintings?

91. What transformation takes place in Johns sculpture?

92. Why do Johns works “not support an iconographic reading.”

93. Describe the Encaustic technique.

94. How are John’s works similar to everyday objects?

95. What was of “persisting importance” in Johns works?

96. Which philosopher inspired Johns and in what way?

97. How do his works disrupt our understanding of language?

98. How did Johns change his approach in the later part of his career?

99. What are Happenings?

100. Describe a “typical” Happening.

101. How did Kaprow interpret gesture painting?

102. What is Fluxus?

103. Who were the artists connected to Fluxus?

104. How does George Segal's The Diner further emphasize the idea in Edward Hopper's Nighthawks (look at the formal elements)?

105. Why are Segal’s sculptures been described as suspended in “lonely limbo”?

106. How did Oldenberg undermine the identity of objects?

107. Why is his work autobiographical?

108. What was Oldenberg interested in?

109. Describe the “free-associative path” in Oldenberg’s works.

110. What is “Ray Gun”?

111. Describe The Store.

112. Why is Oldenberg’s Pie a la Mode the quintessential Pop sculpture?

113. What is the contradiction in Oldenberg’s soft sculpture?

114. What does Oldenberg metamorphosize in his works?

115. What transformation takes place in Oldenberg’s large-scale sculpture?

116. What ideas does Lucas Samaras reference in his assemblage?

117. Why are Samaras’s works fetishistic?

118. What was one of the “new conditions” that brought about a social/political change in art?

119. Why were the American Pop artists called “non-introspective”?

120. Describe the ways Pop artists mimicked mass production?

121. How were Warhol and Lichtenstein similar?

122. What did Lichtenstein experience that brought about a turning point in his career?

123. Describe Lichtenstein’s painting process.

124. What term is used to describe the patterns in Lichtenstein’s paintings?

125. How did Andy Warhol describe himself and how does this attitude relate to his art?

126. How did Warhol’s early career affect his “Fine Art” career?

127. What type of device did Warhol use to capture accuracy and detail in his paintings?

128. Why did Warhol eliminate the artist hand?

129. How are the celebrities in Warhol’s works transformed (symbolically)?

130. How can the repetition seen in Warhol’s works be interpreted?

131. How does repetition affect the viewer’s response to Warhol’s Disaster Series?

132. What was the name of Warhol’s studio?

133. Describe the environment in Warhol’s studio.

134. What famous phrase did Warhol coin?

135. Describe Warhol’s films.

136. What are the similarities between Rosenquist’s paintings and Surrealism?

137. Why are his works autobiographical?

138. What did he do for a living in the late 50s?

139. How were his images fragments?

140. What term is used to describe the level of illusion in his works?

141. What political event inspired F-111?

142. Why does Wesselmann’s large nude represent “mass consumer eroticism”?

143. What is Wesselmann saying about American woman in Great American Nude?

144. Compare and contrast Marisol’s images of famous people with the image of The Family, what conclusions can be drawn about her work?

145. What social commentary is Marisol making with her work Family?

146. Why was the Pop style inaccessible to women?

147. Why did Sister Carita switch to the Pop style?

148. What is the connection between Catholicism and Sister Carita’s work?

149. Why is Sister Carita’s merging of two ideologies effective?

150. How are Keinholz’ works political?

151. What terms are used to describe Keinholz’ sculpture?

152. Which “institutions” did Keinholz critique?

153. Who does Arbus use in her photographs and why?

154. What relationship did Arbus believe she had with her subjects?

155. Describe the pop/realistic elements of Thiebaud’s work (visual and content).

156. What was Michal’s intended goal when creating his “photosories”?

157. Why is Duane Michals Paradise Regained Pop?

158. What comment is Michals making about gender roles in Paradise Regained and how do these ideas relate to U.S. culture in the 60’s?

CHAPTER 20: PLAYING BY THE RULES: SIXTIES ABSTRACTION

159. Describe Post-Painterly Abstraction.

160. What were Michael Freid’s views on art?

161. Describe Frankenthaler’s approach when applying paint to the canvas.

162. What was Frankenthaler’s inspiration?

163. Describe the process and effect of Morris Louis' paintings.

164. What does the “veil” in Louis’ paintings mean?

165. How did Morris Louis and Helen Frankenthaler differ from the Abstract Expressionists?

166. Briefly describe some of the basic elements of minimalism.

167. How did the Minimalists treat works of art?

168. Why did the Minimalists need texts to accompany their works?

169. Why did Greenberg dislike Minimalism?

170. Why did Kelly focus on pure color?

171. What techniques did Kelly use to incorporate the museum/gallery space?

172. When calculating the cycles of the mobiles, what was Calder hoping to achieve?

173. What terms are used to to describe Calder’s moving and stationary sculpture?

174. What is the “central theme” is Calder’s work?

175. How did Flavin redefine sculpture and how did this view of sculpture incorporate the museum/gallery?

176. What did the light in Flavin’s imply?

177. Describe the concept of the frame within the frame of Stella’s paintings.

178. How does Stella re-define the frame?

179. How were Stella’s works political?

180. How were Judd’s works Utopian in the Minimalist sense (even though he said they were not)?

181. What were his interests?

182. What was eliminated in Judd’s sculpture?

183. How should you interact with a Morris sculpture?

184. What is Gestalt (in relation to Morris’ sculpture)?

185. Why did he choose the L shape?

186. Why did Morris use felt?

187. What is site specific art?

188. Describe Serra’s views in relation to the materials he uses in relation to One Ton Prop.

189. What was the controversy behind Richard Serra's Tilted Arc?

190. What is the connection between Martin and Rothko and Newman?

191. What is implied in Martin’s statement, “When I cover the square with rectangles, it lightens the weight of the square, destroys is power.”