sayre2e ch39 integrated_lecture_pp_ts-150680

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American minister and civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., waves to the crowd of more than 200,000 people gathered on the Mall during the

March on Washington after delivering his “I Have a Dream” speech, Washington, D.C. 1963, August 28.


Map: The city of Birmongham, Alabama.


Faith Ringgold. God Bless America. One of a series of 20 paintings called The American Peopledone between 1963 and 1967 that focused on racial

conflict and discrimination. 1964.31" × 19”.

Black Identity

What factors contributed to changes in African-American self-definition in the 1960s?

• Sartre’s “Black Orpheus” — The growing sense of ethnic identity among African-American’s was influenced by Sartre’s “Black Orpheus” and the emphasis of existentialism on the inevitability of human suffering and the necessity for the individual to act responsibly in the face of that predicament.

• Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man — This novel was instrumental in introducing existentialist attitudes to an American audience. The most vital realization of the novel’s narrator is that he must assert his blackness instead of hiding from it.

• Asserting Blackness in Art and Literature — The collages of Romare Bearden depict the black experience. The poet and playwright Amiri Baraka demonstrates a sense of a single black American identity, one containing the diversity of black culture within it. The violent Watts riots in Los Angeles reflected the growing militancy of the African-American community.

• Discussion Question: In what way did black artists articulate black identity?


Wilfredo Lam. The Siren of the Niger. Signed LR in oil. 1950.51" × 38-1/8”.


Jeff Wall. After Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, “The Preface.” Edition of 2. 1999-2000.

75-1/4" × 106-1/4" × 10-1/4”.


Romare Bearden. The Dove. 1964.13-3/8" × 18-3/4”.

The Vietnam War: Rebellion and the Arts

How did artists respond to the Vietnam War?

• Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five — Antiwar sentiment was reflected in the arts in works primarily about earlier wars, World War II and Korea, as if it were impossible to deal directly with events in Southeast Asia. The fatalism of Slaughterhouse-Five mirrors the sense of pointlessness and arbitrariness that so many felt in the face of the Vietnam War.

• Artists Against the War — Claes Oldenburg’s Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks targeted the university administration of Yale. The Art Worker’s Coalition was an antiwar organization. They professed the view that museums embodied the establishment politics that had led to the war.

• Conceptual Art — A strategy designed to undermine the art establishment emerged—making art that was objectless, art that was conceived as either uncollectible or unbuyable, either intangible, temporary, or existing beyond the reach of the museum that was felt to be supporting the war. Heubler’s “January 5-31, 1969” was an exhibition that consisted of its catalog but no objects.

• Land Art — One of the most famous of works designed specifically to escape the gallery system, a site specific work, is Smithson’s Spiral Jetty. Heizer’s Double Negative draws attention to the difference between the relative brevity of human time and the vastness of geological time. The temporary installations of Christo and Jeanne-Claude evoke time’s passing and the fragility of human experience.

• The Music of Youth and Rebellion — Given the involvement of American youth in the antiwar movement, it was natural that rock and roll helped to fuel the fires of their increasingly passionate expressions of dismay at American foreign policy. Rock was the musical idiom of a youthful counterculture that embraced sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll. Posters such as Six Days of Sound by Bonnie MacLean became emblems of the era. The Woodstock Festival has become legendary.

• Discussion Question: Describe some of the significant imagery of Rosenquist’s F-111 and how this imagery fueled controversy.


Claes Oldenburg. Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks. 1969.23'6" × 24'11" × 10'11”.

Closer Look: James Rosenquist, F-111

MyArtsLabChapter 39 – Multiplicity and Diversity

http://media.pearsoncmg.com/ph/hss/shared_hss_assets/art/WPSGlobalModules/guided_tours/FB_46/index.html

http://www.learn.columbia.edu/ha/html/ancient_athens_parthExSw.htm

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James Rosenquist. Closer Look: Rosenquist's F-111. 1964-65.10' × 86’.


James Rosenquist. Closer Look: Rosenquist's F-111. Installation view. 1964-65.10' × 86’.


Ron Haeberle, Peter Brandt, and the Art Workers’ Coalition. Q. And Babies? A. And Babies. 1970.

24" × 38”.


Robert Smithson. Spiral Jetty. Great Salt Lake, Utah. 1970, April.3-1/2' × 15' × 1500’.


Michael Heizer. Double Negative. Mormon Mesa, Overton, Nevada. 1969-70.

1500' × 50' × 30’.


Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Running Fence. Sonoma and Marin Counties, California. 1972-76.


Bonnie MacLean. Six Days of Sound. 1967, December 26-31.


John Paul Filo. Kent State—Girl Screaming over Dead Body. Published as the cover of Newsweek on May 18, 1970. 1970, May 4.

High and Low: The Example of Music

How did “high” culture and “popular” culture coexist in the musical world?

• Gyorgy Ligerti and Minimalist Music — Minimalist music was inspired by advances in electronic recording and production innovations. Composers transformed the simple elements with which they began into dense, rich compositions. Ligerti developed a rich, but much more minimal, brand of polyphone—which he called “micropolyphony.”

• The Theatrical and the New Gesamtkunstwerk — The music for Wilson’s play Einstein on the Beach was composed by Philip Glass. The “doubling” introduced in this work is another facet of postmodern experience. Laurie Anderson most fully realized the Gesamtkunstwerk ideal with her multimedia piece, United States.

• Discussion Question: Explain Brecht’s critique of the Gesamtkunstwerk and its influence.


Robert Wilson. Einstein on the Beach. Performed by the Lucinda Childs Company. 1976.


Laurie Anderson. Laurie Anderson performing “O Superman,” from United States, II. 1983.

The Birth of the Feminist Era

How did the feminist movement find expression in the arts?

• The Theoretical Framework: Betty Friedan and NOW — Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique rejects modern American society’s construction of women. She founded the National organization for Women, the primary purpose of which was to advance women’s rights and gender4 equity in the workplace.

• Feminist Poetry — The work of both Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath explored the difficulties that women faced in determining an identity outside the patriarchal construction of “woman.”

• Feminist Art — Many women artists were insistent that their work be approached in formal, not feminine terms—that is in the same terms that the work of men was addressed. Judy Chicago’s collaborative work, The Dinner Party, announced the growing power of the women’s movement. Eleanor Antin consistently explored the construction of female identity in contemporary American society. Cindy Sherman cast herself in a variety of roles, all vaguely recognizable as stereotypical female characters in Hollywood and foreign movies, television shows, and advertising.

• Discussion Question: Discuss feminist themes in art.


Eva Hesse. Ringaround Arosie. 1965, March.26-5/8" × 16-3/4" × 4-1/2”.


Judy Chicago. Pasadena Lifesavers, Yellow No. 4. Series of 15. 1969-70.


Judy Chicago. The Dinner Party. 1979.48' × 48' × 48' installed.


Eleanor Antin. My Kingdom Is the Right Size, from The King of Solana Beach (one of 11 photographs and two text panels comprising the whole).

1974.6" × 9”.


Cindy Sherman. Untitled Film Still #35 (from the series of 69 shot between 1977 and 1980). 1979.

10" × 8”.


Richard Prince. Untitled (Cowboy). Edition of two. 1989.50" × 70”.

Questions of Male Identity

How did male self-definition come into question?

• It stands to reason that if female identity is not essential but socially constructed, the same should hold true for men.

• Richard Prince was one of the first artists to address this theme as seen in his advertisements of cowboys, specifically the Marlboro Man.

• If Prince’s cowboys represent the macho side of American male identity, the gay rights movement would play a dramatic role in challenging such American attitudes about the nature of masculinity.


Andy Warhol. Lance Loud, from America. 1985.


Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Continuity & Change: The Global Village: The Umbrellas, Japan – USA. 1984-91.

sayre2e ch39 integrated_lecture_pp_ts-150680

Documents

black artists

black experience

american minister

american audience

single black american

conceptual art

land art

africanamerican community