Art and life from modernism until now

Artworks from 1880 – 1920

Piet Mondrian
The trees
1912
Modernist artwork – abstraction of nature – neo plasticism.
Mondrian was moving away from true to nature representation towards abstraction in order to express what for him was pure form.

Sourced from http://www.moma.org/images/dynamic_content/exhibition_page/79278.JPG

Wassily Kandinsky
Composition no V
1911


Wassily Kandinsky was one of the most original and influential artists of the twentieth-century. His "inner necessity" to express his emotional perceptions led to the development of an abstract style of painting that was based on the non-representational properties of color and form. Kandinsky's compositions were the culmination of his efforts to create a "pure painting" that would provide the same emotional power as a musical composition.


Kandinsky produced Composition V, a much more abstract work. Here, the theme is the Resurrection of the Dead. The iconography is much more difficult to discern. Comparison must be made to more representational works that treat this theme done by Kandinsky around the same time. Reference to these more literal depictions of the motifs allow us to perceive their abstracted forms within Composition V. Several angels blowing their trumpets are included in the upper portion of the canvas. The strong black line crossing from right to left can be felt as a representation of the blowing of the trumpets. Above this line, the towers of a walled-in city are visible. Below the line, the thin application of paint produces a luminescence that affects our perception of space in that portion of the canvas. The luminescence conveys a sense of infinity through the lack of volume and the absence of perspectival illusion. Out of this void, the viewer can sense the rising of the dead.

Information and image sourced from http://www.glyphs.com/art/kandinsky/

Paul Klee
Ancient Sound, Abstract on Black 
1925 (140 Kb); Oil on cardboard, 15 x 15 in; Kunstsammlung, Basel

A Swiss-born painter and graphic artist whose personal, often gently humorous works are replete with allusions to dreams, music, and poetry

Sourced from http://www.artchive.com/artchive/K/klee/ancient.jpg.html




Significant events


1880 - Edison receives patent for his lightbulb

1903 - Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, fly first powered, controlled, heavier-than-air plane at Kitty Hawk, N.C. Henry Ford organizes Ford Motor Company.

1904 - Russo-Japanese War begins—competition for Korea and Manchuria. Entente Cordiale: Britain and France settle their international differences. General theory of radioactivity by Rutherford and Soddy. New York City subway opens.

1913 - Suffragists demonstrate in London. Garment workers strike in New York and Boston; win pay raise and shorter hours. Henry Ford develops first moving assembly line.

1914 - World War I begins: Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand and wife Sophie are assassinated; Austria declares war on Serbia, Germany on Russia and France, Britain on Germany

1919 - Third International (Comintern) establishes Soviet control over international Communist movements. Paris peace conference. Versailles Treaty, incorporating Woodrow Wilson's draft Covenant of League of Nations, signed by Allies and Germany; rejected by U.S. Senate. Congress formally ends war in 1921

Read more: 1910 – 1919 World History | Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005246.html#ixzz2vNS3M74V



Artworks from 1920-1970


Robert Rauschenberg

Combine painting

Robert Rauschenberg was born Milton Ernst Rauschenberg 
~ His birthday was October 22, 1925and he passed on May 12, 2008

~ hewas an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art

~ Robert Rauschenberg was a prolific artist that would not be tied down to just one medium of artistic expression

~A painter, photographer, printmaker, papermaker ,choreographer, onstage performer, set designer and, in later years he started composing musical works . 

~" Rauschenberg picked up trash and found objects that interested him on the streets of New York City and brought these back to his studio where they could become integrated into his work. 

~ He claimed he "wanted something other than what I could make myself and I wanted to use the surprise and the collectiveness and the generosity of finding surprises. And if it wasn't a surprise at first, by the time I got through with it, it was. 

~ So the object itself was changed by its context and therefore it became a new thing"

Rauschenberg is well-known for his Combines of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations. Rauschenberg was both a painter and a sculptor and the Combines are a combination of both, but he also worked with photography, printmaking, papermaking, and performance.


Timeline – events that happened

1922
Mussolini marches on Rome; forms Fascist government. Irish Free State, a self-governing dominion of British Empire, officially proclaimed. Kemal Atatürk, founder of modern Turkey, overthrows last sultan. James Joyce's Ulysses.


1923
Adolf Hitler's “Beer Hall Putsch” in Munich fails; in 1924 he is sentenced to five years in prison where he writes Mein Kampf; released after eight months. Occupation of Ruhr by French and Belgian troops to enforce reparations payments. Widespread Ku Klux Klan violence in U.S. Earthquake destroys third of Tokyo. George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. Bessie Smith, known as “the Empress of the Blues,” makes her first record. Irish poet William Butler Yeats wins Nobel Prize in Literature.


1924
Death of Lenin; Stalin wins power struggle, rules as Soviet dictator until death in 1953.


1927
German economy collapses. Socialists riot in Vienna; general strike follows acquittal of Nazis for political murder. Trotsky expelled from Russian Communist Party. Charles A. Lindbergh flies first successful solo nonstop flight from New York to Paris. Ruth Snyder and Judd Gray convicted of murder of Albert Snyder; they are executed at Sing Sing prison in 1928. Philo T. Farnsworth demonstrates working television model. Georges Lemaître proposes Big Bang Theory. Babe Ruth hits 60 home runs in the season; record stands for next 34 years. The Jazz Singer, with Al Jolson, first part-talking motion picture.


1928
Kellogg-Briand Pact, outlawing war, signed in Paris by 65 nations. Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin


1933
Hitler appointed German chancellor, gets dictatorial powers. Reichstag fire in Berlin; Nazi terror begins. Germany and Japan withdraw from League of Nations


1939
Germany invades Poland; occupies Bohemia and Moravia;


1945
Yalta Conference (Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin) plans final defeat of Germany (Feb. 4–11). FDR dies (April 12). Hitler commits suicide (April 30); Germany surrenders (May 7); May 8 is declared V-E Day. Potsdam Conference (Truman, Churchill, Stalin) establishes basis of German reconstruction (July–Aug.). U.S. drops atomic bombs on Japanese cities of Hiroshima (Aug. 6) and Nagasaki (Aug. 9). Japan signs official surrender on V-J Day (Sept. 2). United Nations established (Oct. 24). First electronic computer, ENIAC, built.


1957
Eisenhower Doctrine calls for aid to Mideast countries which resist armed aggression from Communist-controlled nations (Jan. 5). The “Little Rock Nine” integrate Arkansas high school. Eisenhower sends troops to quell mob and protect school integration (Sept. 24). Russians launch Sputnik I, first Earth-orbiting satellite—the Space Age begins (Oct. 4).


1958
European Economic Community (Common Market) becomes effective (Jan. 1). Army's Jupiter-C rocket fires first U.S. Earth satellite, Explorer I, into orbit (Jan. 31)

Read more: 1920 – 1929 World History | Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005247.html#ixzz2vNSXiQ



Artworks from 1970 –now



Yayoi Kusama

Soul under the moon


2002

Yayoi Kusama is one of the most significant contemporary artists to emerge from Japan. Suffering from 'rijinsho', or depersonalisation syndrome, Kusama's art triggers visual experiences that metaphorically communicate the hallucinations, or veil of dots, she has endured since she was a child. This vibrant iconography, often transposed as nets or auras, dominates her practice.
Soul under the moon 2002 was specifically conceived for 'APT 2002: Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art', and continues her series of 'Mirror/Infinity' rooms, produced since 1963.
Information sourced from https://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/collection/contemporary_asian_art/yayoi_kusama



Romauld Hazoume

La Roulette


2004



Romuald Hazoumè was born in 1962 in Porto Novo, in the Republic of Benin. Hazoumè’s work first came to prominence in the U.K. with the inclusion of his witty, tongue-in-cheek “masks” in the Saatchi Gallery’s Out of Africa show, in 1992. Since then his work has been widely shown in many of the major galleries and museums in Europe and beyond, including the British Museum, the Guggenheim, Bilbao, the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, ICP, New York, the Victoria &Albert Museum, London.


Winner in 2007, of the Arnold Bodé Prize (documenta 12, Kassel, Germany),the stellar trajectory of Hazoumé’s rise during these past fifteen years has catapulted him into the first rank of the international artistic community, marking him out as unique amongst other African contemporary artist.His powerful exhibition Made in Porto-Novo, London, 2009, generated press interest from the BBC and The Financial Times. Prolific in a wide range of media, Hazoumè creates photographs, masks, canvases and installations.In his photographs, slavery is the recurrent theme. Not the historical slavery of the dominant western power in search of cheap labour, but more modern equivalents. Hazoumè focuses upon the Beninese men forced to ferry contraband petrol between Nigerian sources and their Beninese consumers. Estimates suggest that 90% of all fuel used in Benin passes through these black-market channels known locally as Kpayo. His photographic series exposes an undercover system of gross exploitation. Whether confronting the legacy of the slave trade or creating witty portraits, his work documents the diversity of African life today.
http://www.octobergallery.co.uk/artists/hazoume/



Rivale Neuenschwander

I wish your wish


2003


Rivane Neuenschwander’s unique and multifaceted practice reflects on language, the natural world and the passing of time. In I wish your wish 2003, hundreds of coloured ribbons printed with wishes, submitted to the artist from visitors to previous exhibitions, hang from a gallery wall. Visitors are invited to select a ribbon, tie it to their wrist and leave a new wish in return. According to a Brazilian tradition, the wish will come true when the ribbon eventually becomes undone and falls away.


Cai Guo-Qiang

2008 Head on


‘Falling Back to Earth’, presented by Tourism and Events Queensland and Santos GLNG Project, features four installations, including two newly commissioned works directly inspired by the landscapes of southeast Queensland, which the artist visited in 2011. The centrepiece of the exhibition — Heritage 2013 — features 99 replicas of animals from around the world, gathered together to drink from a blue lake surrounded by pristine white sand, reminiscent of the lakes of Moreton Bay’s islands. Heritage has been acquired for the Gallery’s Collection with the generous support of the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Diversity Foundation through and with the assistance of the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation. The second installation, Eucalyptus 2013 responds to the ancient trees of Lamington National Park in the Gold Coast hinterland, while the third — Head On 2006 — is a striking installation of 99 artificial wolves leaping en masse into a glass wall, on display in Australia for the first time.


Both spectacular and meditative, and presenting a beautiful, thought-provoking vision of our relationship with the earth and with each other, ‘Falling Back to Earth’ is the must-see exhibition of the summer.
Sourced from https://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/exhibitions/current/cai_guo-qiang



David Chinyama

Mocambique Offshore
2011


Country: Zimbabwe
style: contemporary, abstract expressionism
medium: oil on canvas
David’s paintings have a depth sought for, but rarely achieved by artists in this age. his use of space and form is both immediate and intellectual. he seems to possess a deep reservoir of emotions within.
http://africanartagenda.tumblr.com/post/51625997594/name-david-chinyama-country-zimbabwe

Timeline of significant events

1980 – Zimbabwean indepence
1989 – Berlin wall opened up
Tiananmen Square demonstrators massacred
1990 – Nelson Mandela released
1991 – Gulf offensive launched against Iraq
1993 – Concept of information super highway promoted
internet system links 5 000 000 users
1994 – Nelson Mandela sworn in as SA president
Genocide in Rwanda
1996 - Talban take power in Afghanistan
2000 – DNA sequencing of human genome completed
First Farm invasions Zimbabwe
2001 – Attack on the World Trade Centre
2002- Euro currency introduced in Europe
Pollution cloud over S.Asia causes half a million deaths

Summary - Medium specificity

VIAM – Synopsis of Reading 1
McNamara, A & Ross, T 2007,’On medium specificity and discipline crossovers in modern art’, Australian & New Zealand Journal of Art, vol.8, no. 1, pp. 99-106, viewed 7 March 2014.
Ranciere states that his work a-disciplinary or in-disciplinary which aims to disrupt the notion of specific disciplines and the exclusion this concept brings. Those with expertise within various disciplines are viewed as able/competent and those without expertise/knowledge etc are viewed as unable. Also that those with this knowledge of disciplines have a separate intelligence to their ‘subjects’. He suggests that if the museum/ installation art becomes caught up in allocating specificity of disciplines it becomes a self conscious drawing the line between who is able/competent/ has knowledge and who doesn’t instead of exploring and reframing ‘the common landscape of the visible’ and stepping beyond disciplinary frames to do so. In his art practice he presupposes that all people have life knowledge that ‘oversteps the divisions of disciplines’.

Ranciere argues that the idea of modernism as the ‘emancipation of each art, ….truth to its own medium’ is a late one as that historical modernity was about ‘crossing of borders between the different arts and between art and life’ . In relation to hybridity it was seen by modernists as the collapse between art and the commodity/ entertainment yet was celebrated in postmodern discourse due to this break down of boundaries and as evidence of new artistic and life possibilities. The aesthetic revolution played its part in this as the artwork was no longer bounded by a specific plane/destination and was instead given the idea of framing a sensorium of experience which could be seen as the museum (art separated from social/religious destination) and that the artistic practice stepped over boundaries between media & the senses in order to achieve this sensorioum. The hybridity/ multimediality is therefore important in the role it has played in this process.

However just because a work is a multimedia work Ranciere suggests that does not make it automatically ‘subversive or interesting’ as multimedia simpy means the combining of several types of media and despite the intentions of artists this combination may simply achieve the effect of being an enhanced theatrical performace/ multimedia spectacle.

In addition Ranciere suggests that for artists to successfully be critical they need to disconnect from stereotypes of critical discourses on consumerism/ globalization which have become a nihilistic wisdom whereby any protest is seen as a performance which is a spectacle and itself a commodity. So instead of taking a patronizing position of agreeing with this wisdom that people are impotent in the face of this condition and need others to open their eyes to it Ranciere instead wants to set aside this patronizing outlook and instead explore new ways of looking at culture and its conflicts.

Ranciere also argues that there is no connection between medium specificity and aesthetic judgement as medium is such a broad term therefore that multimedia work can revive the critical potential of the aesthetic. The concept of a medium as a specific technical means was associated with the essence of art and the medium thought of an end in itself instead of the means of making the art. When this was overturned the ‘truth to medium became obedience to the other’. Before the medium was seen as the other versus the artist as the artists representation would have a gap but because in modernity representation was no longer necessary therefore the commitment to matter became the new alterity.

Ranciere argues that the hierarchy of genres that was questioned by 19th C artists and writers was a hierarchy of form- matter that represented an underpinning social, political and ideological construct which was called into question by the assertion of equality however this led to a new aesthetic opposition that of non art and art – what is considered art and what isn’t? Ranciere suggests that the borders are unclear in this interesting case.

Ranciere concludes by saying that for him it is not the dangers of overriding the boundaries of different disciplines that is an issue but more that all people are able to access knowledge if they wish, use their own understanding and create new links between separate objects and fields and in this way ‘frame new landscapes of the preciptible and thinkable’.

Summary - Unwatcheable

Week 4 Synopsis of ‘Unwatchable’ by Stuart Koop


Koop starts by examining his reaction of disappointment and boredom at the opening of Swiss Video Scene in Victoria. He states that due to the all-pervasive presence of electronic images in present day society audiences and critics alike are increasingly critical and intolerant of ones deemed boring. He quotes Phillip Brophy who states that no matter how contemporary and artistic/skilled at multimedia/ important we think our ideas or views are, us artists need to pause and think before recording and releasing more ‘boring video art’.

However Koop suggests that curators may play a different role in this assessment of video art as he examines the essay written by the NGVA curator for the Swiss video art show, who references the origins of the concept of boredom from 18th C French aristocracy as being a privilege which the curator proposes that boredom is part of the human condition and therefore part of art.

Koop expands on the omnipresence of screens and images in contemporary society and our individual ability to control and manipulate these as well as continuously view them, use them for surveillance, entertainment and knowledge and suggests that perhaps what is setting art apart from this is the artists use of video to create boredom as a conscious choice to ‘work against conventions of screen entertainment’.

Koop then explores how artists have played an increasingly editorial rather than creative role in the last decade using slowing down techniques of classic films or using real time security footage or the slow pan across a Persian carpet as the artists seem to acknowledge the endless flow of images and seem to desire to take a form of control over this yet that video art remains largely unwatchable as some examples cited from the Sydney Biennale prove.

This slowing down and causing boredom Koop sees as an artistic strategy to cause the audience to switch off or leave and as a critique on screen culture. Koop concludes with a thought provoking question to viewers and artists as he looks at the other side video whereby it is used to capture all shocking global events and cites the example of the US video organization called Witness sponsored by high profile celebrities which sends cameras worldwide to document injustice and violations of human rights and distribute these videos to major news companies and the UN to help improve situations. Yet are these images not so difficult to watch and by sending these images on screens that are largely used for entertainment does this help the ‘invisible minorities’?. Koop ends off by saying our dilemma is to know ‘when to switch off and when to keep looking’. This article gives a balanced and thought provoking reading on video art.

Week 2 experimentation with materials

Walking around Cockatoo island where one section of the Sydney Biennale was held was an inspiration in itself ... this cobweb caught my eye ... and the people walking outside the window while the cobweb swayed gently in the breeze the idea of time passing yet us rushing through our lives somewhat oblivious ... 

week 1 experiments with materials

movement weighty yet fragile transparent

seeing the familiar again yet different

                                                                     opaque landscapes

materiality - the material 

its essence its form its feel, look, qualities 

denotations and connotation 

            plastic - waste, the everyday, transformed into metaphor and light reflector, refractor

                       how do you capture the materials essence & hold it & then use it to free
                                               others imaginations senses thoughts