Mod + Contemp Art Quiz 4

Donald Judd, Untitled, 1961

REJECTS composition

• -Seriality (one thing out of
• another)

• -made out of industrial materials, not traditional tools
• of high art; they are tools of mass-production, architecture, design

• -author doesn’t even make the work; his hands don’t
• touch it; it’s manufactured for him in a factory in New Jersey (shift in what
• makes an artist; actual skill, or concept?)

• -a kind of ready-made, in that we know what a box is and
• looks like; he does not create a new shape

-pared down, reduced form (MINIMAL FORM)

-no pedestal; it is right on the wall

Robert Morris, Mirrored Cubes, 1965

• Fried’s essay was a response to papers by Morris and
• Judd (who engaged in a lot of intellectual activity)

-industrial materials, no composition

• -artist was very interested in how bodies respond to
• objects, how we perceive space (phenomenology)

• -directly reject the language of transcendence (made of
• everyday materials instead of marble and bronze), as well as autonomy (people
• are directly a part of the work, reflected in it)

• -make you aware of your surroundings, you need to be
• careful walking around them (work can camouflage itself)

• -the author is no longer imbueing the work with some kind of internal
• meaning; the meanings are established through relationships with the outside
• world; can change in different environment

• -these lack the “immediacy” (Fried) that more
• traditional works have; whole work is not displayed altogether, ready to be
• interpreted; you must walk around it, understand it in the context of its
• environment, etc.

-Fried wants works to inspire conviction

-literalist art=minimalist

-Sets the stage for a number of works that come after that also explore this “opening up”

Lynda Benglis, For Carl Andres, 1970

• Author poured foam directly onto gallery space,
• relinquished some control over material because could not control the way it
• would build specifically

-POST-MINIMALIST

• Discussed as an anti-form , not like the formless which
• is specific to surrealism and bataille, but that the form is accidental and unidentifiable,
• lack of craft or construction; it evokes naturally occuring forms (not
• geometric)

Eva Hesse, Accession II, 1967-68

• -we see a revelation of labor, we see she has threaded
• these strands into the box one by one (more explicit connection to artistic
• labor)

-did NOT make the box, however

• -can be taken as a metaphor for female anatomy (hairy
• box)

Eva Hesse, Hang Up, 1966

• We have an empty frame, with the canvas (usually found
• between bars) wrapped around the frame itself; cord overtly projects into the
• gallery space in hazardous but playful way

Framed is part of the gallery where the work hangs

• The wire usually used to hang the work is itself
• dependent on the work to hang

Mixing of media (painting and sculpture)

Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, 1970

Exists in the Great Salt Lake

• Bulldozes tons of material into the lake to create
• spiral form; takes about a week to bulldoze and then assemble; a year later,
• the water levels change and the piece is submerged in water; emerged about 30
• years later

• Artist was interested in entropy, was a prolific writer
• and critic; took delight In the fact that the work was submerged, encourages
• entropy

-site specific=made for that location, cannot be moved

-is not in any one genre of art

• -you can never see this work all at once unless you’re
• in the air, and most will only experience work through photographs

-work extends about 100 feet into lake

- His work does not abide by the “all-over-ness” described in Fried’s essay on modernism

Hans Haacke, MetroMobiltan, 1985

• “institutional critique”--Type of work they practice; in
• this practice, what they share is turning of artistic lens on institutions of
• art themselves (even more directly than Duchamp’s fountain), an exposing on the
• assumptions going on in the museum

-mimics façade of met

• Text comes from Met’s brochure that it distributes to big corporations to get
• them to sponsor big exhibitions

• -Mobil had recently sponsored an exhibition of Nigerian
• artifacts, at the same time supplying oil to the apartheid government

• -”We sell to the government, so we have to provide for
• the government, as well”

• -if you’re looking bad, corporations, something you can
• do to help your image is sponsor an exhibition to cleanse your image

-shows museums have impure interests

Hans Haacke, MOMA Poll, 1971

• -interactive work, you are completely integral to the
• work

• -site-specific (MOMA poll), you’d have to change the
• title to make it work elsewhere

• -Rockafeller was on board of
• trustees, but they allowed it to be shown in the gallery

-Critiques MOMA, NYS Government

• -we have a supposed, neutral space that s now cast with
• politics; have governor has not denounced the Vietnam War being implicated in
• museum’s goings-on

Fred Wilson, Metalwork: Mining the Museum, 1992

• -artist invited to stage work from their collection
• (works from museum archives, exhibit takes place at Maryland Historical
• Society)

• -fine silver teaset, highly polished, and in the middle is a set of slave
• shackles (not on view as part of the permanent metal works collections)

-previously on view in the museum was just the tea set

-reveals concealed, buried history of Maryland

-Maryland museum only shows a part of their history

-he creates a whole set of new meanings

• -as a result of this project, Fred Wilson gets asked by
• historical societies all over the country to come do the same thing

Asco, Spray Paint LACMA, 1972

Asco means “gross” in Spanish

• -went to LACMA and signed their names on outside of
• museum; before they decided to do this, a curator had Chicanos could not make
• art, only graffiti-LACMA becomes work of art made by them, but you can’t
• exhibit museum inside museum, so this “work” is STILL excluded from museum

-quasi-institutional critique, quasi-performance

• -they went back the next day with Patssi and put her in the
• photo with signatures

-day after it’s whitewashed

Nam June Paik, Zen for Head, 1962

• Fluxus- change, movement interested in impermanent works of
• art

• -dipped his head in ____ rolled out a sheet of paper and
• drew a line with his head

-subverts control of artist, Pollock-esque

Yoko Ono, Cut Piece, 1965

Still from video

• Audience members art allowed to come up and cut off
• pieces of clothing without telling them where and how much they can cut

• Not subjected to bodily harm, but very disarming thing
• to watch

-ono sits there passively

-always wore most treasured outfit

• -you see some aggressive behavior (someone cuts the
• straps of her bra, holes in front of her chest)

• -evokes questions about human nature; the scissors are
• there, do you have to take them?

Vito Acconci, Trademarks, 1970

-American-born, work is task-based

• -would take seemingly mundane task and repeated it ad infinitem until it became
• insane; in this case, bit himself over and over, then rolled ink on marking and
• impressed it on paper

-both the biter and the bitten

Chris Burden, Shoot, 1971

-only meant to graze him, but bullet hit the bone

• -does this while group of viewers look on, creates
• double-bind for viewers (you know what you’re going to see, so are you going to
• interfere? Agreeing to be a
• witness to this; they want to help, but want to be a witness more)

Marina Abramovic, Thyrthm 0, 1974

Only performed once

• -for this work, placed 72 various objects behind her
• (including objects that could inflict pleasure and pain, feather, rose, gun,
• knife) stood there for 6 hours, encouraging people to use those objects on her

Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party, 1974-79

• -made over five years, uses ceramic and needle-work
• (traditionally feminine media, not usually seen in museums), collaborative
• piece

-last supper from pov of women who have set the table or prepared the meal

• -”heritage floor”- 2300 handmade tiles, inscribed with
• 999 names of women that support the table

• -places at table were for more important women, all
• having vulvar-like forms

• -wing 1 begins in pre-history with primordial goddess, conitnues into development of
• various civilizations, ends with decline in women’s power

• -elevates traditionally feminine work not considered
• high work to the status of the museum

Sherrie Levine, Untitled (After Edward Weston), 1981

Levine has appropriated a photograph by Edward Weston of his young son Neil, and rephotographs the photograph, retitles it (his is called Neil) After Edward Weston


-challenges authorship, originality

-who is the real author? Levine, Weston, OR OTHER? Photograph bares striking resemblance to TONS of Roman marble sculpture, which in turn copied GREEK bronze sculpture

• -through photographing his photograph, the work ceases to become ABOUT Weston, or his eye, or his work, but about authorship in general, as well as originality (is the original photograph even the
• original? Isn’t the negative the original? The photograph can be copied ad infinitem)

Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #21, 1978

• -has not appropriated specific scenes from films, but
• generic types of scenes (women is sherman in costume, objects and artist since she also takes the
• photos with clicker)

• -nominally a self-portrait, but she never appears as
• herself; instead, disppears behind the guises of
• film actresses that she impersonates in these implied characters

-presents us an encyclopedia of female types

-Explores a phenomenon among women of this preparedness to be looked at ("to-be-looked-at-ness" = Laura Mulvey)

Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Your Gaze Hits the Side of My Face), 1981

• -artist does photomontages (recall Dada); were
• originally posters all around the city; now they’re in museums

-women are passive recipients of the male gaze

-artist worked at mademoiselle magazine

• -juxtaposes harmless images with confrontational text
• that is usually about women

Silence = Death Project, Silence = Death, 1987

• -reappropriated pink triangle from
• Holocaust, turn it upside down and use it as symbol of pride; recontextualization and slight
• modification;