2. Abstract Expressionism (1940s-Late 1950s)
Post-war Europe
Abstract Painting and Sculpture
Pop Art (Late 1950s-Late 1960s)
Op Art and Kinetic Art (1960s)
Minimal Art (Mid 1960s-1980s)
Assemblage, Junk and Land Art
Conceptual Art (Late 1960s-Late 1970s)
Figurative Painting
Superrealism (Late 1960s-Late 1970s)
Feminist Art
Neo-Expressionism (Mid 1970s-Late 1980s) and Graffiti Art
New Media
Contemporary Sculpture
Australian Aboriginal Art
Europe Today
Africa Today
North America Today
3. Abstract Expressionism flowered in the 1940s and „50s in New
York. It covered a variety of painting styles, but all its practitioners conveyed a
strong emotional content, emphasized the sensuousness of paint, and generally
worked on large canvases.
The Surrealists were a major influence on the Abstract Expressionists,
who adopted their ideas of unleashing the power of the unconscious, painting
automatically, and a style known as “biomorphism,” which was based on non-
geometric shapes and motifs to evoke living things.
The two major groups of Abstract Expressionists were the Action
painters and the Color Field painters. Action painters created works full of
drama, with the paint applied urgently and passionately. Thus the “act” of
painting becomes the content of the work and the image reflects a heightened
state of consciousness and the raw emotions of the artist while creating it.
Paint is often poured, dripped, and spattered on the canvas.
The work of the Color Field painters is quieter, contemplative, carefully
constructed, and emphasizes the emotional force of color. These works are
intended to create transcendental feelings of awe and wonder—and to create a
heightened state of consciousness—on the part of the viewer.
Abstract Expressionism was also a response to post-war American
society. In a conservative and increasingly homogenized culture, artists felt a
need to communicate their innermost feelings and experiences. In doing so,
they created the first American art movement to achieve worldwide influence.
36. World War II decimated much of Europe, leaving it politically divided
and economically devastated. In western Europe, post-war art reflected the
social unease of the period. The artistic climate of post-war Europe was one of
rigor, with artists engaging with the political and philosophical issues of the
time.
After the exhilaration of victory in the war, there was a long period of
uncertainty. The atrocities of the war created an existential crisis in France, and
artists across the continent struggled with the same issues. Art represented
political freedom, and contemporary work became a matter of prestige.
Although Surrealism attracted fewer followers, it had the greatest
influence of all the prewar art movements, as many of the leading figures of the
post-war period were linked to Surrealism in their youth.
The choice between abstract or figurative work took on a different
flavor in the post-war climate. Figurative painting was often associated with the
political left, partly because it claimed to address social issues and partly
because modernist art was still discouraged in the eastern European
Communist countries. In France, Italy, and Britain there was still a strong
current of realist art, which was interpreted by some as politically motivated.
Abstract art abandoned the geometric purity of work from the interwar
years. Existentialist philosophy, popularized by French writers Albert Camus and
Jean-Paul Sartre, influenced artists all over Europe. It promoted freedom,
stating that humans had to be responsible for their own values in an absurd
world.
91. For artists working in postwar America of the early 1950s,
Abstract Expressionism was the dominant influence, yet some were
looking for new ways of interpreting abstract painting. A second
generation of Abstract Artists emerged, using innovative techniques in
a less subjective style and avoiding painterly gesture.
Experimenting with highly diluted oil and acrylic paint to develop
a radical new “soak stain” technique, they developed a distinctive and
purely abstract style. The techniques they developed resulted in a wide
variety of interpretations, from color field paintings through hard-edge
geometric compositions to complex mixed-media work. Often on a huge
scale, their work was absolutely non-representational and characterized
by a clarity of composition and color.
Although post-painterly abstraction was initially an American
movement concerned almost exclusively with painting, its influence soon
spread—most importantly to Britain, where it manifested itself in a school
of abstract sculpture. Using industrial materials such as sheet metal and
plastic, British artists created simple, geometric, abstract forms and
painted them in flat, bold primary colors. Like their paintings, these
sculptures were often on a massive scale, requiring industrial equipment
to cut and assemble.
121. Pop art challenged the distinction between “high” and “low” art and
became the dominant art movement of the 1960s and 1970s in Britain and the
U.S. The term was first coined in the mid-1950s to describe a group of young
British artists and soon caught on in the U.S.
Pop art can be seen as a reaction against the “art for art‟s sake”
philosophy of post-war abstract art. More than any other movement in modern
art, Pop art achieved widespread commercial success largely because it used
familiar iconography in a figurative style. The striking imagery of popular
culture that young artists saw all around them--in Hollywood movies, in the
graphics used in advertising and packaging, comic strips, cartoons, and
television--provided the bold new iconography they needed to debunk the
stuffiness of the art world.
Rejection of the painterly techniques of Abstract Expressionism
prompted Pop artists to return to a figurative style and to the adopt clean lines
and flat colors of Hard-Edge painting. The bold, stylized imagery of commercial
art led to a detached and sometimes ironic style, with connotations of mass
production rather than individuality.
As well as portraying mundane images of everyday life in the style of
advertising billboards and comic strips, some artists incorporated the objects
themselves into their work. Others adopted techniques such as screenprinting,
creating a marketable product rather than a work of art. The Pop artists‟ work
was characterized by humor and satire, exposing the consumerist values and
obsessions of contemporary society.
161. During the 1960s, Op art and Kinetic art became immensely popular
and, in the case of Op art, the subject of much commercial interest and
exploitation. Op, or “optical” art, is painting that utilizes the illusions and
optical effects that our eyes perceive. Kinetic art refers to works that have real
or apparent motion. Both had their origins in the early years of the 20th century,
and retain their importance today.
The term “Op” art first appeared in 1964, and it has links with the use of
ornament, anamorphosis (visual distortion), and trompe l‟oeil effects in art
history, and the colored and graphic effects of the Post-Impressionists,
Futurists, Dadaists, and the Bauhaus artists--as well as psychological research
into the relationship of the mind to the eye and the nature of perception itself.
Op artists use color, line, and shape to produce shimmering, shifting,
sometimes dazzling surfaces that lend the work the appearance of motion. Both
the geometric images and colors are worked out in advance to achieve the
intended effect--which is often produced by studio assistants rather than the
artist, as technical rather than artistic skills are required. Op Art was adopted
as part of the 1960s counterculture movement in music, fashion, and design.
Kinetic art first appeared in the years between 1913-20, but it wasn‟t
until the 1960s that it was established as a movement in its own right. Kinetic
art is a diverse form, using paint, fluorescent strip lights, reflecting surfaces,
found materials and much more, whether as individual pieces or large-scale
installations to achieve its effects. It declined in importance during the 1980s,
but retains its influence today in works requiring audience participation.
189. Minimal art, which is most associated with American
artists of the 1960s and 1970s, used basic, simple forms. Minimal
artists often used geometric shapes, but the work was far from the
world of earlier geometric abstract artists. In earlier abstract art,
there is always the sense of the picture frame or the plinth. In
Minimal art, the object stands only for itself.
The product of a generation of artists who were, by and
large, university trained and enormously aware of the history of
modern art, Minimal art was usually on a large, imposing scale. This
was not just to impress and awe. The combination of simplicity and
size was designed to draw attention to the space around the work,
and to make the spectator engage with the work as a real object.
Behind its apparent simplicity, there lay a complex web of
influences and ideas. For many commentators, Minimal art was the
most abstract art yet, but for others, it represented a complacent
acceptance of the world of industrial production. It was sometimes
found threateningly aggressive, while critics also attacked the way
in which, instead of becoming involved in what was happening inside
the work, the attention of the spectator was drawn to the context
outside.
216. Although using found objects in artworks was by no means a new idea,
it gave rise to distinct genres in the 1960s and 70s, making it a very creative
period. There were also some sharp divisions in the art world, with a gulf
widening between “popular” and “serious” culture.
Artworks made from found objects appeared as early as 1936, and the
term “assemblage” was coined in 1953. Collage was an influence on early
assemblages, and there was also a precedent in the works of art known as
“ready-mades.”
Moving away from the traditional genres of painting and sculpture,
Assemblage and Junk artists created hybrid three-dimensional forms by
assembling discarded objects and scrap materials in boxes, free-standing
constructions, or installations. Sometimes they even presented the objects
without modification, but in a new setting, out of context.
Land art (also known as “Earth” art) developed in the 1970s and drew
inspiration both from the natural environment and its raw materials. Rather
than depicting a landscape, Land artists worked directly on the landscape itself,
sculpting it to make earthworks, or building structures and installations with
natural materials, such as branches or rocks.
Because they were made from everyday materials and bits of trash,
Assemblage and Junk art sometimes evoked a mood of nostalgia, but they also
highlighted the wastefulness of consumer society and rejected the
commercialism of Pop art. Land art in particular also sought to raise awareness
of man‟s place in both the natural and urban environments.
279. Conceptual art was a reaction against Abstract Expressionism, which
dominated the art world in the 1950s. While Abstract Expressionists sought to
express their emotions and experiences in large, heroic paintings, the
Conceptualists were often cool and cerebral. In Conceptual art, the idea or
concept behind the work is as important as the work itself.
The first examples of Conceptual art appeared before World War I, but it
only became recognized as a distinct art form in the 1960s. The pioneer of
Conceptual art was the French artist Marcel Duchamp, who began exhibiting his
readymades, industrially manufactured objects that he had decided were works
of art, in 1913. As there was little or no craft involved in making them, Duchamp
was explicitly questioning the nature of art.
Conceptual art revolutionized the way we appreciate art by questioning
our assumptions not only about what qualifies as art, but what the function of
the artist should be and what our role as spectators should involve. To
Conceptual artists, a work of art was primarily for intellectual—not aesthetic—
stimulation and was no longer a beautiful, hand-crafted object. It did not have to
take the traditional form of a painting or sculpture, but might be a photograph,
film, or an installation. It could be made from found objects, or produced by the
artist‟s assistant. Many Conceptual artists began to rely on language to convey
their message, rather than the visual image or object.
Conceptual art also questioned the role of galleries and museums in
presenting artworks, particularly the way they legitimize and sanctify objects
traditionally considered to be art for the public.
301. During the post-war period, abstract painting was
often seen as the logical development for art. Yet figurative
painters in England and the U.S. have not simply rested on
tradition; they have produced challenging images of the
human condition in a changing world.
The phrase “School of London” was coined in 1976 to
designate a generation of British figurative painters who were
held together by friendship, rather than stylistic similarities.
The six artists in this “school” mainly painted the human
figure and the environment, and often sat for one another.
These artists all derive strength from the old masters. The
knowing spectator can see echoes of Van Eyck, Ingres and
Watteau, as well as Titian and Poussin.
After 1945, the U.S. also produced realistic figurative
painters—although the critics often ignored them in favor of
Abstract Expressionists and Minimal, Pop, and Conceptual
artists. Stylistically, they were disparate. Some produced
unsentimental figure studies, while others created more
emotional paintings.
320. Superrealist artists work with unnerving precision, confounding
the viewer‟s expectations of art by presenting a world that is, unsettlingly,
truer than true. Superrealism, which flourished in the U.S. in the late 1960s
and the 1970s, is a style of art based on imitating photographs in paint,
and imitating real objects in sculpture. Other terms used to describe this
movement are “Photorealism” and “Hyperrealism.”
The obvious forerunner to Superrealism was trompe l’oeil (“to fool
the eye”) painting, in which the artist tried to convince the viewer that what
he or she was seeing was not a painting of objects, but the objects
themselves. This genre, which originated in the Renaissance, flourished in
Dutch painting of the 1600s and American painting of the 1800s.
Superrealist painters usually try to mimic the unique qualities of a
photograph—the way the image falls in and out of focus, the way the lens
distorts features, and the way the shutter freezes motion. Superrealists
often try to remove emotion from their paintings, thus replicating the
apparent detachment of mechanically-produced images.
Superrealist sculptors strive to mimic real objects, especially the
human figure. Some cast directly from the human body and work in
polyvinyl, which gives a smooth, flesh-like finish and allows for detailed
painting of the surface.
329. Until the 20th century, women artists had been effectively excluded
from the art world, and even by the 1960s only a few had achieved recognition.
In the following decades, the diverse work of some women artists to counter
this male domination has become known as Feminist Art.
Inspired by the Women‟s Movement of the late 1960s, many women
artists began to incorporate social and political themes of feminism into their
work. This new generation of feminist artists wanted to express the experience
of women on their own terms. As well as producing works of art that were
recognizably “female,” some created a platform exclusively for women artists.
Not all women artists can be labeled “Feminist.” It is the subject matter
that distinguishes Feminist Art from other contemporary movements: issues of
discrimination, oppression, criticism of patriarchy and male violence, and
celebration of female sexuality. The imagery is necessarily sexual, but
challenges the stereotype of woman as an object of male erotic desire or
fantasy.
No specific style, medium, or genre is associated with Feminist Art,
although more avant-garde forms have tended to predominate. Some Feminist
Art uses the traditional media of painting and sculpture. However, it is argued
that the prestige these forms carry is bound up with male dominance and that
alternatives need to be found. Certain Feminist artists have adopted the devices
of the mass media to present their message in an immediate, accessible form.
Feminist art has also emphasized needlework, ceramics, and other crafts
traditionally associated with women not previously regarded as “fine art.”
341. The Neo-Expressionists emerged in the 1970s in three main
centers: the U.S., West Germany, and Italy. They produced bright, figurative
paintings and often used unusual techniques.
Rejecting the austere, cerebral work of the Minimalists and
Conceptual artists of the 1960s, the Neo-Expressionists instead returned to
figurative painting as their primary medium of expression. By the 1980s, Neo-
Expressionism had become the dominant style of avant-garde artists in the
West. Much of this work was of dubious quality, but it helped fuel the feverish
art market, especially in New York.
The Neo-Expressionists drew their inspiration from many sources—
including the work of the German Expressionists of the 1910s and 1920s, and
the Abstract Expressionists of the late 1940s and 1950s. Neo-Expressionism
was characterized by style rather than subject. The work was dramatic, with
distorted subject matter and strong contrasts of color and tone. The paint
was often applied in thick impasto with aggressive brushwork, giving the
appearance of spontaneous execution. Many Neo-Expressionists set out to
shock with unconventional techniques and media.
In the 1970s, graffiti art thrived in New York, and by the 1980s
many of its exponents were exhibiting in galleries rather than in the streets.
New York graffiti artists transformed the city with their colorful, spray-
painted artwork. They also “bombed” subway trains, so their art travelled
through the city.
353. Art today is characterized by its vitality and diversity. Contemporary
artists utilize a whole range of media and methods to explore the world around
them—everything from hybrid paintings using unfamiliar material to digitally
manipulated photographs, film, and video works.
Traditional materials and techniques are far from having been
abandoned, but today‟s artists no longer define themselves primarily in terms of
disciplines. They have embraced new technologies as a means of expressing,
reflecting upon, and competing with the new cultural landscape of mass
communication and entertainment.
New Media artists also have moved away from abstraction and toward
an engagement with the world around them. Using technologies that record
impressions of actual, physical reality, the lives of ordinary people can be
relayed in recorded images. Common themes include people‟s interactions with
their environment, relationships with one another, and their hopes, fears, and
self-image. People have also become not simply the subjects, but active
participants in the creation of the works.
New Media art draws attention to the artifice of its own construction,
and to the spatial, cultural, and historical context in which it exists. Allusions to
past works of art and movements are frequent, and techniques of framing,
editing, and digital manipulation are not hidden but revealed. It is this reminder
of the artificiality of all images that allows contemporary art to engage with
mass visual culture while maintaining a critical attitude toward it.
387. In the 21st century, sculpture remains a vital and strong art form with
renewed popular appeal. Great commissions and modern exhibition spaces
challenge the adventurous artist. However, the realization of major works can
be as slow and require as much dedication today as in any previous century.
The challenge for the contemporary sculptor is determining what static
imagery is appropriate for a digital age—an era of speed and change.
Understanding the role of sculpture in modern society, new technical
possibilities, and enlightened patronage have all played a part in revitalizing the
medium. At the same time, there has been a revival of interest in traditional
processes, such as bronze casting and stone carving.
Leading sculptors are part of an international art scene that generates
exhibitions and commissions in galleries and museums worldwide. Artists are
also exhibiting in unconventional spaces. Urban regeneration over the last 25
years has led to greater public involvement and been a strong catalyst in
creating a wider acceptance of new commemorative or celebratory sculpture,
along with sculpture parks, art trails, and outdoor exhibitions.
Contemporary sculpture is a broad field—urban or rural, temporary or
permanent, public or private, large scale or intimate. In practice, it involves a
myriad of individuals and the subject matter is a diverse as the interests of
artists and commissioners. Each new work explores the nature of sculpture. The
sheer variety of contemporary art is exhilarating, and opportunities for the
sculptor today are greater than they have been for over a hundred years.
428. Australian Aboriginal painting has always been closely linked
with their society and mythology. The arrival of the Europeans disrupted this
culture and dispersed the Australian Aboriginals, forcing them to adopt
alien lifestyles. In the last 40 years, Australian Aboriginal art has undergone
a transformation in both style and medium, keeping to a traditional, cultural
iconography but transforming it in innovative and radical ways. Australian
Aboriginal art is now highly prized and much sought after.
The big change in Australian Aboriginal art came in 1971, when
local artists at the Papunya settlement were encouraged to paint with
acrylic on canvas and board rather than using vegetable dyes on sacred
objects such as stones or wooden slabs. At first, such paintings were
realistic in their representation, but soon dots and dabs of acrylic paint
were used in increasingly abstract ways.
This new style of “dot paintings” incorporates symbolic motifs—
curved and wavy lines, and concentric circles—marked out in highly
decorative patterns of dots to depict a particular geographical location
associated with either a mythological event or person. Such works are
produced for the western art market, but are painted by Australian
Aboriginal artists across central and northern Australia--who remain very
much a part of their own communities and retain their links to the sacred
lands in which they have traditionally lived.
431. From the 1980s onward, European art regained some of the
prominent position in the world it had lost to the U.S. The dramatic and
sudden collapse of Communism at the end of that decade tended to re-
establish a sense of European unity. European art exists in an
increasingly globalized art scene, which has been facilitated by the
internet and cheaper, easier travel.
In spite of enormous support from the French government, Paris
has never quite recovered the role it played in the development of
modern art up to the mid-20th century. Ever since the international
success of Neo-Expressionism, Germany has become increasingly
important in the art world.
For earlier generations of artists, a considerable career could be
built on a local reputation and many figures celebrated in their own
countries had little following outside them. Now it seems that it is vital to
establish an international audience. What plays best on the world stage
is frequently that which clearly belongs to its country of origin.
One feature of the contemporary scene is that many of the old
conflicts are no longer of such importance. Abstract versus figurative, or
conceptualism versus painting and sculpture, no longer arouse such
passions. Artists who are stylistically and technically very different may
nonetheless be united by common themes.
439. The contemporary art scene in Africa is highly diverse, experimental,
and idiosyncratic. A myriad initiatives scattered over a vast area, it is not
constrained by any monolithic art history or theorizing, and not standardized by
conformist art education.
Extreme change and upheaval characterized African cultures and their
art-making during the 20th century. Differing colonizing powers imposed varied
foreign art values and systems. Local patronage systems were disrupted; so-
called superior artworks were imported; and aspects of Western art-marked and
museum systems introduced.
With progressive attainment of self-government and freedom from
foreign rule, the fundamentally African cultures began the task of reclaiming
and reshaping their societies. Today‟s artists draw freely on the continent‟s
stylistic traditions of abstraction, psychological expressiveness, and symbolic
representation, as well as bringing in and adapting European trends of realism,
picture-making, and naturalistic representation.
African artists‟ traditionally open approach to form and media, seen in
their use of everyday materials, found objects, and mixed techniques, has
successfully absorbed the potential of two-dimensional media, photography,
and video--in addition to a marked reinvention of historically important African
fine arts such as textiles and multi-media performance.
Contemporary African artists are primarily concerned with ongoing
struggles for more humane societies. Their artworks deal with both everyday
realities and profound philosophical concepts.
457. Chinese artists have been especially visible in recent years, but
throughout Asia artists are providing a perspective on the world that is quite
distinct from Western traditions. Since the early 20th century, certain Asian
artists have made a career in the West while retaining elements of their
national traditions. Such a move is no longer necessary to reach a worldwide
public, due to ease of travel and communication, and internationally-minded
critics.
Contemporary Japanese art collapses the distinction between fine
art and popular culture. Art has gone much further in becoming part of mass
culture than even the Pop artists envisioned.
Up to the mid-1980s, Chinese art was controlled by the communist
party, which imposed a populist propaganda art style that drew on both
Western academic styles and traditional folk sources. Today, some of the
biggest names work outside China itself. Chinese art includes challenging
performance and video art, but there also are many painters who reflect
contemporary life of the country or revisit old political icons with irony and
skepticism.
In the Islamic work, the use of decorative script—the strongest
tradition in Islamic art—is a key feature of contemporary work and has a
certain affinity with Western abstract art and its emphasis on “the artist‟s
handwriting.” Political art looks at issues such as the role of women and the
Palestinian conflict.
471. Today‟s North American art
embraces a huge range of media and
styles—from collage to conceptual
pieces and painting to performance. It
also addresses a wide variety of issues,
including consumerism and popular
culture, racial and social identity, and
post-9/11 and post Iraq war tensions.
In the early 1990s, installation
art and video appeared to hold sway in
the North American art scene—today,
however, diversity sways. The North
American art scene is no longer
centered in New York, and increasingly
African American voices are being
heard in the world of art.
