Written by: Raina Tian
With a series of prominent exhibitions in the 1960s, Post-minimalism arose as an emotional, abstract response to minimalism. The 1966 New York Exhibition, Eccentric Abstraction, curated by Lucy Lippard consisted of emotional, unconventional pieces Lippard recognized were influenced by Surrealism, Dadaism, and Expressionism. However, the term “Post-minimalism” was coined by Robert Pincus-Witten, a historian who, upon viewing the exhibition, recognized these pieces as a larger movement in response to Minimalism. The idea of the aesthetic was emphasized by the title of a 1969 White Museum exhibition, Anti-Illusion, where artists emphasized lack of expression through sculpture. Post-minimalism’s various principles were unified by little other than a response to minimalism and an emphasis on abstraction. Some sought to extend the goal of minimalism, creating art which was strongly defined yet abstract in nature while others rejected the cold, impersonal nature of minimalism. Those who sought to extend minimalism utilized processes which involved less “manipulation” of the material, presenting it in ways which seemed unprocessed or natural. The use of natural forces such as gravity to alter composition contrasted Minimalism’s intentional and precise manipulation of form and composition. Those who rejected Minimalism sought to reinject emotion and human expression into sculpture, focusing on themes related to human experience and perception. A unification of interests and practices, Post-minimalism is less of a movement and more of an umbrella term for its subcategories. This is due to the amorphous nature of the principles which the art followed and its focus on human experience and emotion, themes open to interpretation. Subcategories such as body art, performance art, and process art responded to minimalism each through their own characteristics and practices. Process art sought to include the process by which the piece was made in the meaning. Generally, its focus shifts from a desired form or shape to spontaneous moments in time during the process of creation. It emphasized the characteristics of the media it utilized while making clear the process to the viewer. Where Minimalism sought to conceal evidence of human touch, process art included the spontaneous actions of people in its meaning. Body art focused on using the human body as a medium of artistic expression. It sought to remove the impersonal nature of Minimalism through its literal incorporation of human experience. Human perception and experience were represented through bringing awareness of the passage of time and the physical experience of individuals. In Vito Acconci’s Blinks 1969, Acconci walked down a street and took a picture of the location of every one of his blinks. As the concept of pain is heavily linked to human experience, body art could sometimes be aggressive, such as in the case of Chris Burden’s performance pieces. Chris Burden sought to explore the experience of pain and human suffering through a combination of body art and performance art. He would place himself in endangering situations in stunts such as trapping himself in a locker without food for days and nailing himself to a car. Much of his art resulted in self-mutilation as part of the process or resulting experience. On the other hand, Anish Kapoor involves the viewer in his usually large and involved installations. His work aims to induce emotional responses and self-reflection through their usage of space and occasionally, reflective surfaces. Post-minimalism declined in the 1980s as traditional media grew once more in popularity. However, its influence remains prominent today as it laid the foundations for politically themed work such as performative stunts. As a multi-faceted movement, it maintains relevance today through strands such as performance art and process art.
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Written by: Jacqueline Yu Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, in my completely unbiased opinion, was a visionary, a mastermind, an expert draftsman who depicted the secret, seldom told lives of prostitutes and performers. His signature style of sharp and clear contour lines coupled with bright colors and dramatic lighting captivated and continues to captivate audiences. His works tell stories, lives of beauty, glamour, and hardship conveyed in the simplest of strokes. Lautrec was born on November 24, 1864 to an aristocratic family. He loved horses as a child and, despite being of bad health due to his parents being first cousins, often rode them. He suffered two horrible riding accidents, and his legs stopped growing. This incident would eventually cause Lautrec to be only five feet at full height and suffer from immense pain everyday. After his accidents, he started taking art lessons with Rene Princeteau, who helped Lautrec channel his love for horses into drawing and painting. As a result, much of his early work is of horses. Soon after beginning his painting career, Lautrec discovered the impressionists and was particularly impressed by Edgar Degas’ depictions of ballerinas and stage life. Lautrec moved to Paris and rebuffed the “École des Beaux-Arts,” the primary school for the arts at the time which taught students how to paint like the Italian Renaissance, in favor of taking private lessons from Leon Bonnat and Bernard Corman which he afforded with the aid of his parents. His private lessons taught Lautrec to take experimental approaches to art and to become friends with Vincent Van Gogh and Emile Bernard. Lautrec was a massive proponent of the Parisian nightlife. He was charming and witty and a staple in Montmartre, the nightclub/red light district. He frequented cabarets, bars, circuses, and brothels and was even known by the prostitutes as “the coffeepot” due to his short stature. He liked to sketch the women of Montmartre in action like many impressionists who worked “en plein air.” In contrast, his obsession with the urban nightlife is decisively different than most other impressionists like Manet who focused on upper-middle class leisure. As an artist, Lautrec was very popular. Businesses were constantly competing for consumers due to the influx of people looking for work in Paris, and they needed advertisements to win the hearts of the people. Lautrec’s first poster of Moulin rouge brought crowds of people to the cabaret, and he quickly became a hit among nightclubs. His dynamic forms and bold colors attracted the attention of common folk who would then visit the advertised establishment. Cabarets would thank Lautrec for his service and ensure he would continue doing work for them by giving him a free seat and displaying his paintings all over the walls. Montmartre became Lautrec’s gallery. At the end of his life, Lautrec’s popularity allowed him to go into any club or performance he wanted with VIP status. He became close with many prostitutes and sometimes even lived in brothels. He repaid the kindness and humanity of these women with money, drawing them in a series called Elles, and, in Suzanne Valadon’s case, art lessons. In 1901, Lautrec died from a combination of alcoholism and syphilis leaving behind hundreds of sketches, paintings, and posters. Lautrec’s art continues to be influential today, inspiring artists all around the world with his unique aesthetic and style. His pieces represent a period of time where the focus of impressionism began drifting away from the tranquillity and monotony of upper middle class lifestyle and nature scenes to a more vibrant, vivacious nightlife. Citations:
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/laut/hd_laut.htm https://www.theartstory.org/artist-toulouse-lautrec-henri.htm Written by: Alex Broening Salvador Dali is difficult to describe. Throughout his life he explored a vast variety of styles and mediums, switching between them often. Dali also seemed to personify the idea of a paradox. Even as an extremely public figure, Salvador Dali remained extremely enigmatic, and while fascinated by the metaphysical, Dali greatly desired wealth and fame. Dalí was a remarkably interesting artist, and his art, well known and ubiquitous, clearly shows both his eccentricity and genius. Born in 1904 on the outskirts of Barcelona, Dalí was an peculiar child. Self-centered, quick to anger, and very sensitive, he was clearly different than most children. He quickly showed an aptitude for art, and his mother actively encouraged his interest, nurturing his creativity and wild imagination. By the age of 10, Dalí was receiving drawing lessons, and was enrolled in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid in his late teens. Dalí’s skill was apparent, but his flamboyant and slightly odd personality continued to cause problems. Dalí experimented with a vast range of styles during his time at the Academy, but was ultimately expelled without a diploma when he refused to perform his oral exam in front of three professors that he believed were massively less intelligent than himself. After his expulsion, Dalí was inspired by futurism and cubism, as well as artists such as Giorgio de Chirico and Joan Miró. He was also interested in Freud’s idea of Psychoanalysis, and was drawn to a group of French Surrealists who were dedicated to making art with the application of Freud’s theories. Dalí really emerged into the Paris art scene with his contribution to the filming of Luis Bruñuel’s Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog). This 17-minute film released in 1929 was incoherent and dreamlike, showing sequences including a razor cutting into a woman’s eye, ants eating a rotten hand, and priests dragging dead donkeys. The film was sexually and politically shocking and made Dalí well known – even infamous. Dalí was soon invited to join the Surrealists, and began to produce the surreal art for which he is well known today. In the 1930s, Dalí became so invested in the psychoanalytical ideas of Freud and the dream-like quality of surrealism that he created his own method for an artist to tap into their subconscious. Called the Paranoiac Critical Method, Dalí claimed that through “systematic irrational thought and self-induced paranoid states,” he could tap into his unconscious and trigger a dreamlike state. Upon emergence from those states, Dalí would paint his dream-scapes, producing famous works such as The Persistence of Memory and Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War). Dalí’s works were filled with Freudian imagery as well as imagery he saw in his own dreams. He believed that these images and themes such as death, eroticism, and space were universally part of human subconsciousness, and that the symbols could be used to communicate to everyone through emotions, ideas, and instinct. In 1939, Dalí was removed from the Surrealist group by André Breton because of their different political beliefs. While his art stayed as charged and as bewildering as it had always been, Dalí began to explore more traditional styles of painting. Dalí’s fame grew, and so did his interactions with the wealthy and the famous. Between 1940, and 1948, Dalí lived in the United States, both in New York City and in California. In this time, he expanded his scope, designing sets, jewelry, clothing, and furniture. Dalí’s focus on wealth and fame naturally drew him to Hollywood, but he found little fame there. While in Hollywood, however, he worked with director Alfred Hitchcock to create the dream-sequence in the 1945 movie Spellbound. Dalí also worked with Walt Disney on the cartoon Destino, however that was put on hold, and only completed in 2003. After returning to Spain, Dalí continued to evolve, beginning a long period in which he made increasing use of visual illusions, trompe l'oeil, and negative space. While retaining much of his Surrealist roots, he became fascinated with nuclear physics and the role it played in his society, developing a style that he called “Nuclear Mysticism.” His 1951 Raphaelesque Head Exploding is an example of Dalí’s explorations into this territory. Dalí was just as famous for his stunts and publicity as for his art. Always the flamboyant character, Dalí often performed stunts to attract the public’s attention. Showing up to a lecture in a Rolls Royce painted as a cauliflower, and lying in a robe on a bed in a bookstore to promote his book are just a few examples of what was a common occurrence for Dalí. Dalí’s wife died in 1982, leaving Dalí in a state of deep depression. Dalí remained largely bedridden until his own death in 1989 at 84 years old. Dalí’s surrealism had had an enormous effect on the art of the 20th century, and would remain distinct and iconic for decades to come. Written by: Raina Tian
Spotted in the window of a bookstore, a few paintings would begin what would become the United States’ first art movement. The Hudson River School, although the movement technically began in the mid 19th century, had its roots in 1825 when Thomas Cole moved to New York City where he immediately began to frequent a tourist hotel in the Catskill mountains. There, he would sketch scenes of the landscape and Hudson River from which he would then paint from in his New York studio. From there, he was discovered when his paintings drew the eye of influential artists in a bookstore window. Cole began his landscape paintings in a period in which an appreciation for the beauty of the wilderness was being cultivated through literature. The Hudson River School paralleled these themes through its depictions of natural wonders throughout the world, at times flaunting the American west through a nationalistic lens. The growth of the tourism industry reflected the public’s desire to escape the frenzy of urban working life, and the Hudson River School provided glimpses of the idyllic beauty of nature. In the early stages of the Hudson River School, Cole’s hand was heavily guided by the British theory of the Sublime, which advocated for a fear of nature’s power, and this was emulated through his student Frederic Edwin Church, one of the leaders and most notable figures of the movement. However, following Cole’s death, Asher Brown Durand emphasized a shift towards a more naturalistic approach towards landscape painting. Plein-air, the gentle manipulation of light to create a heavenly appearance among the scenes, became a standard in painted scenes. The resulting paintings utilized both idealism and realism, as the end paintings were composites of sketches done in the wilderness and the artist’s hand in New York. The nature of these scenes aimed to invoke strong emotions of awe and admiration in the viewer. Frederic Edwin Church and Albert Bierstadt heavily contributed to the popularity of and worked in the height of the Hudson River School, Church depicting wonders throughout the Americas and Bierstadt throughout the west. America’s artistic influences turned to France following the Civil War, and with the rise of Impressionism, realism became artistically unfashionable. Following Church and Bierstadt’s deaths at the turn of the century, the Hudson River School fell into anonymity. Citations: https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/hurs/hd_hurs.htm https://www.britannica.com/art/Hudson-River-school https://www.theartstory.org/movement-hudson-river-school.htm Written by: Jacqueline Yu Commonly known as the man who cut off his ear and fodder for “artsy” individuals, Vincent Van Gogh’s memory never fails to persevere in these changing times. He is considered one of the most well-known post impressionists, and his mastery of color and unique mark is replicated and admired by thousands of artists around the world. His life was fraught with tragedy and depression which contributed to his vibrant works and desire to create happiness through beauty.
Van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853 to a pastor in Groot-Zundert, Holland. He was an emotional, self-conscious child who was clueless about his future. From 1860 and 1880, Van Gogh struggled constantly with his career aspirations, fluctuating between a clerk in a bookstore, an art salesman, and a preacher. Finally, Van Gogh decided to study art in Belgium. His early works, often referred to as his Dutch period, are characterized by sharp lighting and a dark and solemn atmosphere (i.e. “The Potato Eaters”). Van Gogh, despite being quite affluent while growing up, loved the idea of portraying peasants and their hard lives. In 1885, Van Gogh travelled to Antwerp where he was inspired by Rubens and the widely distributed Japanese prints of the time period. Van Gogh was fascinated by these Japanese prints and was a constituent of the japonisme movement of the time period. He made many works emulating the ukiyo-e style. A year later, he moved to Paris to live near his brother Théo, the manager of an art gallery. There, Van Gogh met many influential artists like Monet and Gauguin. He saw the styles of these Impressionists and worked to emulate them, but was ultimately unsuccessful. Thus, he developed his own style with vibrant colors, chunky brush strokes, and a powerful sense of movement. In 1888, Van Gogh moved to the south of France to try to to start an art school with his friends. He rented out four rooms on the right side of a house that he affectionately named the Yellow House. Gauguin did join him, but Van Gogh’s chaotic behavior and anxiety made him difficult to be around and his habit of working all day and talking all night caused serious problems for his health. Gauguin ultimately decided to leave Arles. In a last ditch effort to make his only companion stay, Van Gogh pursued Gauguin with razor. Gauguin stopped Van Gogh but not before the man cut a part of his own ear off. Van Gogh slipped into madness and was sent to an asylum in Saint-Remy to recover. After two years at the asylum, Van Gogh was steadily improving. He was sent out to live in Auvers-sur-Oise with Dr. Gachet. Sadly, two months later, Van Gogh died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. During his lifetime, Van Gogh was very unsuccessful, selling only one painting. He was poor, hungry, and stressed, and he survived off of a small stipend that his brother sent to him. However, for all the time that he was an artist, Van Gogh never stopped painting. He continued innovating his style and depicting the beautiful world around him. Today, most everyone knows Van Gogh and, more specifically, “Starry Night.” In a time where impressionism dominated artistic spheres, Van Gogh dared to be different, and, in doing so, he revolutionized the art world. Citations: https://www.vangoghgallery.com/misc/biography.html |
ContributorsJACQUELINE YU is the co-founder of the MLWGS art history online magazine. She is an incredible artist and devotes much of her time to both participating in, experiencing, and appreciating art. Archives
April 2019
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