Contemporary Art and Globalization

Past the post: whatever next?

Modern and Contemporary History

• Pictured is an image of the Berlin Wall which totally enclosed the city of West Berlin from East Germany.

• This section of the wall included such defense mechanisms as guard towers, “fakir beds,” (beds of nails) trenches to stop cars, and other mechanisms. Thierry Noir, View of the Berlin Wall from

the west side of graffiti art on the wall's infamous "death strip" at Bethaniendamm

in Berlin-Kreuzberg, 1986.

• It is within our time that we have witnessed the dismantling of old regimes-the unification of Germany with the destruction of the Berlin Wall originally erected in 1961 and brought down in 1989.

• The year 1992 saw the dismantling of the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics)

• The USSR was 1of 2 super powers during the the Cold War period (1945-1991).– At this time the US and USSR were embattled in a

power struggle that dominated the global economy, foreign affairs, military operations, and most types of cultural exchange from art to sports.

• In 1987, then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced perestroika (literal translation= restructuring)– economic and political reforms led to the

dissolution of communist political forces and the restructuring of the Soviet political and economic system.

A large propaganda poster proclaiming Perestroika.

Mikhail Gorbachev, former and last General Secretary of

the USSR, 1985-1991.

• 1994 was witness to the end of racial segregation in South Africa known as Apartheid.

• Apartheid was enforced by the National Party of South Africa from 1948 to 1994.– During these times the minority whites of

South Africa established and maintained all policies of discrimination against the majority population of black South Africans.

– Black South Africans were denied citizenship from 1958 on and the government provided inferior services including education, medical care, and other public services.

A sign from the apartheid era, 1948-1994.

• Efforts to reform apartheid in the 1980s were squelched by increasing pressure to end the policy once and for all.

• In 1990, President Frederik Willem de Klerk commenced negotiations to end apartheid.

• In 1994, South Africa held its first multi-racial democratic elections resulting in the African National Congress winning under the leadership of Nelson Mandela.

Nelson Mandela, 2008.

The Post Era

• With the collapse of these and various other regimes, there was an increase in the number of self-governing countries.

• These countries and their people, which had formerly been colonies to empires including Britain, France, and others were left with the task of creating a new, postcolonial identity to define themselves and their culture.

• These people were left to negotiate a history/past that included various forms of colonial rule and discriminatory practices that in turn meant they would also confront issues of cultural identity, self-definition and governance, political re-organization, and economic control. – The result is a dominance of the theme of the self, the body, and

identity in contemporary art.

Modern vs. Contemporary• It must be recognized that the term modern is a complex one.• It refers not only to the current moment, but it refers also to an

epoch.– It means both today and the recent past.

• Modern art places value on those things appreciated by Western society:

– Openness to the new– Vitality– Sensitivity, awareness, and relevance to the present situation

• Contemporary on the other hand is the most recent of the modern.– Contemporary art is a part of modern art; it is not distinct from it.

Past the post: whatever next?

• The final decades of the 20th century and the earliest of the 21st were met with the question, after postmodernism what’s next?– The latter half of the 20th century defined itself against the basic

tenets of modernism.– With modernism well enough challenged, what was left?– The question remained: where had postmodernism left modern

art and the audience?

Past the post: whatever next?

• The avant-garde of the previous century successfully challenged and overthrew canonical ideas of art-its creation, who could create it, what materials should be used, how art was to be defined and used.

• Art was opened to new possibilities-there were no restraints on who could create art, expression became paramount, the diversity of the audience was recognized, appreciated, and desired.

William Kentridge, Drawing from Stereoscope, 1998-1999. Charcoal, pastel, and colored pencil on paper, 47

¼” x 63”.

"My drawings don't start with a 'beautiful mark‘. It has to be a mark of something out there in the world. It doesn't have to be an accurate drawing, but it has to stand for an observation, not something that is abstract, like an emotion."

- William Kentridge

William Kentridge (b. 1955)•Kentridge’s drawings focus on the 2 main characters, Soho Eckstein and Felix Teitlebaum.

• These characters help him explore living in the post-apartheid era.

•In this image, Felix is depicted nude representing vulnerability and the human condition.•Like his other drawings, his work relies on context.• His work is expressionist in style-he uses form to express emotion.

William Kentridge, Felix in Exile: drawing: Felix Dreaming of Nandi,

1994. Charcoal and pastel on paper, 47” x 59”.

William Kentridge (b. 1955)•Kentridge uses biography to explore the relationship between history and the present.•He considers all of his art to be about Johannesburg-the city in which he was raised and attended school.•He is best known for his animated films- to make these he films his drawings, makes erasures and changes, and films it again.

– The drawings are put on display with the showing of the film.

William Kentridge, Felix in Exile (from the series 9 Drawings for Projection),

1993–94. Color video, transferred from 35 mm film, with sound, 8 min.,

43 sec., edition 7/10, dimensions variable. Solomon R. Guggenheim

Museum, NY.

Jimmie Durham (b. 1940)•Like Kentridge, Durham’s work explores his own identity as a Native American.•His work is politically charged and confronts inequalities and stereotypes charged against a people as reflected in their identity and visual culture.•His work questions the existence of any truly authentic form of Native American art.

Jimmie Durham, Red Turtle, 1991. Turtle shell, painted wood, paper, 61 ½” x 67 ½”. Collection Dr. and Mrs.

Robert Abel, Jr., Delaware.

Jimmie Durham (b. 1940)•Red Turtle is hand-made from a turtle shell, painted sticks, and paper; a gathering of materials presumed authentic media for Native Americans by Westerners, a representation of the debris encountered by a Native American on a daily basis •The label reads:

We have tried to train them; to teach them to speak properly, to fill out forms. We have no way of knowing whether they truly perceive and comprehend of whether they simply imitate our actions

Jimmie Durham, Red Turtle, 1991. Turtle shell, painted wood, paper, 61 ½” x 67 ½”. Collection Dr. and Mrs.

Robert Abel, Jr., Delaware.

Kara Walker (b. 1969)•Walker is a contemporary artist of African American descent whose work addresses issues of race, gender, the brutalities of America’s history of slavery, sexuality, subjugation, violence, and issues of identity.•She is best known for her room- size silhouettes depicting life during the antebellum south.•She takes inspiration from romance novels, especially those that romanticize “relationships” between slave masters and their female slaves.

Kara Walker, Installation view of the artist in front of Burn, 1998 (left) cut paper and adhesive on wall, 92” x 48” and Untitled, 1996, cut paper, watercolor, and graphite

on canvas, 69 ½” × 66”. Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.

Kara Walker (b. 1969)•Her process involves cutting and affixing black silhouette cut-outs onto the wall and then often projecting imagery onto the wall to complete the scene. •She introduces horror, humor, and wit into the images to appeal to various viewers on multiple levels. •The large embracing scale is much like Abstract Expressionist practice.

Kara Walker installing The End of Uncle Tom and the Grand Allegorical Tableau

of Eva in Heaven, 1995.

Kara Walker (b. 1969)•Her images are raw and unapologetic.•Her subject explores our history as a nation and identity as a culture.•She argues that American identity is formed upon the brutalities of its racist past practices.•She integrates the racist iconography into her work to create strong statements.

Kara Walker, Panoramic installation, "Slavery! Slavery! presenting a GRAND and LIFELIKE

Panoramic Journey into Picturesque Southern Slavery or "Life at 'Ol' Virginny's Hole' (sketches

from Plantation Life)" Installation view, ”No Place (Like Home)," as displayed at the Walker Art

Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1997. Cut paper and adhesive on wall, 12 x 85 feet.

• Walker is criticized by many for her employment of racist stereotypes and exaggeration of physical characteristics.

• Little Sambo is a usual reference for the artist as is the mammy or Aunt Jemima.

Helen Bannerman, Little Black Sambo, from the cover of Little Black Sambo, 1899. Color lithograph. The book was written and illustrated by Bannerman.

A reproduction of a tin advertising sign for Picaninny Freeze.

Betye Saar (b. 1926)•Walker is not unique in her use of racist iconography.•Artists including Betye Saar, Robert Colescott, and Faith Ringgold have also appropriated the characters of Little Black Sambo, Uncle Tom, and Aunt Jemima.

Betye Saar, The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, 1972. Mixed media

assemblage 11.6” x 7.9” x 2.5”. University of California at Berkeley.

Kara Walker (b. 1969)•In Insurrection, she presents what appears to be an otherwise bucolic scene of liberation.•Once one takes a closer look, it reveals itself however to be a scene of debauchery where the characters included seem little occupied with liberation and more with pleasures of the flesh.•She explores the sexualized violence among slaves, between slaves, and between their white masters or slave-owners.•He narratives complicate the history of African Americans within American history.

Kara Walker, Insurrection! (Our Tools Were Rudimentary, Yet We Pressed

On), 2000. Cut paper and projection on walls, 11’10” x 21’ and 10’8” x 32’ 10.”

Installation view of two walls. Guggenheim Museum, NY.

Whitfield Lovell (b.1959)•Much like Walker, Lovell reconciles the past with the physical nature of the present.•Lovell recreates a past overlooked-the stories of African-American families discarded by American history.•Whispers From the Walls marries photos from past residents with a period style one room home of the time.

Whitfield Lovell, Whispers From the Walls, 1999. Installation view.

Whitfield Lovell (b.1959)•To recreate this full-scale rendition of a typical 1920s home belonging to a North Texas African-American family the artist uses charcoal to draw the walls of a shack.•The drawings are based on actual photographs of people alive during 1920s live in Texas.•The figures appear from the walls as if ghosts.•To aid this the artist has soundtracks playing of old blues music and inaudible voices.

Whitfield Lovell, Whispers From the Walls, 1999. Installation view.

Shirin Neshat (b. 1957)•Neshat is a visual artist born in Iran but currently living and working in NY.•She is primarily known for her work in film, video, and photography.•Central to Neshat’s work is her identity as an Iranian woman in a Western world-especially after 9-11.•Her work confronts issues of identity, violence, community, abuse of power, and the religious, cultural, and social practices of Muslim society.

Shirin Neshat, Rebellious Silence, c. 1994. From the Women of Allah series, 1994. Gelatin silver print, 13 ½” x 9.”

Gladstone Gallery.

Shirin Neshat (b. 1957)•Neshat uses her identity as a woman of a Islam to confront Muslim practice and the perceived stereotypes held by Westerners.•Neshat investigates her progressive upbringing through the more traditional roles of Iranian women.•Her first mature work was her Women of Allah series.

Shirin Neshat, Allegiance with Wakefulness, 1993/1994. From the Women of Allah series, 1994. Gelatin

silver print, 13 ½” x 9.” Gladstone Gallery, NY.

• Neshat selects the imagery for her movies in effort to capture the two worlds in which she, like many other women, exist-between Islam and Western society.

• Her films often include shots of old cities, desert landscapes, and the image of Islamic women clad in traditional clothing.

Shirin Neshat, Untitled (Rapture), 1998. Production stills.

• Her images address the separation of the genders as seen below-men occupy an architectural man-made space while women inhabit nature.

• Her work addresses the difficulty and challenge of being a woman of Islamic background and reconciles femininity with Muslim culture.

Shirin Neshat, Untitled (Rapture), 1998. Production stills.

The scroll took a year to make...I was looking at many ways of departing from the conventional miniature in the context of what was happening the past couple of years in the miniature painting department at school. I was looking at Chinese scrolls and I was looking at other forms of eastern art which come out of this whole aesthetic, because they still deal with landscape and they still deal with issues of space."

- Shahzia Sikander

Shahzia Sikander The Scroll, 1991-1992. Vegetable color, dry pigment, watercolor, tea on hand-prepared Wasli paper, 13 ⅛” x 63 ⅞”. Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

Shahzia Sikander (b. 1969)•Like Neshat, Sikander addresses issues of identity.•Sikander is Pakistani American living and working in New York City.•Her art takes the form of traditional Mughal and Persian miniature painting.•She too explores identity in the Muslim culture as well as the Hindu and Muslim divide in Pakistan and India. Shahzia Sikander, Pleasure Pillars,

2001. Watercolor, dry pigment, vegetable color, tea and ink on

wasli paper, 12” x 10”. Collection of Amitta and Purnendu

Chatterjee, NY.

Shahzia Sikander (b. 1969)•Sikander draws inspiration from traditional miniature paintings, book illustrations and illuminated manuscripts.•While her work makes reference to the tradition of miniature painting, it presents modern concerns.•Perilous Order joins Muslim, Hindu, modernist, and personal iconography.•The piece was created in 10 layers and traps light.•The black dots are traditional design and here make reference to Minimalism.

Shahzia Sikander, Perilous Order, 1997. Vegetable pigment, dry pigment, watercolor, and tea water on paper, 10 3/8 x 8 3/16”. Whitney Museum of

American Art, NY.

Shahzia Sikander (b. 1969)•Pleasure Pillars joins Western figural tradition with East.•Sikander utilizes the traditional dots that at once add yet obscure the view of the image.•Commenting on the many female bodies usually found in her work the artist explains they represent the multiplicity of women’s spiritual identity.•Her work joins tradition and the modern and the arts of various cultures.

Shahzia Sikander, Pleasure Pillars, 2001. Watercolor, dry pigment, vegetable color, tea and ink on

wasli paper, 12” x 10”. Collection of Amitta and Purnendu

Chatterjee, NY.

Mariko Mori (b. 1967)•Japanese video and photography artist.•Mori features herself in various costumes in effort to explore identity, desire, and fantasy.•Much of her work, especially her Play with Me series was inspired by her work as a model.•Mori addresses the tradition of the ideal woman in Japanese anime.

Mariko Mori , Play with Me, 1994. Fuji super-glass print, wood pewter, 10’ x 12’ x

3’. Galerie Perrotin, Paris.

Mariko Mori (b. 1967)•In her Play with Me series, Mori dresses like a cyborg and interacts with her Japanese audience.•Her work is informed by and utilizes 1970s feminist practice.•Her work addresses the Japanese male’s inability to reconcile anime characters with reality.

Mariko Mori , Play with Me, 1994. Fuji super-glass print, wood pewter, 10’ x 12’ x

3’. Galerie Perrotin, Paris.

Mariko Mori (b. 1967)•As part of her Play with Me series, Mori attempts to serve tea to Japanese business men dressed as a cyborg.•Again she forces interaction between the fantastic world and reality.

Mariko Mori, Tea Ceremony III, 1994. Cibachrome print, wood, aluminum, chrome

frame, 48” x 60 ¼” x 2”. Galerie Perrotin, Paris.

Takashi Murakami (b. 1962)•Fellow Japanese artist Murakami also works in traditional anime style.•Like Warhol, Murakami pulls from popular culture blurring the boundaries of high and low art.•He works in paint and sculpture producing unusually large sculptures and “Superflat” paintings.

Takashi Murakami, SuperNova, detail from “The Apocalyptic Champ,” c. 1999.

Takashi Murakami (b. 1962)•Murakami’s signature style has been branded and used to sell anything from clothes to children’s toys.

Takashi Murakami, Happy Summer Solstice (First Day Od Summer)(Longest Day Of The

Year)

Takashi Murakami (b. 1962)•In 2003, Murakami teamed up with Vuitton and created a very profitable partnership.•In true Warhol fashion, Murakami branded his style and popularized his work in the world of art, fashion, and pop culture.

Takashi Murakami’s Louis Vuitton Neverfull bag accompanied by a close-up of his monograph developed for Louis Vuitton, 2003. These bags sell for an estimated $5,000 American.

Takashi Murakami (b. 1962)•In 2009, Murakami also created a QR or barcode read by computers and phones.•This one joins Murakami’s signature style and characters with the Louis Vuitton logo.

Takashi Murakami, QR code with Murakami and Louis Vuitton.

Takashi Murakami (b. 1962)•He has created cover art for album covers for artists including Kanye West.

Takashi Murakami, cover art for Kanye West, “GRADUATION”, 2007/

Takashi Murakami (b. 1962)•Murakami’s subject matter deals with Japanese identity in a post WWII world. •His large sculptures featuring over exaggerated female anatomy address the issue of how young boys have difficulty forging relationships with real women because of their fascination with anime characters. Takashi Murakami, installation view of Second Mission

Project ko2 (SMP ko2),1999-2000. Installation view as seen at Wonder Festival, Summer 2000, oil paint,

acrylic, synthetic resins, fiberglass and iron. Human figure 108” x 99” x 56 ½”, jet airplane 21” x 76” x 73”

Sally Mann (b. 1951)•The controversial work of photographer Sally Mann takes her 3 children and their life as chronicle.•Mann’s photography captures their behavior, hobbies, when they wet the bed, when they are injured, and their ambitions all on film.•Her images of her children urinating, bleeding, lying in urine soaked sheets are disturbingly true captions of life.

Sally Mann, The New Mothers, 1989. Gelatin-silver print, 20” x 24”. Edition of 25.

Sally Mann (b. 1951)•Mann’s work is also full of social commentary.•Here she photographs her 2 daughters as they play mother.•Mann takes the opportunity to make the viewer aware of the increasing pressures put on young girls-the sexualization they faces at young ages and prescribed gender roles of becoming the nurturing parent. Sally Mann, The New Mothers, 1989.

Gelatin-silver print, 20” x 24”. Edition of 25.

Lorna Simpson (b. 1960)•Artist Lorna Simpson also addresses issues of identity facing African American women.•Simpson juxtaposes imagery of women of color with text to interrupt institutionalized concepts of the black woman.•Simpson aims to broadcast the difficulties and challenges of being a black woman in today’s world.

Lorna Simpson, Guarded Conditions, 1989. Eighteen colored Polaroid prints, twenty-

one plastic plaques and plastic letters, 91”x 131”. Sean Kelly Gallery, NYC.

Adrian Piper (b. 1948)•Similar to Simpson, Piper also addresses this issue.•Piper’s Self-Portrait adapts the feminist motto, the personal is political, and adds the component of race.•Piper created several series that investigate how race plays a factor in how people react and behave toward one another.•As a light-skinned woman of color, she negotiates the white and black communities to study how ideas of race are made and how that affects identity politics.•Many of her pieces, like Self-Portrait, document the discrimination she experienced as a young woman of color.•She uses language in narrative format to reveal how racism figures into dominant attitudes and the building of community.

Adrian Piper, Political Self-Portrait #2 (Race), 1978.

Photostat, 24” x 16”. Collection Richard Sandor.

Adrian Piper (b. 1948)•In her Catalysis Series, Piper uses her body to confront people’s attitudes towards her.•As a light skinned woman of color, she can pass as white, black, or Latina allowing her to travel between cultures and get a privileged view of how people react to her.•To survey people’s reactions, Piper drenched her clothes in vinegar (upper corner) and stuffed a rag in her mouth then went on the NYC subway to gather reactions.

Adrian Piper, Catalysis III, 1970. Black-and-white photographs, usually 5” x 5.” Photo-documentation of a Street Performances in New York, NY

Nan Goldin (b.1953)•Much like Mapplethorpe, Goldin photographed the “undesirables” of her community-gays, transgendered, prostitutes, and drag queens. •Her photos document those usually outcast and made to feel ashamed celebrating and living positive lives. •Golding captures the intimate details of their lives on film. Nan Goldin, C Putting on Her Make-Up at the

Second Tip, Bangkok, 1992. Cibachrome print, 30” x 40”. Edition of 15.

Nan Goldin (b.1953)•Capturing people putting on make-up and clothes in front of a mirror illustrates to the audience how identity is something that is put on, a mask or masquerade we each perform daily.•The people featured and their lifestyles challenge convention and defy social norms of behavior.

Nan Goldin, C Putting on Her Make-Up at the Second Tip, Bangkok, 1992. Cibachrome

print, 30” x 40”. Edition of 15.

SEDUCED BY ONE ANOTHER, YET BOUND

BY CERTAIN SOCIAL CONVENTIONS

YOU FRAMED THE LIKES OF ME & I

FRAMED YOU, BUT WE WERE BOTH FRAMED

BY MODERNISM

& EVEN THOUGH WE KNEW BETTER, WE

CONTINUED THAT TIME HONORED TRADITION OF THE ARTIST & HIS

MODEL

Carrie Mae Weems, Framed by Modernism, 1996. Gelatin silver-print (triptych).

Carrie Mae Weems (b. 1953)•Artist Carrie Mae Weems also takes as subject identity, especially the role women play that sometimes leads to their colluding in their own victimization.•Her photographs concentrate on the relationship of narrative to the construction of history and identity.•This image features the artist as both photographer and model to artist Robert Colescott. Carrie Mae Weems, Framed by

Modernism, (detail) 1996. Gelatin silver-print (triptych).

Carrie Mae Weems (b. 1953)•The text accompanying each portion of the triptych unearths the tale of how artist and model continue the game of framing one another. •The increased significance is that both artists are of African American descent.

– Weems is alluding to how each has been framed as a person of color and each has framed one another.

– The irony being presented that each has been framed by modernism but each has also framed another. Carrie Mae Weems, Framed by

Modernism, (detail) 1996. Gelatin silver-print (triptych).

Kiki Smith (b. 1954)•Smith focuses on the social and physical realities of the body in her life-size casts.•Smith uses pliable materials that recall the vulnerability of the body to create lifelike models of the human form.•Smith places the forms on poles for display.•Each body is weighed down by gravity its fluids leaking from its various orifices. •Smith aims to promote a more aware knowledge of ourselves and our bodies. Kiki Smith, Untitled, 1990. Beeswax and

microcrystalline wax figures on metal stands female 6’1 ½”, male figure 6’4

15/16.” Whitney Museum of American Art, NY.

Matthew Barney (b. 1967)•Like Smith, Barney is also interested in using the body to understand process.•Barney tests the limits of his own physical strength by performing the body, is body.•He documents this performance through film and photograph.•His thesis suggests the body is a site for social, aesthetic, and personal change.

Matthew Barney, The Apprentice Cremaster 3, 2002. Video to film

transfer, 182 mins.

Matthew Barney (b. 1967)•His Apprentice from the Cremaster series is faced with the final challenge of killing sculptor Richard Serra, an icon of the modernist aesthetic.•Serra appears in the piece painting in his mature style of dripping molten lead against the gallery wall.•The technique, reminiscent of Pollock’s signature style, allows for a metaphoric exorcism of the modern from the postmodern. Matthew Barney, Richard

Serra as Fifth Degree Cremaster 3, 2002. Video to

film transfer, 182 min.