1.
America and Europe after
1945

2.
2
Map of the World in 1945

3.
3
Map of the World in 2000

4.
• Because of WWII, the global art capital shifted from Paris to New York City
First major avant-garde art style to be developed in the United States.
• Two main processes of Abstract Expressionism: gestural abstraction and chromatic
abstraction
• Pollock and De Kooning are generally considered gestural abstraction painters (action
painters)
• Newman and Rothko are recognized as chromatic abstraction painters (COLOR!)
Abstract Expressionism

5.
Abstract Expressionism was the first
truly American style of painting
• GI bill created a newly educated
middle class (eager to buy art)
• Influence of Surrealism and para-
rational thought
• Rebellious individual celebrated (the
artist becomes the new rebel)
ACTION PAINTING   

6.
Existentialism: hero is aware of the absurdities of
life and realizes that all decisions are absurd and
purposeless ultimately (i.e. choosing what to wear)
• We live in a meaningless world; so, we
create meaning where it doesn’t exist
through our individual activities
• Think of Sisyphus
• We must derive meaning only from
ourselves
• Sartre: “existence comes before
essence…we must begin from the
subjective”
• we must define ourselves through
behavior and actions (existence creates
essence)
• feelings of anguish and despair, also
abandonment (no one can help me)
New York School: created works that questioned the human existence and the
presence of a divine, omnipotent power

7.
JACKSON POLLOCK
Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist), 1950 , Oil, enamel, and aluminum paint on canvas, 7’ 3” x 9‘

8.
• Created paintings by using a raw,
unprimed canvas on the floor; Pollock
would splash, fling, drip, pour, paint
and used paintbrushes sand, glass,
sticks, etc. to create art (stepped on the
canvas, cigarette butts, etc.)
• Gave him the feeling of being in
the painting, in “action”
• Many violations against tradition
• No hidden messages or
meaning/symbols
• Records of bodily movements and
gestures only
• Physical manifestation of feelings
deep in the subconscious (Jung)
• conscious, unconscious,
collective unconscious
nonrepresentational style; no special
recession
Gestural abstraction: the
expressive application of
paint leaving visible and
often chaotic brushstrokes
(also called Action
painting)

9.
Willem de Kooning
Two Women
1954
pastel charcoal and pencil on paper
14 3/4 x 14 1/2 in.
DE KOONING
Dutch immigrant to the US
• Never became completely abstract,
figures appear in his work
Expressed inner thoughts and emotions
through visible brush and painter’s knife
strokes
• often reworked canvases (wiped off
paint to start over, painted over
another part, etc.)
• sometimes worked a canvas
through (made holes in it)

10.
Willem de Kooning
Woman I
1950-52
oil on canvas
6 ft. 3 7/8 in x 58 in.
Series of colossal female figures
• Feminine features recognizable
• Think Woman of
Willendorf, i.e. what
makes a woman a
woman?
• Based on advertising
(overemphasis of feminine
features to appeal to men and
women alike)
Woman seated (reference to woman at
vanity mirror? Traditional portrait
painting?)

11.
Willem de Kooning
Woman I (detail)
1950-52
oil on canvas
6 ft. 3 7/8 in x 58 in.
Grin (based on toothpaste and Camel
cigarette ads)
• appropriating mass media for use
in art: modernism
Abstraction of form and energetic
application of paint  action painting
• Slashing movement of paint
creates a sense of violence
(violence against women? a
violation of woman?)
What’s the point of all this?
• References to traditional and contemporary images
• Interest in the vulgarity of women in pop culture
• Building on and advancing the conventions of the way the
female body is portrayed

12.
Barnett Newman
Vir Heroicus Sublimis
1950-51
oil on canvas
7 ft. 11 3/8 in. x 17 ft. 9 1/4 in.

13.
Newman used color to express complex feelings about humanity and its relationship to the
universe
• Interest in the sublime
“Zips”: stripes that run vertically through the canvas’ height (background is usually one
color)
• Large monochromatic canvas = infinite universe and the zips = finite
• Finite existence of human beings in the infinite universe
Latin title = “Man: Heroic and Sublime” (creates sense of history, authority in the work)
• Very large, dwarfs the viewer (17’ wide) (feeling of sublime)
• zips give a sense of cadence and rhythm; trying to capture the sublime without “props”
(traditional, religious symbols)

14.
Mark Rothko
Number 19
1961
oil on canvas
91 x 71 in.
Chromatic abstraction:
lacks the energetic
application of paint but
uses blocks and lines of
color to express
complex feelings about
the universe (also called
Color field painting)

15.
Rothko, Number 14, 1961
Expression of feeling through the colors
• If you only observe the colors of the
painting, you miss the deep
“religious” experience he had while
creating them
• Life is a cycle of tragic times and
happy times (express the cycle
through colors)
• “basic human emotions – tragedy,
ecstasy, doom”
Works evoke the feeling of landscape painting
(different layers)
• Tension between geometric shapes
and formlessness (material vs.
immaterial worlds)
• Put “weight” at the bottom

16.
16
Post-Painterly Abstraction
• Described by Clement Greenberg (an influential art critic) as the cool and rational
• Used same techniques as Ab-Ex artists (like Pollock), but did not put intentional
subconscious expression into the paintings (also called Hard Edge)
– Ab-Ex without the spiritual element
– Some call it the 2nd generation of Ab-Ex
– Avoid build up of paint; use pure colors; avoid tactile surface effects;
psychological detachment

17.
Frank Stella
Mas o Menos (More or Less)
1964
oil on canvas
9’10” x 13’8”
“Pinstripe paintings”: canvases of solid color separated by areas
of bare canvas (emphasize the flatness and no sense of recessional
space)
• “What you see is what you see”
• Often works were on a deep stretcher to emphasize the role of
the canvas as an art object

18.
Helen Frankenthaler
The Bay
1963
acrylic on canvas
6’ 8 7/8” x 6’ 9 7/8”
COLOR FIELD PAINTING: Technique
• Diluted oil paints with
turpentine and watercolors
with water so the paint was
very thin and could be
poured very easily onto a
raw, unprimed canvas
• Colors soaked into the
material, creating a “color
stain” or “soak stain” (think
of juice soaked up by a
paper towel)
Evocative of landscape painting
very flat (no third dimension)

19.
David Smith
Cubi XIX
1964
Stainless Steel
9’ 4 ¾” X 4’ 10 ¼” X 3’ 4”.
Welded pieces of metal together in
abstract compositions (influence of
Cubist sculptors)
Cubi series in the 1960s: basic
geometric shapes (rectangles,
squares, circles, etc.) welded together
to make them appear to be
precariously balancing
• Stainless steel; burnished
(marked) to give texture (a la
Pollock)
• Praised for their evocation of
human qualities
(precariousness of human
life, for example)
• Resemble totem poles

20.
SCULPTURE
Minimalism: a predominantly sculptural movement and its emphasis on
objecthood.
Minimalism: emphasize the shapes and straight edges of their creations; no surface
decoration, elements, figures, or other imagery
• “Getting rid of the things that people used to think were essential to art”
• Sought to remove any visible signs of themselves in their art
Personality of the artist is completely suppressed
• Opposed to sculpture like Cubist (relationship of parts to a whole)
• Sought to create multipiece sculptures that represent a whole (not just the parts)
• Influenced by Newman’s zips that extend into infinity

21.
Donald Judd
Untitled
1969
Brass and colored fluorescent Plexiglass on steel brackets, 10 units
6 1/8” x 2’ x 2’ 3” each
Series of boxes
• Arranged in a vertical composition, attached
• Boxes with space in between them: interplay between
solids and voids, shadows and light, etc.
• Interest in mechanical and precise forms

22.
Maya Lin, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington D.C., 1981-1983

23.
One arm points to the Lincoln Memorial, the other to the Washington Monument
• Black granite: reflective (viewers see themselves in the names)
• Simplicity criticized: Does this reflect an attitude about American involvement in the
War?
• Memorial cuts into the ground, but the grass continues to grow
• Its like a scar in the earth -- War is a scar in society
• Simplicity allows viewer to ponder the war and soldiers
V-shaped monument cut into the
earth with 60,000 casualties of the
Vietnam War listed in the order
they were killed and reported
missing
• Starts at the ground and
increases to 10 feet tall,
then recedes back into the
ground
• Very geometric in
appearance

24.
POP Art (1960s)
Pop Art: reaction against Ab-Ex; make art something recognizable (use
imagery from “pop”ular culture: ads, comics, products, celebrities, etc.)
• 1950s: consumer based societies and “throw-away” culture
• Art becomes a commodity to be sold just like everything else;
production methods reflect that sensibility
Rejects many Ab-Ex ideas:
• psychological undertones
• Emotional
• heroic artist, not an expression of personality (uses found images)
• use of industrial methods and media

25.
Richard Hamilton
Just what is it that makes
today’s
homes so different, so
appealing?
1956
collage on paper
10 1/4 x 9 3/4 in.
Used in the exhibition “What is
Tomorrow?”
• In England, about
American culture
• Newest technologies
showcased
• Show the “traditional”
American family; ironic,
humorous spin on
American culture
• images mean
something different
from their original
intent (very
Duchampian)

26.
Mass marketing of products = Pop Art precursor
• Put together in collage: Armor ham, Ford,
Tootsie “Pop”, etc.
• Almost Surrealist arrangement: woman
with headlights for breasts wearing a
lampshade, romance comic book as framed
painting, etc.
• Media references: TV, newspaper, theater
marquee
• Celebrities: bodybuilder Charles Atlas and
image from an erotic magazine
Ab-Ex painting/notebook cover as the rug;
photograph of the moon/earth is ceiling art
• contemporary details abound

27.
Jasper Johns
Flag
1954-55
encaustic, oil and collage on
fabric mounted on plywood
3 ft. 6 1/4 in. x 5 ft. 5/8 in.
Works contain objects
people recognize but
look at twice to
consider the meaning
and relationship of the
objects
Recognizable imagery (flag) placed in an unusual context
• newspaper clippings under the painted flag (encaustic paint:
translucent so the viewer can see the newspaper)
• encaustic used for an “iconic” image (like Byzantine icons)
• medium that conceals and reveals simultaneously (almost
like language – newspaper)
• the flag is a revealing icon which we “conceal” (ignore, pass by)

28.
Jasper Johns
Three Flags
1958
encaustic on canvas
78.4 x 115.6 x 12.7 cm
Flags in all government buildings, but we often fail to notice them (too
familiar)
• Iconplaced in a museum so we are forced to consider it
• abided by rules for displaying the flag (at the time)
• shows reverence
• some complained about the flag being used in art
• representation of the flag, not THE flag (e.g. “This is
not a pipe.”)
• doesn’t defile the flag for this reason

29.
Robert Rauschenberg
Canyon
1959
combine painting
219.7 x 179.1 x 57.8 cm
Gathered scraps of newspaper,
photos, discarded materials to make
assemblages
• collected them in NYC from
the street usually
• “Paintings relate to both art
and life. Neither can be
made. (I try to act in the gap
between the two).”

30.
Combines: assemblage paintings
Multiple levels of meaning in his works of
art and strange juxtapositions
• stuffed eagle placed on a pedestal
connected with the pillow (one
covered with feathers, the other
stuffed with them)
• photograph of a young man with
his hand held aloft, just like the
Statue of Liberty (photo of it on
there too)

31.
Roy Lichtenstein
Hopeless
1963
oil on canvas
3 ft. 8 in. x 3 ft. 8 in.
stylistic elements
• Benday dots: named for Benjamin
Day; printing process uses the
pointillist technique of colored
dots from a limited palette placed
closely together to achieve more
colors and subtle shading
• heavy black lines frame areas of
unmodulated flat color
• primary colors
• frames inspired by comics
• hard, precise drawing
Moment of transition or crisis is the
subject
• use of “found” images (comic
books, etc.)

32.
• Benday dots: named for Benjamin Day; printing process uses
the pointillist technique of colored dots from a limited palette
placed closely together to achieve more colors and subtle
shading

33.
Roy Lichtenstein
Little Big Painting
1965
oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas
68 x 80 in.
Series of paintings on the history of art
(Classical, modernist styles like Cubism,
etc.)
• icons of art rendered in the
comic-book style
Ab-Ex painting
• House-painting brushes used:
broad strokes rendered w/o
passion (outlined, frozen,
background of benday dots,
etc.)
• Emptied of value
(interiority, connection
with humanity)
• Ironic because it’s still
painting
Hand-painted benday
dots still contain the
“mark of the artist”
(appears mechanical,
unlike Ab-Ex)

34.
Andy Warhol
Brillo Box
1968
silkscreen ink and synthetic polymer paint on wood
17 1/8 x 17 x 14 in.
Andy Warhol
Pop Art object himself; persona
that was marketed (celebrity and
“15 minutes of fame”)
• design school: newspaper
ads for consumer goods
(shoes, for example);
• developed an art of
commodities (objects
that are bought and sold)

35.
Andy Warhol
Marilyn Diptych
1962
silkscreen ink and synthetic polymer paint on canvas
6 ft. 10 in. x 6 ft. 9 ft..
Graphic arts techniques: photographic
transfer, silkscreen (method of using
premade shapes)
• allowed for multiple copies of
consumer items
• studio named “The Factory”:
efficient place of production

36.
Interest in the issues of celebrity
• public face: highlighted by bold, artificial colors
• private persona submerged beneath the public face
• celebrity marketed the same way a product is (commodity, like soup)
• repetition numbs the viewer and distances the viewer from the subject
Social characteristics magnified: brilliant blonde hair, heavy lipstick, seductive look, etc.

37.
Claes Oldenburg
The Store
1960
sculptor who collaborated with his wife, Coosjie
Van Bruggen
“The Store” was a gallery where art is bought and
sold
• used consumer materials: polyester, vinyl,
canvas, etc.

38.
Claes Oldenburg
Pastry Case
1961-62
enamel paint on nine plaster sculptures in glass
showcase
20 3/4 x 30 1/8 x 14 3/4 in.

39.
Claes Oldenburg
Installation at Greene Gallery
1962
created large soft sculptures
of everyday food items
• reflected the food of
diners, developing fast
food market: popular
culture
• not tromp l’oeil
other everyday objects in soft
sculpture: light switch, toilet,
etc.

40.
Claes Oldenburg and
Coosje van Bruggen
Spoonbridge and Cherry
Minneapolis, Minnesota
1985-88
Aluminum, stainless steel and paint
29 ft. 6 in. x 51 ft. 6 in. x 13 ft. 6 in.
Also made hard sculptures of
food or everyday items
Later he made large, outdoor
sculptures: lipstick, ice cream
cone dropped on ground

41.
SITE-SPECIFIC Art
- Artwork only exists in specific location, can only
function in particular environment

42.
Christo and Jean-Claude
Surrounded Islands
Florida
1982
Pink fabric
Temporary works of art
started with “wrappings” (motorcycles, etc.)
• extended into wrapping the environment
• essential to the work is that the art does
not damage nature or the ecology must be
returned to the way it was found
afterwards
• works not patronized
Later, the wrapping became curtains (NYC
Central Park project)
This “wrapping” was of 11 man-made islands
off the coast of Miami in Biscayne Bay
• flamingo pink fabric an appropriate
choice
• concerned that the fabric might affect
manatees (didn’t)

43.
ROBERT SMITHSON
Spiral Jetty,
1970
Great Salt Lake, Utah,
earthworks: efforts to preserve nature; incorporating natural materia
in outdoor locations; site specific works
wanted to capture the beauty of earth in the outdoor space
some works done indoors, but involved taking materials from outside
inside (dirt, rocks, sand, etc.): “non-site” works
• used mirrors in indoor works to create infinite feeling

44.
Coil of rock growing into the Great Salt Lake; remote and inaccessible area
• walking on the jetty changes the participants view (constantly curving and changing)
• jetty: pier into the water (transformed into a curl of rocks sitting silently in the vast
wilderness)
• similar to the North American earthworks (Serpent Mound, etc.)
• became like a legend because from 1972 to the present, it is only visible in times of
drought (submerged underwater)
low-level
scanning:
search for
inspiration in
a specific site

45.
RICHARD SERRA
Tilted Arc
1981.
Jacob K. Javits
Federal Plaza,
New York City
infamous work of art
• made of steel
• wanted a work of art to disrupt use of the site
• the power of the piece should disrupt the site (block views, people
unable to cross the plaza, etc.)
• art would dictate the way the site was used

46.
Anti-form art: the process is the actual art
became objectionable when it began to disrupt use of the plaza, held trial over its place
• many wanted Serra to move the work, but it is site-specific; it won’t work anywhere else
• removed by the patron (General Services Administration)
• artist filed counter-suits but lost
• brings up issues of patronage and ownership of art: Who owns art: the artist or the
patron? After art is sold, does the artist have a right to it? Legally? Aesthetically?
• no laws to safeguard an artist’s work once it is sold

47.
SUPERREALISM (Photorealism)
Superrealism: still life paintings or portraits with photographic accuracy
Often based on photographs
Employed airbrush and grid lines to create realistic images

48.
AUDREY FLACK
Marilyn
1977.
Oil over acrylic on canvas,
8’ x 8
Influenced by Dutch vanitas
paintings (tromp l’oeil)
Marilyn was not always the
superficial woman in the
Warhol image
• Norma Jean: elements in
the painting tell of her early
life
• Symbols: fruit (life, peeled
to show transience of life);
hourglass (same); August
calendar page (month when
she died)
• airbrush used to remove
any traces of brush marks;
wanted it to seem like a
photograph

49.
CHUCK CLOSE
Big Self-Portrait
1967–1968
Acrylic on canvas
8’ 11” x 6’ 11”
Large, realistic portraits of everyday
people, often friends or himself
• not formal portraits; informal
snapshots
• intimate image
Tried to revive portraits (Ab-Ex had
killed it)
TECHNIQUE: Used a grid over a
photograph to capture the details;
airbrush used to remove traces of
brush
1988-89: became paralyzed
(quadriplegic); can move his arm, but
in limited range

50.
Close in his studio

51.
Duane Hanson
Sculptor known for images of average
American citizens (tourists, shoppers)
• not ridiculing humanity; celebrating
their worst moments
• continues the tradition of tromp
l’oeil

52.
DUANE HANSON
Supermarket Shopper
1970
Polyester resin and
fiberglass polychromed in
oil, with clothing, steel
cart, and groceries
life-size
• life-sized casts of bodies made for
his sculptures (based on real
people’s bodies); also used real hair
and clothing
• often mistaken for real people in
the museum
What was he trying to say about Americans?
• Large middle to upper class society that can afford travel,
eat as much as they please, etc.
• Can’t blend in gracefully with other

53.
JUDY CHICAGO
The Dinner Party
1979
Multimedia, including
ceramics and stitchery
48’ x 48’ x 48’
installation: temporary work of art made up
of assemblages created for a particular space,
like an art gallery or museum
FEMINIST ART
Art that addresses issues of sexual
discrimination and subjugation of
women
• changed her last name to
Chicago (where she was born)
because she believed that
women shouldn’t live with the
name given to them by
patriarchy (subjugation)

54.
Alludes to 39 women that
Chicago believed should be
recognized
• originally supposed to be
13 women (number in a
witches’ coven, present
at the Last Supper);
inadequate number so it
was tripled
• large equilateral triangle
table (48 foot sides)
• triangle: Mother
Goddess symbol
(Sacred Feminine)
• traditional women’s arts incorporated (ceramics, embroidery,
etc.)
• table settings specific to the woman and meant to resemble
female reproductive organs

55.
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (Your Gaze Hits the Side of My Face
1981
Photography with red frame
4’7” x 3’5”
First hints at Post-Modernism
• Modernism is old and outdated by the
80s
• Artists could try to revolutionize,
but that is traditional at this point
in history
• The idea of doing something
new has become old-
fashioned
Key is the appropriation of ideas from the
past, but emptied of their past meaning
• reverse Modernism (implode it)
• deconstructing: implosion,
destruction from within; using
conventions of art against itself

56.
Graphic designer: mass media influence;
attempts to deconstruct advertisements
• words placed in as design elements
• large single image with a short, catchy
phrase (like a magazine ad)
Appropriates the images from elsewhere and
adds the text
• using the text to interpolate the viewer
(insert audience into work)
• uses ambiguous pronoun address (ex: you,
who is you?)
• done so many can identify with the
work
• can also be used to indicate the target
audience (seems to address a male
audience usually)
Comment upon the “male gaze” again; women
do not see themselves, they only see
themselves through the heterosexual male gaze

57.
CINDY SHERMAN
Untitled Film Still #35
1979
Gelatinsilverprint
10” x 8”
Imitate the way that images of women have
been stereotypically depicted in the movies;
deconstruct the images
1950s = posters outside theater with b&w
photographs from the film
• entices the viewer to see the movie
• not always from the film itself; worked
with the idea of stereotypes (can identify
the protagonist, antagonist of the film,
etc.)

58.
Puts herself in the photographs
• dressed in costumes = character portrait (not really who she is)
• the photos imply that there is a narrative, but none exists
• she always looks away from the camera (implies that someone else is in the scene)
• explores clichés of the 50s: woman: business woman (unmarried or widowed)
Criticizes the concept of women as objects to be gazed at
also did a rape series (shows herself victimized), historical portrait series (dressed up like
Marie Antoinette and others), and pornography series (used prosthetic limbs; begs the
question: if there is no real body, is it porn?)

59.
GUERRILLA GIRLS, The Advantages of Being A Woman Artist, 1988. Offset print, 17”x22”.
Collection of the artists.