Art in the 21st Century: "Identity" (part 2)

Kerry James Marshall
Kerry James Marshall was born in 1955 in Birmingham, Alabama, and educated at the Otis Art Institute in California, where he received a bachelor of fine arts degree and an honorary doctorate. The subject matter of his paintings, installation s and public projects is often drawn from African American popular culture and rooted in the geography of his upbringing: “You can’t be born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1955 and grow up in South Central (Los Angeles) near the Black Panthers’ headquarters, and not feel like you’ve got some kind of social responsibility,” says Marshall. In his Mementos series of paintings and sculptures, Marshall pays tribute to the civil rights movement, with mammoth printing stamps featuring bold slogans of the era (e.g., “Black Power!”) and paintings of middle-class living rooms where ordinary black citizens tend a domestic scene populated by the ghosts of Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and other heroes of the 1960s. Marshall’s work evokes a broad range of art history, from the grand tradition of narrative Renaissance painting to black folk art. A striking aspect of Marshall’s work is the emphatically black skin tone of his figures that he thinks is really beautiful. Marshall lives in Illinois, where he is an instructor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Before Viewing
Make a list of those things that are connected to their identity (e.g., people, experiences, race, religious values, interests, objects, places). Another way of asking this question is, “What makes you, you?”

After Viewing
To Think About and Discuss
• Marshall says he wants to “reclaim the image of blackness as an image of power.” What do you think he means and how does he try to do this?
• What do you learn about Marshall’s identity from this segment?
• Marshall says that he is either working with a set of conventions that have already been established or he is working against a set of conventions. Pick at least two works by Marshall that you saw in the video and tell which view you think they express and why.
• Do you think artists look at works in a museum differently than other people? How so? What connections exist between art of the past and the work Marshall is doing today?
• What inspired Marshall to create comic strips? How are Marshall’s comic books different from other comic books?
• What social responsibilities does Marshall assume? What social responsibilities do you have?

• For more information on Kerry James Marshall, see www.carnegieinternational.org/html/art/marshall.htm

Louise Bourgeois
Louise Bourgeois was born in Paris in 1911. She studied art at various schools there, including the Ecole du Louvre, Académie des Beaux-Arts, Académie Julian, and Atelier Fernand Léger. In 1938, she emigrated to the United States and continued her studies at the Art Students League in New York. Though she began as an engraver and painter, by the 1940s she had turned to sculptural work, for which she is now recognized as a twentieth-century leader. Greatly influenced by the influx of European Surrealist artists who immigrated to the United States after World War II, Bourgeois’s early sculpture was composed of groupings of abstract and organic shapes, often carved from wood. By the 1960s she began to execute her work in rubber, bronze and stone, and the pieces themselves became larger and more referential to what has become the dominant theme of her work — her childhood. The anthropomorphic shapes her pieces take—the female and male bodies are continually referenced and remade—are charged with sexuality and innocence and the interplay between the two. Bourgeois’s work is in the collections of most major museums around the world. She lives in New York.

Before Viewing
Discuss with students: Is it necessary to understand the artist’s meaning in a work of art in order to appreciate it? (Bourgeois herself has said, “A work of art doesn’t have to be explained. If it doesn’t touch you, I have failed.”)

After Viewing
To Think About and Discuss
• Bourgeois has said, “I am not what I am. I am what I do with my hands.” Discuss the meaning of this statement and reflect on why you think hands are such an important element in Bourgeois’s work.
• As a student at the Sorbonne, Bourgeois studied mathematics and geometry. How is this knowledge reflected in her work?
• Bourgeois states that it might be true that an artist has “something in them that either refuses or is unable to grow up.” What do you think she means by this?
• What is Bourgeois’s concern in putting her sculpture outside in a public setting? How does she resolve this issue?
• Develop a list of materials one might use for a sculpture. Compare and contrast the characteristics of each of these materials. Tell which you would select for a self-portrait and why.

Images on the Web
• Eyes at www.metmuseum.org/collections/view1.asp?dep=21&full=0&item=1986%2E397
• The Nest at www.sfmoma.org/collections/recentacquisitions/macollbourgeois.html
• Ste. Sebastienne, second version, State VI at www.moma.org/docs/collection/printsbooks/c48.htm
• The Blind Leading the Blind at www.walkerart.org/resources/resmsgmapframe.html

Art in the 21st Century: "Identity"

Identity, from the PBS series "Art:21"

The theme: the questions “who am I?” and “who are we?” are central throughout our lives. Viewers are introduced to the varied artistic explorations of Maya Lin as she considers the degree to which she is an artist or architect, having achieved national fame as a young graduate student when her now famous design was selected for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Kerry James Marshall’s paintings and installations emerge from and reflect his deep ties to family as well as his lifelong study of art history. Louise Bourgeois’s work examines the importance of memory as a foundation of identity. The densely psychological videos, sculptures and installations of Bruce Nauman consider the relationships among artist, viewer and society.

The opening: The opening is a collaboration between comedian, writer and art collector Steve Martin and artist William Wegman. Wegman graduated from the Massachusetts College of Art with a bachelor of fine arts (painting) degree and then enrolled in a painting and printmaking program at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, where he received a master of fine arts degree. After teaching at various universities, Wegman became interested in other media and began to explore photography and the then infant medium of video. While living in California, Wegman began a long collaboration with his weimaraner dog, Man Ray, who became a central figure in his work and renowned worldwide for his endearing deadpan presence. In 1972, Wegman and Man Ray moved to New York and continued to collaborate for another 12 years. In 1986, Wegman acquired a new dog, Fay Ray, and began another famous collaboration, marked by Wegman’s use of the Polaroid 20x24 camera. With the birth of Fay’s litter in 1989 and her daughter’s litter in 1995, Wegman’s cast grew.

Questions for Before viewing:
Who am I? How do we show others who we are? Do we have a single identity?

After viewing:
What makes the opening of this program funny?
What role do the dogs play?
What role does Steve Martin play as host, and how does this compare to the personality of other television hosts, for example, on game shows or the news?
What kind of identity do these hosts project?

What are some ways in which people express their identity? In literature? In music? In clothing? In their homes?

Each of the individuals featured in this program is identified as an artist. What makes someone an artist?

How do the artists’ identities come through in their art?

Compare and contrast Lin and Nauman with respect to how their different cultural backgrounds might affect their work.

All artists tell us something about themselves in their work. Compare the art of Marshall and Bourgeois with respect to how their art reflects their lives.

BRUCE NAUMAN
Born in 1941 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Bruce Nauman has been recognized as one of the most innovative and provocative of America’s contemporary artists. Nauman finds inspiration in the activities, speech and materials of everyday life. Confronted with what “to do” in his studio soon after graduating from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the University of California at Davis, Nauman had the simple but profound realization that if “I was an artist and I was in the studio, then whatever I was doing in the studio must be art .” Working in sculpture, video, film, printmaking, performance and installation, Nauman’s art centers less on the development of a characteristic style and more on the way in which a process or activity can transform or become a work of art. The text from an early neon work proclaims, “The artist helps the world by revealing mystic truths.” Whether or not we—or even Nauman—agree with this statement, the underlying subtext of the piece suggests the way in which the audience, artist and culture at large are all implicated in the resonance a work of art will have. Nauman lives in New Mexico where in addition to making art, he breeds and trains quarter horses.

Before Viewing
Much of Nauman’s work emerges from his daily life experiences. At any given moment he is likely to be working on a number of different pieces in a variety of media. Assign students the task of trying to learn as much as they can about Nauman’s life simply by watching this segment. This will mean paying careful attention and may require more than one viewing.

After Viewing
To Think About and Discuss
• What are the ways in which Nauman makes you, the viewer, pay attention?
• Were you paying attention? List the different media Nauman works in and discuss the connections, if any, among them. How do you think the use of varied media affects his view of himself as an artist as well as other people’s view of him as an artist? Is it important for society to be able to categorize an artist? Why or why not?
• Discuss Nauman’s statement: “Whatever I was doing in the studio must be art.” Is this statement different from “If I am in the classroom, then whatever I am doing must be educational”? Defend your views.
• Nauman remarks that “accidents keep it real.” In general, what role do you think accidents play in art? How do you reconcile his interest in accidents with his statement that “You have to be clear about what you are trying to do?”

Images on the Web
• Vices and Virtues at stuart collection.ucsd.edu/nauman/index.html
• Double Poke in the Eye II at www.kemperart.org/perm.html

MAYA LIN
Born in 1959 in Athens, Ohio, Maya Lin catapulted into the public eye when, as a senior at Yale University, she submitted the winning design to a national competition for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to be built in Washington, D.C. Writing about the memorial, a black granite wedge that emerges from and disappears into the ground, she says it “does not force or dictate how you should think. In that sense it’s very Eastern. . . . It reflects me and my parents.” Her father was the dean of fine arts at Ohio State University, and her mother, Julia Chang Lin, is a professor of literature at Ohio University. “As the child of immigrants you have that sense of ‘Where are you? Where’s home?’” notes Lin, “and of trying to make a home.” Trained as an artist and architect, Lin’s sculptures, parks, monuments and architectural projects are linked by a common ideal of making a place for individuals within the landscape. She draws inspiration from culturally diverse sources including Japanese gardens, Hopewell Indian earthen mounds and works by American Earth-artists of the 1960s and 1970s

Before Viewing
Since Lin is probably best known for her design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, find out what students think about the memorial as a means of providing identity to the soldiers who died in the war. Discuss these questions: What is a memorial? What should a memorial achieve? What must an artist consider in designing a monument?

After Viewing
To Think About and Discuss
• Select any sculpture, architecture or memorial by Lin and analyze how you think it expresses her identity.
• Lin works in varied media. Discuss why you think artists do this and how it benefits them rather than working in a single medium.
• How does Lin use shape to define a landscape? Compare her three-dimensional landscapes with a traditional landscape painting with respect to the use of color, space, shape, light and line.
• Lin describes art as “everything you have ever known and everything you’ve ever done somehow percolating up with ideas you might want to explore.” What do you think she means by this? Give an example from her work seen in the segment.
• How is Lin’s skating rink different from ones you know?
 Images on the Web
• Topologies at www.nyu.edu/greyart/exhibits/maya/index.html
• To learn more about Maya Lin and her work, go to www.greatbuildings.com and use the Search feature under either Architects or Buildings.

The Feminist art movement (1960s-80s), an overview

The Feminist art movement (1960s-80s), an overview: (Click on images to view them full-size)

It is an indisputable fact that women have always played some role as artists in the past. The significance or extent of that contribution at specific times was usually inhibited by male domination over social behavior, taste and value. So although individual women have contributed a great deal to the history of art, they have usually suffered undeserving neglect of their accomplishments. With the freeing of women politically through suffrage and the consequential progress made in accessing formerly male domains, such as business and sports, they are being recognized for the quality of their art along with that of male artists. The early phase of this recognition took the form of appreciating women's domestic arts on as high a level as that of the graphic, sculptural and architectural arts. Exhibits in museums, galleries and private spaces helped to accomplish the assessment of women's domestic arts as “fine art”. Now, as a matter of course, they are accepted and recognized in all media by the quality of their creations. Judy Chicago (b. 1939) and Miriam Schapiro (b. 1923) were two important co-founders of the Feminist Art Movement (1960s) in San Diego.

Feminist artists deal with many issues in their work: stereotypes about women; issues of gender, discrimination, society's expectations for women, violence against women, etc. They also explored many questions: Do women have a different way of sharing their experiences in life than men? Are men and women intrinsically different? What does equality with men look like? What does it mean to be “female”? It also became clear over time that: not all feminists had/have the same goals; not all women artists are feminist artists; not all art by feminist artists is feminist.

Much of the feminist art was collaborative (strength in numbers), and much of it was meant to be offensive in order to get people's attention and confront inequality, past wrongs and present-day committed against women, and to let the world know what women (as individuals and as a group) wanted. And by creating large, colorful artwork with explicit, offensive, and/or provocative subject matter, women also broke free from the constrictive restraints that society had bound them in for so long. Moreover, if the pieces were ugly or made the viewer uncomfortable, it was because many of the pieces dealt with ugly subject matter: rape and domestic violence were shameful, whispered words at that time. One main goal of this art movement was to raise awareness about these crimes and enact changes to protect women.

Many feminist artists were simply striving to have their voices heard, to correct injustice and work toward a more equal society- one where women aren't taken advantage of, aren't spoken down to, are given the same opportunities as men, are taken seriously, etc. Of course, many feminist artists took the movement “too far” by calling for a reversal of gender roles, desiring a society that was ruled by women, with the men being subservient; others went so far as to say men weren't needed at all and we'd be better off without them. Obviously this is not the solution to the problem of inequality between the sexes, but it is important to remember that this movement is the result of hundreds, if not thousands, of years of, for the most part, men exerting forceful control over women; there was a lot of pent-up anger.

“From the beginning until the 1970s, the women's art movement challenged the entire valuative system of American Modernism: the feminist art movement reclaimed craft, insisted on the importance of content, contested the mythology of history, favored collective over individual production, asserted a place for the autobiographical, and, perhaps most radically, refuted the idea that art is ever neutral or universal because the movement discovered that the voice previously called universal was actually nothing more than the voice of a Euro-American man.” - Laura Cottingham, critic

Miriam Schapiro was a NY-based abstract expressionist field painter before she moved to Southern California in the late 1960s to teach art at UCSD. While she and Judy Chicago were teaching there, they helped female students to restructure an old house into a completely feminine environment. These artist-teachers' interests had been aroused by the long history of women's beautiful and often intricate designs or patterns for domestic applications, such as sewing, weaving, and crocheting. Wanting to bring attention to this long-neglected domestic art tradition, Schapiro began to make abstract and semi-representational collages of women's craft and needlework materials. She called these “femmages”. These works, beyond their qualities as art, may be interpreted as analogies or symbols of the long-devalued role of women's arts in general. Schapiro continued through the 1980s and 1990s to create lively, colorful images, usually with discernible but sometimes ambiguous content. Many are related to searches for self-identity and melancholy at the gradual dissolution of the women's movement using metaphorical images of other female artists of the past such as Mary Cassat, Berthe Morrisot, and the Mexican artist Freda Kahlo, along with her own. Above left, “Heartland”, 1985. What kinds of "feminine" crafts are combined in this image? How is this image "feminine"? 

Judy Chicago is an extremely influential and well-known artist, author, feminist, educator, and intellectual whose career now spans four decades.

In the early seventies after a decade of professional art practice, Chicago pioneered Feminist Art and art education through a unique program for women at California State University, Fresno, a pedagogical (academic) approach that she has continued to develop over the years. She then brought her program to Cal-Arts, where she team-taught with Miriam Schapiro, producing with their students the ground-breaking Womanhouse project.

In 1974, Chicago turned her attention to the subject of women's history to create her most well-known work, The Dinner Party, which was executed between 1974 and 1979 with the participation of hundreds of volunteers. This monumental multimedia project, a symbolic history of women in Western Civilization, has been seen by more than one million viewers during its sixteen exhibitions held at venues spanning six countries.

The principal component of The Dinner Party is a massive ceremonial banquet arranged in the shape of an open triangle—a symbol of equality—measuring forty-eight feet on each side with a total of thirty-nine place settings. The "guests of honor" commemorated on the table are designated by means of intricately embroidered runners, each executed in a historically specific manner. Upon these are placed, for each setting, a gold ceramic chalice and utensils, a napkin with an embroidered edge, and a fourteen-inch china-painted plate with a central motif. Each place setting is rendered in a style appropriate to the individual woman being honored.

Wing One of the table begins in prehistory with the Primordial Goddess and continues chronologically with the development of Judaism; it then moves to early Greek societies to the Roman Empire, marking the decline in women's power, signified by Hypatia's place setting. Wing Two represents early Christianity through the Reformation, depicting women who signify early expressions of the fight for equal rights, from Marcella to Anna van Schurman. Wing Three begins with Anne Hutchinson and addresses the American Revolution, Suffragism, and the movement toward women's increased individual creative expression, symbolized at last by Georgia O'Keeffe. View the entire collection online (Parental preview and accompaniment suggested) http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/home.php

The Guerrilla Girls (established 1985) are a group of anonymous women who protested the sexist attitudes and actions of the art world by assembling together and wearing gorilla masks, carrying signs and distributing flyers. These signs were usually humorous in tone, but serious in content, such as their “Ten Reasons” poster. Others gave shocking statistics revealing the discrimination against women in museum and gallery shows, such as “When racism...” Given that well over half the art students in undergraduate programs at colleges and universities across the United States were/are women, their severe under-representation in museums and galleries was/is clearly due to discrimination, not lack of skilled women artists.

  

 

Barbara Kruger: In “Your Gaze Hits the Side of My Face,” (1981) a stone bust of nondescript everywoman takes the focus, her bright white outline contrasting sharply with the pitch black background. With no arms or legs, the woman has little agency. She blankly stares ahead, away from the viewer. The viewer’s gaze, then, literally hits the side of her face. “Your gaze hits the side of my face,” her thoughts seemingly echo. With the text superimposed on the image, this leaves the viewer in an uncomfortable position: as the image draws the viewer’s eyes to the woman, the viewer feels somewhat a voyeur: apparently, the woman does not want the attention, but she has no choice but to oblige the viewer’s eyes. The wording choice of gaze also connotes the “male gaze”, which according to feminist criticisms, objectifies women while normalizing men, which seemingly occurs in this image.

Pop art

Text and images from "Art Across Time" and "Gilbert's Living with Art". Click on the image to view it full-size (it will be readable)