ports—from fragmented china plates bonded to wood, to paint on
velvet and tarpaulin. He had a special interest in the physicality of
the objects, and by attaching broken crockery, as in The Walk Home
(FIG. 36-31), he found an extension of what paint could do. Super-
ficially, the painting recalls the work of the gestural abstractionists—
the spontaneous drips of Pollock (FIG. 36-5) and the energetic brush
strokes of de Kooning (FIG. 36-7). The thick, mosaic-like texture, an
amalgamation of media, brings together painting, mosaic, and low-
relief sculpture. In effect, Schnabel reclaimed older media for his ex-
pressionistic method, which considerably amplifies his bold, distinc-
tive statement.ANSELM KIEFERNeo-Expressionism was by no means a solely
American movement. German artist Anselm Kiefer(b. 1945)
has produced some of the most lyrical and engaging works of the
contemporary period. Like Schnabel’s, Kiefer’s paintings, such as
Nigredo (FIG. 36-32), are monumental in scale, recall Abstract Ex-
pressionist canvases, and draw the viewer to their textured surfaces,
made more complex by the addition of materials such as straw and
lead. It is not merely the impressive physicality of Kiefer’s paintings
that accounts for the impact of his work, however. His images func-
tion on a mythological or metaphorical level as well as on a histori-
cally specific one. Kiefer’s works of the 1970s and 1980s often involve
a reexamination of German history, particularly the painful Nazi era
of 1933–1945, and evoke the feeling of despair. Kiefer believes that
Germany’s participation in World War II and the Holocaust left per-
manent scars on the souls of the German people and on the souls of
all humanity.
Nigredo (“blackening”) pulls the viewer into an expansive land-
scape depicted using Renaissance perspectival principles. This land-
scape, however, is far from pastoral or carefully cultivated. Rather, it
is bleak and charred. Although it makes no specific reference to the
Holocaust, this incinerated landscape indirectly alludes to the hor-
rors of that event. More generally, the blackness of the landscape
may refer to the notion of alchemical change or transformation, a
concept of great interest to Kiefer. Black is one of the four symbolic
colors of the alchemist—a color that refers both to death and to themolten, chaotic state of substances broken down by fire. The al-
chemist, however, focuses on the transformation of substances, and
thus the emphasis on blackness is not absolute but can also be per-
ceived as part of a process of renewal and redemption. Kiefer thus
imbued his work with a deep symbolic meaning that, when com-
bined with the intriguing visual quality of his parched, congealed
surfaces, results in paintings of enduring power.Feminist Art
With the renewed interest in representation that the Pop artists and Su-
perrealists introduced in the 1960s and 1970s, painters and sculptors
once again began to embrace the persuasive powers of art to communi-
cate with a wide audience. In recent decades, artists have investigated
more insistently the dynamics of power and privilege, especially in rela-
tion to issues of gender, race, ethnicity, class, and sexual orientation.
In the 1970s, the feminist movement focused public attention on
the history of women and their place in society. In art, two women—
Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro—largely spearheaded the Ameri-
can feminist art movement. Chicago and a group of students at Cali-
fornia State University, Fresno, founded the Feminist Art Program,
and Chicago and Schapiro coordinated it at the California Institute
of the Arts in Valencia. In 1972, as part of this program, teachers and
students joined to create projects such as Womanhouse, an aban-
doned house in Los Angeles they completely converted into a suite
of “environments,” each based on a different aspect of women’s lives
and fantasies.
JUDY CHICAGOIn her own work in the 1970s,Judy Chicago
(Judy Cohen, b. 1939) wanted to educate viewers about women’s
role in history and the fine arts. She aimed to establish a respect for
women and their art, to forge a new kind of art expressing women’s
experiences, and to find a way to make that art accessible to a large
audience. Inspired early in her career by the work of Barbara Hep-
worth (FIG. 35-58), Georgia O’Keeffe (FIGS. I-4and 35-38), and
Louise Nevelson (FIG. 36-17), Chicago developed a personal paint-
ing style that consciously included abstract organic vaginal images.
In the early 1970s, Chicago began planning an ambitious piece,ThePainting and Sculpture since 1970 98936-32Anselm
Kiefer,Nigredo,1984.
Oil paint on photosen-
sitized fabric, acrylic
emulsion, straw, shellac,
relief paint on paper
pulled from painted
wood, 11 18 . Phila-
delphia Museum of Art,
Philadelphia (gift of
Friends of the Philadel-
phia Museum of Art).
Kiefer’s paintings have
thickly encrusted sur-
faces incorporating
materials such as straw.
Here, the German artist
used perspective to
pull the viewer into an
incinerated landscape
alluding to the
Holocaust.
1 ft.36-31ABASQUIAT,
Horn Players,
1983.