PAINTING AND SCULPTURE
❚The art of the second half of the 20th century reflects cultural upheaval: the rejection of traditional
values, the civil rights and feminist movements, and the new consumer society.
❚The first major postwar avant-garde art movement was Abstract Expressionism, which championed
an artwork’s formal elements rather than its subject. Gestural abstractionists, such as Pollock and
de Kooning, sought expressiveness through energetically applied pigment. Chromatic abstractionists,
such as Rothko, struck emotional chords through large areas of pure color.
❚Post-Painterly Abstraction promoted a cool rationality in contrast to Abstract Expressionism’s
passion. Both hard-edge painters, such as Kelly and Stella, and color-field painters, such as
Frankenthaler and Louis, pursued purity in art by emphasizing the flatness of pigment on canvas.
❚Pop artists, such as Johns, Lichtenstein, and Warhol, turned away from abstraction to the
representation of subjects grounded in popular culture—flags, comic strips, movie stars.
❚Superrealists, such as Flack, Close, and Hanson—kindred spirits to Pop artists in many ways—
created paintings and sculptures featuring scrupulous fidelity to optical fact.
❚The leading sculptural movement was Minimalism. Tony Smith and Judd created artworks con-
sisting of simple unadorned geometric shapes to underscore the “objecthood” of their sculptures.
❚Much of the art since 1970 addresses pressing social issues. Leading feminist artists include
Chicago, whose Dinner Partyhonors important women throughout history and features crafts
traditionally associated with women; Sherman and Kruger, who explored the “male gaze” in their
art; and Mendieta and Wilke, whose bodies are their subjects.
❚Other artists explored race, ethnicity, class, and sexual orientation. Ringgold and Simpson addressed
issues important to African American women, Edwards civil rights themes, and Quick-to-See Smith
Native American heritage. Wodiczko’s art has documented the plight of the homeless. Wojnarowicz
recorded the devastating effect of AIDS on the gay community.
ARCHITECTURE AND SITE-SPECIFIC ART
❚Some of the leading early-20th-century modernist architects were also active after 1945. Wright built
the snail-shell Guggenheim Museum, Le Corbusier the sculpturesque Notre-Dame-du-Haut, and
Mies van der Rohe the Minimalist Seagram skyscraper. Later modernists Saarinen and Utzon
designed structures having dramatic curvilinear rooflines.
❚In contrast to modernist architecture, postmodernist architecture is complex and eclectic and often
incorporates references to historical styles. Among the best-known postmodern projects are
Moore’s Piazza d’Italia and Graves’s Portland Building, both of which echo classical motifs.
❚Deconstructivist architects seek to disorient the viewer with asymmetrical and irregular shapes.
Among the most prominent practicing today are Gehry and Libeskind.
❚Site-specific art exists at the intersection of architecture and sculpture and is sometimes temporary
in nature, as was Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Surrounded Islands.
PERFORMANCE AND CONCEPTUAL ART AND NEW MEDIA
❚Among the most significant developments in the art world after World War II has been the expan-
sion of the range of works considered “art.”
❚Performance artists, notably Schneemann and Beuys, replace traditional stationary artworks with
movements and sounds carried out before an audience. Their Performance Art often addresses
the same social and political issues that contemporary painters and sculptors explore.
❚Conceptual artists, including Kosuth and Nauman, believe that the “artfulness” of art is in the
artist’s idea, not in the work resulting from the idea.
❚Paik, Piper, Viola, and others have embraced video recording technology to produce artworks that
combine images and sounds, sometimes viewed on small monitors, other times on huge screens.
❚Em, Holzer, Oursler, and Barney have explored computer graphics and other new media, often in
vast and complex museum installations.
THE BIG PICTURE
EUROPE AND AMERICA
AFTER 1945
Pollock, Lavender Mist, 1950Warhol, Marilyn Diptych, 1962Chicago, The Dinner Party, 1979Gehry, Guggenheim Museum,
Bilbao, 1997Oursler, Mansheshe, 1997