ARTHI 6C Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Essentialism, Yolanda Lopez, Ester Hernandez
Marcel Breuer
Hungarian-Jewish refugee
○
Architect of the Whitney Museum of American Art 1966
Present Whitney Museum 2014 Architect = Renzo Piano
§
○
Studied at the Bauhaus
○
•
Dana Schutz
Open Casket 2016
Oil painting of Emmett Till
§
Seen as cultural appropriation because she's a white woman
depicting something that wasn't from her cultural image
§
Many people protested her painting and exhibition of this
§
People called and urged for this painting to be taken down and
destroyed'
§
○
•
Cultural appropriation
Appropriation means "borrowing"
○
Cultural appropriation is the adoption or use of the elements of one
culture by members of another culture
○
The fear is that the original meaning of these cultural elements is lost or
distorted, and such displays are often viewed as disrespectful by members
of the originating culture, or even as a form of desecration
○
•
iClicker: Which artist is most closely associated with appropriation?
Marcel Duchamp and his use of the readymade (borrowing objects and
turning them into something else as sculpture)
○
•
Whitney Bienniel
A combination word that means Bi-Annual (every two years)
○
Biennial = English
○
Biennale = Italian
○
The Whitney Biennial is a prestigious exhibition that occurs every two
years, organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC
○
•
James Luna
Native American artist from San Diego
○
The Artifact Piece 1987
The artist's own body being put on display in the exhibition
§
Inserting himself as an artwork, spectacle, and artifact
§
Laying in a museological specimen box (like in an
archaeological/science museum)
§
He displays his body to show white viewers what a non-white body
looks like
§
Showcasing historic dehumanization of indigenous peoples done in
museums
§
Natives live on as a specimen culture for "study"
§
○
Take a Picture with a Real Indian, Columbus Day 2011
Outside of Washington DC Union Station
§
Performance art piece
§
Indian isn't even supposed to be used to describe Native Americans,
but people from South Asia
§
○
•
Nao Bustamante, Indigurrito 1992
Famous performance piece done during Columbus day
○
Invited men to eat a burrito off of a strap-on she's wearing
○
A way for men to feel shame on Columbus Day
○
Tongue-and-cheek performance about gender and role reversal
○
•
Conceptual Art
A practice of artistic production that accords highest priority to the idea
or concept that generates a work, and regards different art media --
painting, sculpture, drawing, performance, video, installation, sound-
works, etc.
○
Derives from Marcel Duchamp's notion of anti-visual ("retinal art") in
favor of the idea of the object itself (his version was called the
readymade)
○
Duration (time) can be an element in art
○
The lasting form of an artwork is created and later recreated in the
viewers mind
○
Elements other than the visual may be a part of the form of an artwork
○
The artist is free to appropriate, borrow tools, images, or objects
○
The artist might use their body or identity as a means of
executing/making the work itself
○
•
What is identity? How do we identify ourselves? What are some of the signifiers
of identity?
Race
○
Gender
○
Class
○
Sexuality
○
Ethnicity
○
Religion
○
•
Pat Ward Williams
What You Lookin' Art 1993
Photo collage
§
Subjectivity: an individual who possesses consciousness, agency,
personhood
Image of a group of young black men gathered together,
looking back at the audience
□
Ability to look back and be defiant towards the viewer's
stereotype
□
§
Included in the Whitney Biennial (very political)
This was the first piece you saw when you walked in□
Emphasis on race□
§
○
•
Who is an artist? Who is permitted to be an artist? Does a particular subjectivity
limit the subject matter or content explored?
Subjectivity is determined by our own identities
○
•
Robert Mapplethorpe
Self-Portrait with Whip 1978
Black and white photograph
§
A whip has been inserted into his anus
§
Made himself into an animalistic figure
§
Turning around and confronting the viewer
§
○
•
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Black graffiti artist and painter
○
Died at the height of his fame
○
Untitled (Devil Head), 1982
Related to the black body, and non-whiteness
§
Thinking about the way white artists have appropriated African
masks
§
○
Horn Players 1983
Paying tribute to jazz musicians and black artists that came before
him
§
Challenging segregation and racial discrimination
§
Graffiti-like style
§
○
Gold Griot 1984
Griot = west African storyteller
§
Done on wood (found materials)
§
○
•
Keith Haring
Gay artist, died of AIDS in 1990
○
Engaged in repeated graffiti work
○
Birth Images (Radiant Baby) 1986
Idea of sunrays around an image
§
Attracted to the idea of universalism
Application is universal□
Works of art can be seen anywhere□
Public artworks and graffiti□
iClicker: which artists have been most invested in universalism
in their artistic practice?
Abstract expressionist painters
®
□
§
Reproduced over and over again over time
§
○
Alterpiece
The last piece he made before he passed
§
Carved his own imagery using the radiant baby and other small
images that are secular
§
Universalism inclusion, everyone can find meaning in this alterpiece
§
○
•
Identity
The collective aspect of the set of characteristics by which a thing is
definitively recognizable or known
○
The set of behavioral or personal characteristics by which an individual is
recognizable as a member of a group
○
The quality or condition of being the same as something else
○
•
Identity Politics
A way of subverting or rejecting the dominant or default cultural position
in the US which is whiteness
○
The desire to combat discrimination in art exhibitions, unequal access ot
opportunity in art world and beyond
○
Gender, race, sexuality, ethnicity become politicized, speaking to larger
social issues
○
•
Influences in Post-Modern Theory
Language is a social construct that "speaks" and identifies the subject
○
Knowledge is contingent, contextual, and linked to power
○
Truth is pluralistic and dependent upon the frame of reference of the
observer
○
Values are determined by manipulation and domination
○
Values are derived from ordinary social practices which differ from culture
to culture and change with time
○
•
Ester Hernandez
Chicana-American agit-prop artist
○
Sun Mad 1982
Playing on SunMaid raisin packaging/branding
§
Calling recognition to pesticides used in grapes, filled with
carcinogens
Killing farmers and workers who have no or low healthcare□
§
"unnaturally grown with insecticides, miticides, herbicides,
fungicides"
§
Powerful form of agit-prop and asserting identity
§
○
Libertad 1976
Statue of Liberty is built upon cultural objects and the labor of
cultural producers
§
Showcasing pride in indigenous cultural production
§
○
•
Yolanda Lopez
Who's the Illegal Alien, Pilgrim? 1978
Playing on Uncle Sam shaking his finger at the audience
§
Appropriating indigenous Mexican figure in Aztec headdress
§
Shaking his finger at the viewers (supposed to be the dominant
audience of white people)
§
Playing with the idea of illegality and colonization
Who was here first?□
§
Dissent and rewriting the historical narrative of immigration
§
○
•
Essentialism
Term derived from "essence"
○
Often used pejoratively (negatively) to denote the true or permanent
nature of a being or a phenomenon
○
•
Ana Mendieta
Cuban American artist raised by a white family who felt she lost her
connection to her heritage
○
Essentialist art - reducing the body to its female forms
○
Silueta series 1976
○
Trying to reclaim her own heritage
○
Body impressions
○
•
Carl Andre
Husband of Ana Mendieta
○
Minimalist artist
○
•
Lecture 17: Identity Politics and Dissent
Thursday, May 31, 2018
10:58 AM
Marcel Breuer
Hungarian-Jewish refugee
○
Architect of the Whitney Museum of American Art 1966
Present Whitney Museum 2014 Architect = Renzo Piano
§
○
Studied at the Bauhaus
○
•
Dana Schutz
Open Casket 2016
Oil painting of Emmett Till
§
Seen as cultural appropriation because she's a white woman
depicting something that wasn't from her cultural image
§
Many people protested her painting and exhibition of this
§
People called and urged for this painting to be taken down and
destroyed'
§
○
•
Cultural appropriation
Appropriation means "borrowing"
○
Cultural appropriation is the adoption or use of the elements of one
culture by members of another culture
○
The fear is that the original meaning of these cultural elements is lost or
distorted, and such displays are often viewed as disrespectful by members
of the originating culture, or even as a form of desecration
○
•
iClicker: Which artist is most closely associated with appropriation?
Marcel Duchamp and his use of the readymade (borrowing objects and
turning them into something else as sculpture)
○
•
Whitney Bienniel
A combination word that means Bi-Annual (every two years)
○
Biennial = English
○
Biennale = Italian
○
The Whitney Biennial is a prestigious exhibition that occurs every two
years, organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC
○
•
James Luna
Native American artist from San Diego
○
The Artifact Piece 1987
The artist's own body being put on display in the exhibition
§
Inserting himself as an artwork, spectacle, and artifact
§
Laying in a museological specimen box (like in an
archaeological/science museum)
§
He displays his body to show white viewers what a non-white body
looks like
§
Showcasing historic dehumanization of indigenous peoples done in
museums
§
Natives live on as a specimen culture for "study"
§
○
Take a Picture with a Real Indian, Columbus Day 2011
Outside of Washington DC Union Station
§
Performance art piece
§
Indian isn't even supposed to be used to describe Native Americans,
but people from South Asia
§
○
•
Nao Bustamante, Indigurrito 1992
Famous performance piece done during Columbus day
○
Invited men to eat a burrito off of a strap-on she's wearing
○
A way for men to feel shame on Columbus Day
○
Tongue-and-cheek performance about gender and role reversal
○
•
Conceptual Art
A practice of artistic production that accords highest priority to the idea
or concept that generates a work, and regards different art media --
painting, sculpture, drawing, performance, video, installation, sound-
works, etc.
○
Derives from Marcel Duchamp's notion of anti-visual ("retinal art") in
favor of the idea of the object itself (his version was called the
readymade)
○
Duration (time) can be an element in art
○
The lasting form of an artwork is created and later recreated in the
viewers mind
○
Elements other than the visual may be a part of the form of an artwork
○
The artist is free to appropriate, borrow tools, images, or objects
○
The artist might use their body or identity as a means of
executing/making the work itself
○
•
What is identity? How do we identify ourselves? What are some of the signifiers
of identity?
Race
○
Gender
○
Class
○
Sexuality
○
Ethnicity
○
Religion
○
•
Pat Ward Williams
What You Lookin' Art 1993
Photo collage
§
Subjectivity: an individual who possesses consciousness, agency,
personhood
Image of a group of young black men gathered together,
looking back at the audience
□
Ability to look back and be defiant towards the viewer's
stereotype
□
§
Included in the Whitney Biennial (very political)
This was the first piece you saw when you walked in□
Emphasis on race□
§
○
•
Who is an artist? Who is permitted to be an artist? Does a particular subjectivity
limit the subject matter or content explored?
Subjectivity is determined by our own identities
○
•
Robert Mapplethorpe
Self-Portrait with Whip 1978
Black and white photograph
§
A whip has been inserted into his anus
§
Made himself into an animalistic figure
§
Turning around and confronting the viewer
§
○
•
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Black graffiti artist and painter
○
Died at the height of his fame
○
Untitled (Devil Head), 1982
Related to the black body, and non-whiteness
§
Thinking about the way white artists have appropriated African
masks
§
○
Horn Players 1983
Paying tribute to jazz musicians and black artists that came before
him
§
Challenging segregation and racial discrimination
§
Graffiti-like style
§
○
Gold Griot 1984
Griot = west African storyteller
§
Done on wood (found materials)
§
○
•
Keith Haring
Gay artist, died of AIDS in 1990
○
Engaged in repeated graffiti work
○
Birth Images (Radiant Baby) 1986
Idea of sunrays around an image
§
Attracted to the idea of universalism
Application is universal□
Works of art can be seen anywhere□
Public artworks and graffiti□
iClicker: which artists have been most invested in universalism
in their artistic practice?
Abstract expressionist painters
®
□
§
Reproduced over and over again over time
§
○
Alterpiece
The last piece he made before he passed
§
Carved his own imagery using the radiant baby and other small
images that are secular
§
Universalism inclusion, everyone can find meaning in this alterpiece
§
○
•
Identity
The collective aspect of the set of characteristics by which a thing is
definitively recognizable or known
○
The set of behavioral or personal characteristics by which an individual is
recognizable as a member of a group
○
The quality or condition of being the same as something else
○
•
Identity Politics
A way of subverting or rejecting the dominant or default cultural position
in the US which is whiteness
○
The desire to combat discrimination in art exhibitions, unequal access ot
opportunity in art world and beyond
○
Gender, race, sexuality, ethnicity become politicized, speaking to larger
social issues
○
•
Influences in Post-Modern Theory
Language is a social construct that "speaks" and identifies the subject
○
Knowledge is contingent, contextual, and linked to power
○
Truth is pluralistic and dependent upon the frame of reference of the
observer
○
Values are determined by manipulation and domination
○
Values are derived from ordinary social practices which differ from culture
to culture and change with time
○
•
Ester Hernandez
Chicana-American agit-prop artist
○
Sun Mad 1982
Playing on SunMaid raisin packaging/branding
§
Calling recognition to pesticides used in grapes, filled with
carcinogens
Killing farmers and workers who have no or low healthcare□
§
"unnaturally grown with insecticides, miticides, herbicides,
fungicides"
§
Powerful form of agit-prop and asserting identity
§
○
Libertad 1976
Statue of Liberty is built upon cultural objects and the labor of
cultural producers
§
Showcasing pride in indigenous cultural production
§
○
•
Yolanda Lopez
Who's the Illegal Alien, Pilgrim? 1978
Playing on Uncle Sam shaking his finger at the audience
§
Appropriating indigenous Mexican figure in Aztec headdress
§
Shaking his finger at the viewers (supposed to be the dominant
audience of white people)
§
Playing with the idea of illegality and colonization
Who was here first?□
§
Dissent and rewriting the historical narrative of immigration
§
○
•
Essentialism
Term derived from "essence"
○
Often used pejoratively (negatively) to denote the true or permanent
nature of a being or a phenomenon
○
•
Ana Mendieta
Cuban American artist raised by a white family who felt she lost her
connection to her heritage
○
Essentialist art - reducing the body to its female forms
○
Silueta series 1976
○
Trying to reclaim her own heritage
○
Body impressions
○
•
Carl Andre
Husband of Ana Mendieta
○
Minimalist artist
○
•
Lecture 17: Identity Politics and Dissent
Thursday, May 31, 2018 10:58 AM
Document Summary
Architect of the whitney museum of american art 1966. Present whitney museum 2014 architect = renzo piano. Seen as cultural appropriation because she"s a white woman depicting something that wasn"t from her cultural image. Many people protested her painting and exhibition of this. People called and urged for this painting to be taken down and destroyed" Cultural appropriation is the adoption or use of the elements of one culture by members of another culture. Marcel duchamp and his use of the readymade (borrowing objects and turning them into something else as sculpture) A combination word that means bi-annual (every two years) The whitney biennial is a prestigious exhibition that occurs every two years, organized by the whitney museum of american art, nyc. The artist"s own body being put on display in the exhibition. Inserting himself as an artwork, spectacle, and artifact. Laying in a museological specimen box (like in an archaeological/science museum)
