Jean-Michel Basquiat, Charles the first, 1982, acrylic and oilstick on canvas, triptych

- American Neo- Expressionist

    •    realtes to look of grafitti
    •    bring together royalty and heroism
    •    charlie parker
    •    on right side, work cherokee, title of one of parkers most famous tunes
    •    writes this under the word opera
    •    crown --> hierarchy in the western culture
    •    tag developed as samba
    •    charlie's nickname was bird, so 4 drawings of feathers were done.
    •    on right --> superman symbol
    •    "most kings get their heads cut off" --> thinks of this as historical, but also thinking about all these people on history that are influence for him, and also think of himself. continuing a legacy of african americans that continue to make an impact
    •    "i'm not making paintings, i'm making tablets"
    •    surfaces --> messy
    •    would integrate found objects
    •    died in 1987, of an overdose

-Jeff Koon , Pink Panther, 1988, Porecelain

- Appropriation

    •    koon's ex-wife, ex porn star, synical
    •    decorative art (tacky), almost life size
    •    takes elements of pop culture and super sizes them, undermines viewers assumptions about quality

-focus on object-lust and needy sentimentality, shifted the progression into a darker key, even as the things Koons was fabricating to represent his evolving program were becoming bigger, brighter, and more alarmingly cheerful.

-Ephemeral reality scares Koons, so he makes indestructible totems to things that never lived and so cannot perish. His big yes to excess is a big no to irrepressible guilt. Despite all his put-ons and superficial cynicism, Koons is at bottom a deadly serious artist, a pivotal figure of his increasingly pessimistic generation."

-Robert Colescott, Grandma and the frenchman (identity crisis), 1990, acrylic on canvas

-American painter.

-He is known for satirical genre and crowd subjects, often conveying his exuberant, comical, or bitter reflections on being African-American.

Jenny Holzer, Truisms, 1977-79: Abuse of power comes as no suprise

-appropriation

• American Neo-Conceptualist artist
• utilized the homogeneous rhetoric of modern information systems in order to address the politics of discourse.
• Holzer's conception of language as art, in which semantics developed into her aesthetic
• By combining a knowledge of semantics with modern advertising technologies, Holzer established herself as a descendant of the conceptualist and Pop Art movements.
• 
  

Barbara Kruger, Untitled (You Rule by Pathetic Display)   

• appropriation
• knife correlated with power, and violence
• Kruger implying that hegemony enforces its dominance through violence and the threat of violence.

Guerrilla Girls, Do Women Have to be Naked to Get into the Met?

• appropriation
• In 1989, a shift in the Guerrilla Girls' work took place when they added a distinct female image to their poster "Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?" Beneath the question lay a reproduction of Ingres's Odalisque, a reclining nude figure whose nude back and hips symbolize idealized female beauty. Instead of a beautiful and classic profile, however, the figure has been masked with the Guerrilla Girls' hallmark -- a large, shaggy gorilla's head. This poster was commissioned by the Public Art Fund, which supports public art projects in New York City. The Guerrilla Girls designed the poster hoping that it would appeal to a more general audience. However, the Public Art Fund rejected their design because they found the shape of the fan held by the woman to be phallic. (The nudity of the woman raised no objections.)

• - Cindy Sherman, untitled film still #3. 1977, black and white photograph
• postmodernism
      •    remind public to movies… put nothing specific
      •    era of 50's 60's and foreign films
      •    thinks about construction of femininity
      •    not self portraits
      •    universal meaning
      •    pictures of emotions personified
      •    representations that would morph into pre-fabricated rolls
      •    who is the real cindy sherman? (you never see her, because she is always in a continuing state of flux)

- keith haring, radiant baby, button, 1982, printed plastic button with meal back and pin

• postmodernism
• artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s.
• "The Radiant baby" became his symbol. His bold lines, vivid colors, and active figures carry strong messages of life and unity.

-  Davind Wojnarowicz, The Death of American Spirituality, 1987m acrylic and mixed media on plywood, 2 panels
    •    social activism

- post modernism

-Wojnarowicz depicts a cowboy riding a bull, collaged from newspaper articles referring to gangsters, Oliver North, AIDS and advertisements for cars and electronics. Images of a kachina doll, a snake charmer, and Jesus fade into a background of factories and exploding rocks. The work suggests many layers of meaning, but the implication of the loss of belief in myth, religion and history is clear.

• Rona Pondick, Little Bathers, Wax, plastic, and rubber teethm 1990-91
• post-modernism
  
• unleashed repressed anxieties related to basic bodily functions, infantile desires and adult sexuality. Pondick also employed repetition
• Her works also acknowledge both attraction and repulsion
• the cackling mouths seem to reduce human behaviour to pure appetite.

• Ann Hamilton, Malediction, 1991, post-modernism   
  
• the piece referred to the larger social history of the neighborhood, uncovering forgotten narratives of labor and material.
• Hamilton's "malediction" speaks to a local history, but also to materials and experiences that transcend New York or the gallery. The meditative, reverent actions of the artist are comparable to a form of prayer, while the bread and wine have associations with religion and the act of communion. The table is a place for eating, and yet the artist is served a bowl of raw dough. The voice heard emanating from the wall is in stark contrast to the artist's muffled activity, and we wonder what words might look like if they dropped out of our mouths like objects. Evocative of life, death, sustenance, and decay, Hamilton's installation is charged with the memory of a place and how we, today, make connections with history, labor, and our own mortality.

Kiki Smith, Tale, 1992, Wax, pigment, papier mâche

• post-modernism
  

• The Tale piece was about kind of shame and humiliation about something - like that you're dragging this sort of internal personal garbage around with you all the time. And also the shame and humiliation of not being able to hide it, that it's so apparent in one's own being.

• Vanessa Beecroft, Show, 2001, performance
• post modernism
  
• The work and her conceptual approach is neither performance nor documentary, but something in between, and closer to Renaissance painting.
• Each performance is made for a specific location and often references the political, historical, or social associations of the place where it is held. Beecroft’s work is deceptively simple in its execution, provoking questions around identity politics and voyeurism in the complex relationship between viewer, model and context.

• Mariko Mori, Play with me, 1994, Fuji supergloss (duraflex) print, wood, pewter frame
• post modernism
• video and photographic artist.
• worked as a fashion model in the late 1980s. This strongly influenced her early works, such as Play with Me, in which she takes control of her role in the image, becoming an exotic, alien creature in everyday scenes.

• Damien Hirst, This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed at home, 1996
  Steel, GRP composites, glass, pig, formaldehyde solution, electric motor
• post-modernism
• "I hope that it makes people think about things that they take for granted. Like smoking, like sex, like love, like life, like advertising, like death... I want to make people frightened of what they know. I want to make them question." He achieves this by incorporating common objects into his work. "Ordinary things are frightening. It's like, a shoe is intended to get you from one place to another. The moment you beat your girlfriend's head in with it, it becomes something insane. The change of function is what's frightening... That's what art is."

Rachel Whiteread, House, 1993, Lokrete with metal armature, post modernism

• conceived the idea of casting the interior of a whole house.
• it evoked loss, memories and mortality.
• defamiliarisation is one of Rachel Whiteread’s objectives.
• One side of House had strong vertical and horizontal lines. These, together with the flat roof, gave the impression of geometric abstract art or the white architecture of Modernism.

• Gabriel Orozco, Island Within an Island (Isla en la Isla), 1993
• post modernism
• results from slight interventions in or interactions with his immediate environment,
• double landscape: one a desolate view of Manhattan from New Jersey with the skyline outlined against a cloudy sky; and, in the foreground, a mini-tableau Orozco made to mimic that view using the materials he found on-site. His rudimentary and somewhat drab depiction seems to mock the importance this city of cities has claimed for itself as an international center of art and global politics.

• Alfredo Jaar, Chile 1981, Before Leaving
• post modernism
• left to NY

Gary Hill, Inasmuch As It Is Always Already Taking Place, 1997

• post modernism
• explores the complex realtionship between the body and language, or being and knowing

• Shirin Neshat, Rebellious Silence,1994, photo
• post modernism
• contrasting Islam and the West, men and women, constraints and desires, the public and the private, the old and the new. Her works also bridge the growing gulf between them in a choreography of reconciliation.

• Carrie Mae Weems, Untitled, Kitchen Table Series,
• post modernism
• wtiness something universal
• visual image defines perceptiona of history, race, gender, and cultural identity.

• Kara Walker, Grub for Sharks: A Concession to the Negro Populace, 2004
• post modernism
• a reference to the practice of throwing slaves to their death in the sea, in an attempt to lighten ships before a storm – schools of sharks were known to trail ships for this reason.

• Mona Hatoum, Corps étranger, 1994, post modernism
  
• a circular video screen installed into the floor is surrounded by a white cylindrical shell, which one can enter to follow the bizarre journey of a camera traveling through a body, a technique borrowed from medicine. Mucous membranes, hair, pupils, teeth--all are monstrously enlarged and the camera mercilessly plunges through the orifices of the body into moist pulsating tunnels. The voyage outside is accompanied by the sound of breathing, and the one inside by the sound of the heart. The images are fantastic and at the same time repulsive; because this "meat inspection" takes place on the floor one looks down at an anonymous mass (the body) almost as if it were litter or refuse. But then, with lowered eyes, one finds oneself in a kind of devotional position, and the cylinder simultaneously suggests a temple-like structure and a research laboratory.

• Yinka Shonibare, MBE, Reverend on Ice, 2005, postmodernism
  
• Fibreglass, cotton, Dutch wax, leather , wood and steel
• post modernism
• The style of fabric used in this sculpture was originally produced by the Dutch in the late 19th century .Although it utilised traditional Indonesian batik designs it failed to appeal to the Indonesian textile market for whom it was made. The so-called Dutch wax fabric was then exported by both Dutch and English manufacturers to West Africa where it is now an important and distinctive element of this region's culture. The artist purchased the fabric himself in England.
• This work was inspired by a painting called Portrait of The Reverend Robert Walker Skating, 1784 by Sir Henry Raeburn.
• The artist makes reference to a dandy ( an outsider in the 18th century who pretended through imitation to be part of the upper class in society and was happily rewarded with the benefits of that position).

• Xu Bing, Practicing Square Word Calligraphy, 1997
• post modernism
  
• Square Word Calligraphy is a new kind of writing, almost a code, designed by Xu Bing. At first glance it appears to be Chinese characters, but in fact it is a new way of rendering English. Chinese viewers expect to be able to read it but cannot. Western viewers, however, are surprised to find that they can read it. Delight erupts when meaning is unexpectedly revealed.

• Zhang Huan, To Raise the Water Level in a Fish Pond, performance, bejing china
• post modernism
• I invited about forty participants, recent migrants to the city who had come to work in Beijing from other parts of China. They were construction workers, fishermen and labourers, all from the bottom of society. They stood around in the pond and then I walked in it. At first, they stood in a line in the middle to separate the pond into two parts. Then they all walked freely, until the point of the performance arrived, which was to raise the water level. Then they stood still. In the Chinese tradition, fish is the symbol of sex while water is the source of life. This work expresses, in fact, one kind of understanding and explanation of water. That the water in the pond was raised one metre higher is an action of no avail.

• Takashi Murakami, Tan Tan Bo Puking – a.k.a. Gero Tan, 2002, acrylic on canvas
• post modermism 
• consciously bridges fine art, design, animation, fashion, and popular culture
• “it was more representative of modern day Japanese life.”

• Nikki S. Lee, The Ohio Project, 1999, photographs
• post modernism
  
• Born in Korea, the New York based artist Nikki S. Lee explores disparate sub-cultural identities by integrating herself into selected communities. She accomplishes this immersion through a prolonged period of research and then by adapting a given social group’s code of dress and identifying accoutrements, its recognizable behavior and body language. With the aid of elaborate makeup and wardrobe, she lives the life of a given group, such as a punk, a yuppie, a tourist, and an elderly woman, for days or months. Taken by someone else with a snapshot camera, the photographs always include Lee, often depicted with people from the community she is examining. About 20 of her casual color images from various projects will be featured in this exhibition. Lee has a keen eye for social detail and her work is enriched by humor and satire.

• Jackson Pollock, Number I, 1948, acrylic on canvas
• abstract expressionism
• American post–World War II art movement
• The movement's name is derived from the combination of the emotional intensity and self-denial of the German Expressionists with the anti-figurative aesthetic of the European abstract schools
• image of being rebellious, anarchic, highly idiosyncratic and, some feel, nihilistic.

• Robert Rauschenberg, Skyway, oil and silkscreen on canvas, 1960's
• neo-dada/proto pop
• it celebrates contemporary history, modernity, and the achievements of the United States. 
•   ghostly John F Kennedy among images of cities, the Space Race, and Old Master art - shards and fragments of a conflicted world.

• Andy Warhol, Gold Marilyn Monroe, 1962,  
• pop art
• Silkscreen ink on synthetic polymer paint on canvas
• Warhol made this painting the year screen legend Marilyn Monroe committed suicide. He painted the canvas an iridescent gold and silkscreened the star’s face in the center of the composition. Like other paintings by Warhol that feature Monroe’s likeness, this work is based on a 1953 publicity still for the movie Niagara. By duplicating a photograph known to millions, Warhol undermined the uniqueness and authenticity characteristic of traditional portraiture. Instead he presented Monroe as an infinitely reproducible image.

• Joseph Kosuth, One and Three Chairs, 1965, mixed media
• conceptual art
• he piece consists of a chair, a photograph of this chair, and an enlarged dictionary definition of the word "chair". The photograph depicts the chair as it is actually installed in the room, and thus the work changes each time it is installed in a new venue.
• seen to highlight the relation between language, picture and referent. It problematizes relations between object, visual and verbal references (denotations) plus semantic fields of the term chosen for the verbal reference.