Jackson Pollock, No. 1, 1948
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- Abstract Expressionism

- "allover" painting fills the canvas

- a "field of action"

- a "choreography of space"

- by rethinking the role of material and tools, Pollock used process as part of his work's end form ("anti-form")

- paintings were layed on floor horizontally, paint was dripped from dipsticks with no direct contact sb/t tool and canvas, gravity was the real artist (again anti-form w/ no deliberate finesse)

- Gestalt psychologists of 20s/30s: field of sight fundamentally vertical, freed from gravity; image/gestalt is always experienced vertical, its coherence as a form is attached to verticality

- returning painting to upright position attacked gestalt/uprightness (symbolically?)/form/beauty

- marks of vertical painting NOT evident (gravitationally oriented drips), instead replaced by horizontal indicators: puddling + scabbing disrupt the work's uprightness

Barnett Newman, Vir heroicus sublimis, 1950-1
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- Abstract Expressionism

- Newman worked and reworked his pieces, hence annotated year of creation

- irregularly spaced vertical "zips" of colour are the figure, vibrant red is the ground

- because of the flatten space, the figure and ground are less distinguishable

- Newman believed with art he could actually change the world

- no element was favoured over another, much like communist ideals

- Newman's was received with great disapproval from his fellow ab-ex artists for years, but later was realised as a forerunner of colour field painting (a tendancy within ab ex, which put less emphasis on gestural brushstrokes and action, instead focuses on overall consistency of form and process, deploy the expressive power of colour through large, emotive fields)

- scale and intensity are key to Newman, get lost in the moment and forget yourself, be immersed

- zips of light are like upright humans, heroic and sublime

Robert Rauschenberg, Erased de Kooning Drawing, 1953

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- "eraser drawing", eraser is artist's (R.R.) instrument, eraser strokes replace brush/pencil strokes, in a way mocking Ab Ex.

- erasure as an act of creation

- "undrawing", critical of action painting

Richard Hamilton, Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?, 1956

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- content: pop-psych parody of postwar consumer culture made w/ ad slogans and image-bits

- capitalism, consumerism, materialism

- Pollock print rug

- phallic symbols (sex sells)

- two contemporary image ideals (muscle man + large breasted babe) point their assets towards each other

- lady on tv is also vaccuuming stairs with phallic hose extension

Asger Jorn, Paris by Night, 1959

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- neo-Dada

- found painting which has been disfigured

- content: NY in the 1950s surpassed Paris economically, Pollock-style squiggles (ie NY) on cityscape overtake the sentimental scene (ie Paris)

-Jorn wants us to think about the world and be critical!

Jasper Johns, Target with Four Faces, 1955

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- assemblage of preformed, conventional, depersonalised, factual, exterior elements

- target is instantly recognisable because we understand concentric circles to indicate a target (but what if they are simply circles?)

- figure and ground fused into single image-object

- encaustic (bees paint+wax) on newspaper

- usage of public signs make the literal ambiguous

 - Jasper Johns questioned the spontaneous brushstroke, suggesting it had become formalaic

- the "index": something that refers to something in the past

- painting is cultural, is ful of ideas

Alberto Giacometti, Femme debout (Leoni) / (Standing Woman [Leoni]), 1947

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- content: (as titled) "standing woman"

form: distanced perception, texture is rough and pitted as if sand blasted by life.

- historical context: post WWII

- as beings in the world, we connect through perception rather than consciousness

Morris Louis, Saraband, 1959

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- post-painterly abstraction

- gravity-pulled streams ("veils") of thinned acrylic resin

- his usage of paint (as penetrating, rather than a layer upon the canvas) made figure and ground one and the same

Nam June Paik, Zen for Head, 1962

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- "Fluxus": too much importance put on object, so let's NOT make it about the object

- art has not be spared by capitalism and consumerism: it is labour made, marketed and distributed

- get rid of dead art, art is supposed to be precious

- to combat capitalistic art, fluxus worked in the margins, trying to disrupt/challenge the art commodity circulation

- painting with head certainly has a personal touch!

Joseph Beuys, Brown cross, Fat corners, Model fat corners) 1964

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- Auschwitz demonstrator

- this action performance was interrupted by right-wing students resulting in Beuys getting his nose broken and streaming blood, but despite that he carried on, as if more fully making the point

- Beuys felt that the artist should be a healer and should be critical

-historical context: post WWII Germany

- Germany wanted to just move on after the war, look onward and upward

- Beuys thought the church was complicit in making us feel comfortable with the horrors that the Nazis manifested

- much of the world does NOT want to know anymore and they do want to forget

-Beuys was concerned that we would forget the past, he used symbolic objects that referred to history; objects are like memories

Andy Warhol, Lavender Disaster, 1963

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- Pop-Art

- form: silk screen, light/dark contrast plays with the feeling of each version of the repetitively printed image of an electric chair.

- capital punishment, result of capitalism - this is how we discipline the mass subject

- combination of red, white and blue = lavender

- referenced state execution, mass media, mass consumption, we are subject to control, "The Mass Subject"

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Donald Judd, Untitled (box with trough), 1963

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- minimalist sculpture

-marked by relationship to viewer and to the space inhabited.

- red box has a solid, unified form and yet the viewer gets a sense of hollowness through the trough-like opening