ARTH 12A Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Food Technology, Willem De Kooning, Elaine De Kooning
30 May 2018
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May 30, 2018
“US in the 1950s-1960s” Notes
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Beginning of 20th century
• Development of psychology – idea that people have an unconscious and conscious
mind (new idea of what idea of human being is) – Jung
o Organize experience by patterns called archetypes
o Way for ideas to be spread worldwide
• WWII shattered order of world
• The She-Wolf by Jackson Pollock
o Scribbling pattern
o 4 legged animal as subject
o Abandonment of academic mode (non-naturalistic form and space)
o Big fat black outlines
• No. 1 by Jackson Pollock
o Drip/all-over-the-place painting
o Realization in 1940s that he doesn’t have to follow academic procedure when
painting
o Interested in letting subconscious mind draw – paint brush tool is too hard so
thin paint out and puts canvas on floor
o Is abstract for viewers to interpret
o Painting style = ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM – want to show off the
freedom that artists had in the US
• Soviet union controls its art schools and artists can get sent somewhere else if didn’t
follow law
• Willem and Elaine de Kooning
o Came to New York but has own studio
• Willem I by Willem de Kooning
o Portray women as something that’s worrying
o Not abstract but expressionist
o “Anima” = inner women ego
o “Amnus” = inner man ego
• Returns to same subject matter over and over – all on theme of women
• Abstract stuff but also figurative
• John F. Kennedy by Elaine de Kooning
o JFK picks her to paint his official presidential portrait → wanted to make a
statement that he was capable b/c he was so young
• Robert Rauschenberg
o Similar to free-styled art
o Feathers can be exotic plant
o Verbal visual puns with materials
o Collaged sides
• Factum I and Factum II by Rauschenberg
o Gay so was often used that it didn’t mean anything
o Spread that British was just another tool for impressionistic
o Critique of wild and modern art
• History as a Planter by Ed Kienholz
o Spread lots of American cultures
o Plants called “wandering Jew”
o Repeated persecution emphasized
o People killed in ovens – mass killing
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