|
1950s
|
1960s
|
| artist's personal feelings, "self" | detachment from feeling/"self" |
| expressionistic (subjective, emotion) | anti-expressionist (objective, detached) |
| psychology | physicality (the object); technology (t.v.) |
| interpretation (refers to something else) | presentation (refers only to itself) |
| symbol | sign |
| anthropomorphic (humanism) | anti-anthropomorphic/anti-anthropocentric |
| artist is hero, shaman | artist as machine ("death of author" - Barthes) |
| organic | inorganic (non-relational arrangement) |
| found objects/trash | new materials (plastic, aluminum, mass- produced building materials) |
| Existentialism (Sartre, Camus) | Positivism, radical empiricism (Wittgenstein) |
|
Concrete Art It first became a technical term in 1930 when Theo Van Doesburg (best known as follower of MondrianŐs neoplasticism) issued a manifesto entitled Art Concrete: Basis of Concrete Painting. We declare: 1. Art is Universal 2. The work of art should be entirely conceived and formed by the mind before its execution. It should receive nothing from nature's formal properties or from sensuality or sentimentality. We want to exclude Iyricism, dramaticism, symbolism, etc. 3. The picture should be constructed entirely from purely plastic elements, that is to say planes and colours. A pictorial element has no other significance than 'itself' and therefore the picture has no other significance than 'itself'. 4. The construction of the picture, as well as its elements, should be simple and controllable visually. 5. Technique should be mechanical, that is to say exact, anti-impressionistic. 6. Effort for absolute clarity. Really defines Constructivist principles; in fact the term was applied to a lot of artists including Mondrian. There are then movements in Sweden and Italy where the term is used. Lucio Fontana is an example (Movimento per l'arte concreta) By this time, Concrete Art became synonymous with geometric abstraction. |
|
Minimalism Term used to describe complex trend in art (chiefly in 1950s in US)... largely a reaction from Action Painting and some aspects of Abstract Expressionism. -minimum of operating means... -the subject being the painting itself. -Later given a wide variety of applications (common for terms coined in conjunction with modern movements). Combines two concepts: 1. art works which had an unusually low degree of differentiation (like monochromatic paintings) and therefore a minimal amount of "art work" by the artist 2. art works which, although they might be highly differentiated, had a minimal amount of "art-work" contributed by the artist because their components were identical or near-identical with everyday mass-produced objects. *this definition, then, could include pop works by Warhol, Thiebauld, Wesselman. etc. *today, the mass-produced aspect has been altered to describe the building components, say, of Judd. New "refined" definition sees Barnett Newman and Morris Louis as forerunners. By eschewing all "virtual" qualities and maintaining a maximum degree of visual simplicity, they make a unified total impression on the observer with the negation of all ambiguity. **simplification to the extreme*** ***highly intellectual approach** describes not only approach, but ability to appreciate this art, which is a "learned" appreciation... not spontaneous. |
|
Hard Edge -originally coined by critic Jules Langsner in 1958 as an alternative to replace older term "geometric abstraction." Way he uses it is "to refer to the new development that combined economy of form and neatness of surface with fullness of color, without continually raising memories of earlier geometric art." During 60s gets more general application, used to describe the style of non-representational painting which was distinguished from Abstract Expressionism both because it ued a few large areas of color separated by crisp, clearly defined edges and by the fact that, unlike the spontaneous and impulsive practices of the AE, HE paintings were planned in advance of their execution |