idreamedmovies

Course description:
Until well into the 20th century, modern art was thought to be a strictly European thing: a development centered in Paris and of which any place in the U.S. would be the deepest and remotest province. In the 1950s this changed significantly when New York ‘stole the idea of modern art’ (Serge Gibaut) and became the new epicenter of its world – a shift which had profound effects on the relation of modern art and American culture.
Presentation:

The presentation focused on Michael Leja’s book “Reframing Abstract Expressionism”, looking at the beginnings of the movement - from Pollock over Newman to Rothko - and their roots in the subconscious and the “primitive”, as well as the constitution of an avant garde/artistic movement within the dealer-critic-system of its time.

Below is a collection of videos to go beyond the study of theoretical texts of the first American modern art movement with a focus on its artists.

Jackson Pollock:

Jackson Pollock in action:

Now compare this to the movie version starring Ed Harris (already an appropriation):

No comment: Action Painting Battle at NYC’s Tribeca Festival:

And lastly, the appropriation of this cultural icon for an ad of Converse shoes!

Mark Rothko:

Power of Art: Mark Rothko (part 1/6 - the rest also on YouTube):

Rothko paintings (focus on color field painting):

Research Paper:

As Oscar Wilde wrote in the preface to the 1891 edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray:

“No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.”

My paper will focus on Andy Warhol, but not on his Pop Art period, but instead take a closer look at his darker side and fascination with death (and the morbid?) and the “Americanness” of his “Death and Disaster” series.

Famous examples are his Little Electric Chair, 1964:

from the Tate Britain: Warhol began using the image of the electric chair in 1963, the same year as the two final executions in New York State. Over the next decade, he repeatedly returned to the subject, reflecting the political controversy surrounding the death penalty in America in the 1960s. The chair, and its brutal reduction of life to nothingness, is given a typically deadpan presentation by Warhol. The image of an unoccupied electric chair in an empty execution chamber becomes a poignant metaphor for death.

Or his images of accidents such as White Burning Car, 1963: