Explore the Module
In this module, we’ll take a step back and examine art in the 20th century. Why? For lots of reasons:
The 20th century saw a profileration of countless new movements and modes of art practice that provide a legacy today: Modernism, Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Surrealism, Abstraction, PopArt, PhotoRealism and more.
‘Abstract Expressionism’, ‘Minimilism’, ‘Readymades’ and ‘Appropriation’ challenged audiences and pushed the definition what was then understood to be art.
The 20th century saw the biggest shifts in art production. The ready availability of technologies like photography, film and printing transformed the ways art could be made.
These expansions and redefinitions of art and art production forged the way for today’s electronic art and artful digital media.
We have a few objectives. Namely, you’ll start to
Familiarity: become familiar with the world of art, key movements and influential artists;
Response: experience their works and develop your ability to interpret and respond to artworks;
Techniques: understand the styles, aesthetics, processes, techniques and contexts that inform media composition; and
Application: prepare media compositions based on these ideas;
To learn about the wide range of movements and styles of the 20th century; we’re going to learn from each other. Each of you will research 2 influential artworks and report back. This will help you build familiarity and give us a catalog that we can all draw from (familiarity, techniques.) The review of this catalog will provide groundwork to building your critical response to art (response.) Using your research, you’ll pay homeage to the artist and experiment with adopting their style (application). We’ll return to this with discussion of Shahn’s ‘The Shape of Content’ will take a broader view and help us explore relationships between form and meaning, and artist and context, in modern art (familiarity, response.)
‘Appropriation’ will be the main way we examine ‘remix’ in this module. It’s “the intentional borrowing, copying, and alteration of preexisting images and objects.” Our guest lecture will explore Warhol and the rise of PopArt. Our screening will examine counter-cultural appropriation found in the work of street artists (familiarity, techniques). Our discussion will dive deeper into the surrounding practical, ethical, and legal issues (familiarity). And you’ll grapple with this head on in your end of module project (application).
| Date | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Tuesday, Aug 30 | Intro | Introduction to the course and 1st module |
| Thursday, Sept 1 | Cases | Experiencing art and practicing critical reflection |
| Tuesday, Sept 6 | Guest | Guest lecture on modern art |
| Thursday, Sept 8 | Screening | Exit Through the Gift Shop |
| Tuesday, Sept 13 | Discussion | Modern Forms |
| Thursday, Sept 15 | Desk Crits | Feedback on creative project development |
| Tuesday, Sept 20 | Critique | Critical review of creative project outcomes |
| Due Date | Deliverable | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Thursday, Sept 1, 9am | Looking out | Share your research/review of two modern artworks and present in class. |
| Monday, Sept 5, 9am | Warm up | Document your outcome for Research-Reproduce and post to the Gallery |
| Tuesday, Sept 6, 9pm | Digital Crit | Give feedback to 2 projects online by Tuesday night |
| Thursday, Sept 8, 9am | Proposal | Create a proposal for your creative project (200 words + illustrations) and share on the Gallery |
| Thursday, Sept 8, 9pm | Digital Crit | Give feedback to 2 proposals online by Thursday night |
| Tuesday, Sept 13, 9am | Readings | Complete your reading reflections to prepare for in-class discussion |
| Thursday, Sept 15, 9am | Project | Develop a first cut implementation to discuss during desk crits |
| Monday, Sept 19, 9pm | Documentation | Deliver documentation of your creative project |
| Tuesday, Sept 20, 9am | Digital Crit | Give feedback to 2 projects online before class; vote on projects to review in class. |
Nicole Dezelon, Andy Warhol Museum
Nicole Dezelon is the Associate Curator of Education at the Andy Warhol Museum, and an Adjunct professor at Carlow University and St. Joseph’s College. She received a Fulbright-Hays award in 2009 to take 13 teachers to Brazil to study the intersections of Art and Society. She currently holds a BS and an M.Ed in Art Education. Following her undergraduate studies, she worked at Leo Grilli Studios in Gubbio, Italy and High Gate Pottery in London, UK before returning to the states to take on a teaching position. She taught ceramics at The Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild in Pittsburgh, Pa and images of her clay work appear in the Lark Books publications: 500 Prints On Clay, Alternative Kilns and Firing Techniques by James C. Watkins and Paul Wandless as well as Image Transfer on Clay by Paul Wandless.
Review two distinctly different and non-digital 20th century artworks. Document your experience with each. Research the artist and artwork. Compare your initial response to your research and report your discoveries. Read the full description.
Digital Reproduction: Create a digital homage to a 20th century artist/artwork in under two hours.
Read the full description.
beg-borrow-steal: Beg, borrow or steal to make a work of art from which you think you could make money.
Build on ideas of appropriation - intentional borrowing, copying, and alteration of preexisting images and objects - to create your own composition that responds to consumerism and commercialism. Read the full brief.
Required
1) ‘The Biography of an Artist’ and ‘The Shape of Content’ from: Ben Shahn. 1992. The Shape of Content, The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures 1956-1957, Harvard University Press
Framing Questions
- Based on the reading and the explaination from Shahn, what is the biography of a painting?
- “There are many additional components present within a painting many other factors that modify, impel restrain and in unison shape the images which finally emerge”. What are they and why are they important?
- What is the role of the inner critic and the literary critic in making works of art? What does the combination of the the artist plus the inner critic create and how?
- “This may be art, but it is my own art?” Why is this question significant to Shahn? How do you respond to it in the context of this course?
- What are the differences between ‘form’ and ‘content’? How do they relate and can form exist without content?
- Shahn writes about art, form and content in the context of painting. He discusses this with reference to and examples from many specific painters and “isms”. But do they equally apply to today’s new media art or are there differences? Why?
2) Jonathan Lethem, The Ecstasy of Influence, Harper’s Magazine, Feb 2007, page 59.
Framing Questions
- How do the ideas presented in this text relate to or conflict with your own understanding of plagarism? Specifically reflect on this statement: “Plagiarism and piracy, after all, are the monsters we working artists are taught to dread, as they roam the wood surrounding our tiny preserves of regard and remuneration.”
- What are the ways that appropriation, plagarism and piracy are used in artmaking and creative practice?
- Using examples from the text, what are the relationships between originality, plagarism and appropriation in creative production?
- How is technology (from the xerox to the internet) changing our perspective on plagarism and appropriation?
- What is the ‘gift economy’ and the ‘commons’ and why are they significant for art making and creative production?
- The end of the text contains a significant part of Lethems arguement. After reviewing the ‘key’, what is your reaction to the text and to Lethem’s approach.
Also Great:
On Art
On Art and Composition
Kandinsky’s writings offer wonderful perspecitves on composition. ‘Point and Line..’ is a really instructive exploration of his visual syntax. I’d strongly recommend it as a primer on expressionism and visual composition.
Wassily Kandinsky. 1947. Point and line to plane: contribution to the analysis of the pictorial elements. the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation for the Museum of Non-Objective Painting in New York.
Wassily Kandinsky. 1946. On the spiritual in art. Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, for the Museum of Non-Objective Painting in New York
Another great read on visual grammars is:
On Art and Appropriation
Kembrew McLeod, Rudolf Kuenzli. 2011. Cutting across media: appropriation art, interventionist collage, and copyright law. Duke University Press.
Rowe, H. A. 2011. Appropriation in Contemporary Art. Inquiries Journal/Student Pulse, 3(06).
Niamh Coghlan. Is the Readymade Still Revolutionary?. Aesthetica. Issue 47
[https://publichouseofart.com/articles/a-copy-of-a-copy-of-another-copy-appropriation-art-through-the-ages]
Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010) Website · IMDB
Synposis:
This is the inside story of Street Art - a brutal and revealing account of what happens when fame, money and vandalism collide. Exit Through the Gift Shop follows an eccentric shop-keeper turned amateur film-maker as he attempts to capture many of the world’s most infamous vandals on camera, only to have a British stencil artist named Banksy turn the camcorder back on its owner with wildly unexpected results. One of the most provocative films about art ever made, Exit Through the Gift Shop is a fascinating study of low-level criminality, comradeship and incompetence. By turns shocking, hilarious and absurd, this is an enthralling modern-day fairytale… with bolt cutters.
You can earn an extra 2.5% credit as part of this module by engaging in and documenting an art experience. To earn this credit:
Visit the Andy Warhol Museum and the Ai Weiwei exhibition before Sunday September 11th.
Document your experience as a short 200 word write up. Include some ‘evidence’ you attended - a selfie in the museum, a photo of your ticket, etc.
Submit your experience report on Slack as a post as a DM (direct message) to the course instructors and TAs.
Note: Your CMU ID gets you free admission to the Warhol so there is no cost to entry.
Below is a list of additional online material that relates to the module and provides a starting point for your explorations. This is by no means exhaustive i.e. you should read/research beyond it.
Guides
Summaries of Major 20th Century Art Movements
Online Examples
Artists
Discover 20th century artists here:
Some specific Artists:
Articles
Texts
A Copy Of A Copy Of Another Copy: Appropriation Art Through The Ages!
Michalis Pichler’s Statements on Appropriation (2009)
Lawrence Lessig Free Culture - issues relating to copyright and copyleft that provide food for thought on appropriation in today’s context.
Marcus Boon, In Praise of Copying - see chapter 7 for a discussion of copying as appropriation.
Art Education Victoria Article on Borrowed Elements and Appropriation in Art
Sherri Irvin Appropriation and Authorship in Contemporary Art, British Journal of Aesthetics 45 (2005), 123-137.
Greenberg, 1992 The Art of Appropriation: Puppies Piracy and Post-Modernism
Helen Charman and Michaela Ross, Contemporary Art and the Role of Interpretation, Tate Papers no.2
Jessica Morgan Political Pop: An Introduction, 1 September 2015
Video
Talks worth watching
As you start to think about your role in this course. It’s worth watching Zach Leiberman talk about hybridity around technology, art and computation…