Duchamp, Segal, Rauschenberg, Warhol, Oldenburg, Lichtenstein - Assignment Example

Visual Arts and Film Studies Marcel Duchamp was a French artist with work associated to the Dadaist and Surrealist movements,an important artist group of the 20th century. His technique was to challenge the conventional thought on artistic processes and art mainly not by writing, but by subversive actions. He criticized the art of fellow artists as retino art, and was interested to put art back to the service of the mind” (Metropolitan Museum Art, 2012). This made him to form a one man movement, and continue to satire and ironically accept the subversive or traditional accepted artistic production (Metropolitan Museum Art, 2012). He distanced himself from the traditional artistic methods and paintings, relying on seducing the view through irony and verbal witticism instead of relying on the aesthetical appeal as other artists did. George Segal was a Jewish, born in New York on 26th Nov. 1924. He is known for “Pop Art” movement that involved creating real life tableaux. His technique was however different form pop art due to closely relating his work to human values and personal experiences. He chose to deal with places that were familiar to him, rather than the elegant topics. His artistic work led to creation of close up drawings of human expressions and was known for his humanistic passion (Segal Foundation, n.d). Robert Rauschenberg was an American born in Texas and studied pharmacology. His unique artistic style involved the use of newspapers to make long silk screens cardboards, and early Egyptians which is a series of wall reliefs and sculptures constructed from used boxes (Guggenheim Foundation, 2012). He also made a lot of prints on silk where he made colorful silk walls and floor works. Rauschenberg later began to use his black and white photographs and was more recognized for the ¼ Mile or Two Furlong Piece that was conceived to be the longest artwork in the world portraying his unique photographic techniques and horology of his imagery (Guggenheim Foundation, 2012). Claes Oldenburg was born in Stockholm in 1929, but his family settled in Chicago in 1936. His artistic style was a combination of enigmatic images, from monstrous human figures to other objects. These were made from drawings, collages, and papier –mache (Guggenheim Foundation, 2012). His unique technique of displaying familiar objects made of plaster to reflect American society’s celebration consumption made him to be heralded as a pop artist, with the emergence of the movement in 1962 (Guggenheim Foundation, 2012). Andy Warhol was one of the most important Pop American artists, famous in the second half of the 20th century (Rosenberg, 2012). As pop artists, Warhol was famous for realistic renditions of popular and everyday items. However, Warhol tuned away from this blotted line technique, and embraced the technique of using paint and canvas, which he used to paint what he liked most. These included such items as money or a can of soup, for which Warhol made elaborate paintings. Warhol was also known for, making multiple films in the 1960s, which portrayed unusual characteristics. Such was the film sleep, which is a five and half hour film of a sleeping man (Rosenberg, 2012). Roy Lichtenstein was an American pop artist, more sophisticated in his works use of stereotypes in his analysis of conventions and ironic exploitation of past styles. His techniques included devices that were to be his work signatures such as the use of Ben-Day Dots, speech balloons and leering. An example was the painting of 6 frames displaying characters from comic strip frames, with minor changes of form and color from the originals ones. The created sculptural Marquette’s constructed from some flat shapes as 3-D imitations of German expressionist woodcuts in an ironic approach (Archives. com) Tom Wessleman was an American artist, fascinated by cartoons, and later pursued a career in cartooning at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. He was one of the major American pop artists, and his main technique was rejecting abstract expressionism, in favor of the classical representations of the nude, landscapes and still life. His style was using collages and assemblages of everyday objects in advertising ephemera, with an aim of making powerful images similar to the abstract expressionism he admired. He was thus known as the great American Nude Series, marked by their intense colors and flat forms (Wesselmann, 2010.) Hockney David was a British Painter, printmaker, photographer, designer and draughtsman. He painted paintings jokey in mood that gained him a reputation as a leading pop artist, though he rejected this label (Pioch, 2002). Hockney’s style of painting consisted of homoerotic content, and he even made etched illustrations to Cavafy’s poems. Nature was particularly fascinating to him as he painted skies, sea, the sun, and other printings with a naturalistic dimension (Pioch, 2002). Joseph Beuys was a German artist born in 1921 and was trained as a radio aircraft operator. He was later to become a major pioneer of performance art, and used sound, time, objects, and sculptural materials (Museum of Modern Art, 2012). Most of his artistic work and sculptures originated from actions, and served as relief of the events similar to autonomous works. Beuys artistic styles were mainly devoted to activism for socioeconomic reforms, and were described as social sculptures (Museum of Modern Art, 2012). Paik Nam June was Korean composer, performer, and video artist. His artistic techniques were to use performance combining prerecorded collage of music and sounds on stage, and other sounds created by people, a live hen, a motorcycle and various other objects. His artistic style used random events in these performances, and instruments were even destroyed during the performance, with the performance being as much visual and a musical experience. As TV programming and broadcasting invaded this culture, Paik began to experiment ways to alter these video images, and included these video sculptures in exhibitions in various exhibitions (Museum of Broadcast Communications, 2012). Yves Clein was one of the last century’s French most influential artists, and took the European art scene by a storm. His paintings included pink monochromes, body and sponge reliefs, air architecture, fire paintings, cosmogonies, and immortal work (Hirshhorn Museums, 2012). These were achieved through various techniques including letters, photographs, sketches, and writings. He tried to capture the immaterial spirituality through pure color (Hirshhorn Museums, 2012). Work Cited Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden’s. Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers, 2012. http://hirshhorn.si.edu/exhibitions/view.asp?key=1&subkey=252 25th April, 2012 The Museum of Modern Art. Focus: Joseph Beuys, 2012 http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/306 25th April, 2012 Estate of Tom Wesselmann. Tom Wesselmann, 2010 http://tomwesselmannestate.org/enter.html 25th April, 2012 Artchive. Roy Lichtenstein 2012 http://www.artchive.com/artchive/L/lichtenstein.html 25th April, 2012 Rosenberg Jennifer. Historical importance of Andy Warhol. About. Com 20th Century History, 2012. http://history1900s.about.com/od/artists/p/warhol.htm 25th April, 2012 Segal Foundation. George and Helen Segal Foundation. http://www.segalfoundation.org/bio.shtml 25th April, 2012 Guggenheim Foundation. Claes Oldenburg. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 2012. http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/show-full/bio/?artist_name=Claes%20Oldenburg 25th April, 2012 Guggenheim Foundation. Robert Rauschenberg. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 2012. http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/show-full/bio/?artist_name=Robert%20Rauschenberg 25th April, 2012 Metropolitan Museum of Art. Marcel Duchamp(1887-1968). Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History , 2012. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/duch/hd_duch.htm 25th April, 2012 Pioch Nicolas Hockeney David. Web Museum, Paris, 14 July, 2002 http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/hockney/ 25th April, 2012 The Museum of Broadcast Communications, Paik, Nam June. 2012 http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=paiknamjun 25th April, 2012 Read More