Research Task 21/19/21
Bauhaus
The Bauhaus was a design school in Germany that opened in 1919 and closed in 1933 due to pressure from the Nazi party. During this time the Bauhaus was at the forefront of design in Germany, and after its closure its influence continued to spread. It was started by Walter Gropius due to his belief in breaking the barrier between artists and craftsmen and bringing art and design into the post-war age of machinery. The school also became a centre of forward thinking individuals in Germany. The core belief of the school was the union of art and craft, to create a ‘gesamtkunstwerk’ or a complete work of art. The aesthetic of many leading Bauhaus artists was simplistic, functional, and geometric, while including bright colours and interesting designs. they aimed to make beautiful pieces that found their beauty in minimalism and functionality.
Josef Albers studied at the Bauhaus from 1920-23, and taught there in various roles from 1923 up until the schools closure in 1933. He then emigrated to America where he became a professor at black mountain college in North Carolina. Throughout his life he taught in many different schools such as the Graduate School of Design at Harvard, Yale University and Cincinnati Art Academy. Some of his most famous work includes his work on colour theory, in which he established that colours were not static, and existed in relation to each other, and his series ‘homage to the square.’
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| Four greens, 1964, oil on Masonite |
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| Folder IV-1, the interaction of colour |
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was
the director of the Bauhaus from 1930 until its closure in 1933. When he was
appointed as director in 1930, he was the leading architect in germany. After the
Bauhaus’s closure he attempted to continue it as a private institute, but
eventually failed. He then emigrated to America where he taught at the Armor
Institute. He is most famous for his work as an architect and his minimal ‘less
is more’ aesthetic.
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| Barcelona Pavillion, 1929 |
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| Esplanade and Lake Shore Drive apartments, 1949 |
Performance Art
Performance art is an artwork that is created by action,
either taken by the artist or performers. Performance art can be live or
recorded, and either spontaneous or scripted. It aimed to challenge the traditional
forms of art, and allow the artist to express themselves in a less constricted
way. Performance art is thought to have its origins in the 1910s and dada
cabaret, though it began in force in the USA in the 1960s, and became more
widely known and acknowledged in the 70s. performance art encompasses a
multitude of activities such as acting, music, and poetry. Its main characteristics
are time, space, the performers body, and the relationship between the performer
and the artist.
Anna Mendieta was a feminist Cuban artist who explored the
connection between female identity and nature through photography, sculpture,
and performance art. she was well known for her series ‘earth body’ where she
used the intersection of land art and body art to explore her personal connection
to mother nature, and the connection between the female form and nature.
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| Siluetas 1973-78 |
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| Body Tracks 1982 |
Joan Jonas is a very important artist in the video and
performance art movements. Her work in video was ground-breaking, as she was
the first artist to incorporate live video feeds into her performance work.
Jonas’s performance pieces often include both highly choreographed and incidental
elements. She incorporates many different forms of art into her work such as
music, dance, sculpture, costume design and installation.
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| Mirror piece 1, 1969 |
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| organic honey's visual telepathy 1972 |
Feminist Art
At its conception, Feminist Art sought to challenge the
patriarchy and how women are perceived in the art world, and society in
general. The movement gained traction in the 1960s and 70s and aimed to call
attention to inequality and make space for women in male dominated spaces. It celebrated
femininity and the female body- often using images of vaginas, and menstrual
blood. The movement encompassed different forms such as painting, performance
art, and traditionally feminine crafts, such as embroidery. Feminist art continued
to develop and change as the conversation around womanhood and patriarchy became
more nuanced. Later generations of feminist artists explored the idea that
femininity is a masquerade or a performance that women have learned to take
part in. more recent feminist art focuses on intersectionality, and the ways
that race, class, sexuality, and gender fluidity intersect.
Judy Chicago was a major figure in the feminist art movement
of the 70s. She aimed to bring attention to the female experience, as well as
traditionally feminine forms of art, such as needlework and ceramics. One of
her most influential and famous works ‘Dinner Party’ is an installation piece that
comprises of a banquet table with place setting for 39 important women from
history. the place settings are designed to relate to the women they are for,
and feature embroidered, ceramic and painted elements. The work also includes a
further 999 names of women inscribed on the floor beneath the table. The piece
aims to draw attention to women who have been overlooked in history.
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| Creation of the World 2, 1984, petit point over drawing on silk mesh, 12.7 x 23.5 cm |
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| The Dinner Party, 1974, ceramic, porcelain, textile, 1463 x 1463 cm |
Louise bourgeois, though not formally affiliated with the
Feminist art movement, was important to its development nonetheless. She is
most famous for her work in sculpture, including her large spider sculptures
and her series ‘cells.’ Her work deals with her personal experiences and memories,
womanhood, and abandonment. Her huge spider sculpture ‘maman’ deals with her relationship
with her mother, and motherhood as a whole. Bourgeois said “The spider is an
ode to my mother… She was my best friend. Like a spider, my mother was a
weaver... Like spiders, my mother was very clever.” In her series ‘cells’
she combines both found and made objects, presented to the audience in cages. Each
cell deals with her personal experiences.
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| Maman, 2002, steel and marble, 927.1 × 891.5
× 1023.6 cm, approx weight 3658 kg |
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| Cell (The Last Climb) 2008, steel, glass, rubber, thread and wood, 384.8
x 400.1 x 299.7 cm |
Fluxus was an art movement that was decidedly anti-art in its nature. It aimed to destroy the elitism and commercialism prevalent in the art world. It began in the late 1950s, and ended in the late 70s with the death of George Maciunas, the man who founded and organised the Fluxus movement. They aimed to make art that challenged the control that art galleries and critics had over the value of art. They wanted to make art accessible to everyone, and have everyone make and consume art. They mocked the ‘high art’ world, took inspiration from dada, and it was one of the few art movements to utilise humour. Fluxus began as a group of artists, composers, and poets who found community in their shared anti-establishment attitudes. Much Fluxus art was performance based and relied on the audience to take part and shape the event.
Yoko ono was a pioneer of performance art and a part of the
fluxus movement. Her famous ‘cut piece’ was ground-breaking. It saw Ono kneeling
on a stage holding a pair of scissors. The audience was then invited to
approach her and cut off her clothes. This broke the traditional barrier
between artist and audience, and addressed themes of vulnerability, materialism,
and gender. Another of her works, ‘painting to hammer a nail’ relied on the
audience to complete the piece by hammering a nail into a piece of wood and
wrapping a strand of hair around it. Relinquishing her control as the artist in
this way was a new concept at the time.
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| Cut piece 1964 |
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| painting to hammer a nail, 1966, 28.35 inch x 39.37
inch |
Nam June Paik was a Korean American composer, sculptor, performer, video, and digital artist. He pioneered both the use of video, and robots in artwork. in the Fluxus movement he found the space to combine video, audio, and electronic elements.
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| TV Buddha 1974 |
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| Robot K-456 (1964) |
Land art
Land art is a movement that relies on the natural world. It originated
in the late 60s, as a development to the environmental movement and the
commercialism common in the art world. The work is site specific (it cannot be
moved from its original place without fundamentally altering the meaning of the
work) and is made from the landscape around. Land art pieces are often structures
or sculptures made from natural material such as soil, stones, sticks, and
water. Land art rejected traditional gallery or museum spaces in favour of the
natural world, meaning that oftentimes the art was inaccessible to a potential
audience. Pieces were also often impermanent, only documented through picture
and video, or not at all. In this way Land art took an anti-commercial,
revolutionary stance as the pieces were unable to be bought or sold.
Robert Smithson was an artist who pioneered the Land art
movement. He originally worked in sculpture, but began to work outdoors, making
site-specific work when the studio became too restrictive. His work originally
bridged the studio and the sites he used in his work through transporting the
natural materials found there into gallery spaces, but as the work became
larger and the setting more integral, he stopped using galleries. One of his most
famous works ‘spiral jetty’ is comprised of a spiral of rock and algae taken
from the surrounding area, jutting out into the Great Salt Lake. This juxtaposition
of the natural and man made forms the basis for a lot of Land art.
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| A Nonsite (Franklin, New Jersey), 1968 |
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| Spiral Jetty, 1970 |
Nancy Holt is well known for her large concrete and steel structures.
She bridged the gap between Land art and environmental activism, as her work integrated
and became part of the environment instead of disrupting it.
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| Hydras Head 1974 |
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| Sun Tunnels 1973-76 |
References
dot ART 10 bauhaus principles that still apply today, available at
Savall, N (2019) How Bauhaus Redefined What Design Could Do for Society, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/04/t-magazine/bauhaus-school-architecture-history.html (accessed 14/09/21)
https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/dinner_party/ (accessed (19/09/21)
https://holtsmithsonfoundation.org/robert-smithson-nonsite-franklin-new-jersey-1968 (accessed 20/09/21)
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