art history

Abstract Expressionism (Late 1940s-1950s) First American avant-garde movement  Action paintings: artist drips or splatters paint onto a surface Color Field Painting (1960s) Lacks aggression of Abstract Expressionism  Relies on subtle tonal values; variations of a monochromatic hue  Pop Art (1955-1960s) Materials of the everyday world, mass popular culture, celebrities, reaction against Abstract Expressionism  Happenings (1960s)  act of performance initially planned, but involves spontaneity, improvisation, and audience participation Site Art / Earthworks (1970s-1990s)  Interacts with the environment 

Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks . Claes Oldenburg. 1969– 1974 C.E. Cor‐Ten steel, steel, aluminum, and cast resin; painted with polyurethane enamel. A monumental tube of lipstick sprouting from a military vehicle; visible space for the anti-war movement while also poking fun at the solemnity of the plaza.  The sculpture served as a stage and backdrop for several subsequent student protests. Oldenburg and the architeciture students never intended for the original Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks sculpture to be permanent.  In the Yale sculpture, the artist combined the highly “feminine” product with the “masculine” machinery of war. In doing so, he playfully critiqued both the hawkish, hyper-masculine rhetoric of the military and the blatant consumerism of the United States. In addition to its feminine associations, the large lipstick tube is phallic and bullet-like, making the benign beauty product seem masculine or even violent.  The jux...

Marilyn Diptych. Andy Warhol. 1962 C.E. Oil, acrylic, and silkscreen enamel on canvas. Andy Warhol's Marilyn Diptych is made of two silver canvases on which the artist silkscreened a photograph of Marilyn Monroe fifty times.  At first glance, the work—which explicitly references a form of Christian painting in its title—invites us to worship the legendary icon, whose image Warhol plucked from popular culture and immortalized as art.  This image is a carefully crafted critique of both modern art and contemporary life. True to form, the actress looks at us seductively from under heavy-lidded eyes and with parted lips; Warhol’s use of the silkscreen technique further “flattens” the star’s face.  By screening broad planes of unmodulated color, the artist removes the gradual shading that creates a sense of three-dimensional volume, and suspends the actress in an abstract void. In this way, the painting suggests that “Marilyn Monroe,” is merely a one-dimensional ...