Post-Modernism

1. Post-Modernism

2. World War II and its Aftermath • The Holocaust • Post-War America • Existentialism: Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus • The Absurd • Theater of the Absurd: Samuel Beckett, Peter Weiss • The Existential Hero: Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man, Joseph Heller’s Catch-22

3. The Post-War Era • New York: European artists fleeing Europe congregated in N.Y. • The New York School, Abstract Expressionism: Jackson Pollock, Autumn Rhythm: Number 30 (fig. 23.2) and Mark Rothko, Red, Brown, and Black (fig.23.5)

4. Pop Art, Minimalism, Avant-garde • Pop art – irreverence to tradition: beer cans, flags, advertisements, media • Andy Warhol: Coca-Cola, Campbell’s Soup, movie stars (Marilyn Diptych – fig. 23.15) • Robert Rauschenberg’s “combine paintings” • “Minimalism” in sculpture: Donald Judd, Untitled (fig.23.19) • Performance Art – theatrical presentations with mixed visual arts and media: “Happenings,”,Martha Graham’s modern art school

5. Sculpture • Henry Moore: massive human forms. Influenced by Aztec and Mayan sculpturesThe Recumbent Figure (fig. 21.20) • Alexander Calder’s mobiles (fig. 23.11) • Louise Nevelson: used discarded objects and materials in a technique called “assemblage,” Sky Cathedral (fig. 23.14)

6. Modern Architecture • Mies van der Rohe’s International Style: Lake Shore Drive Apartment Houses, Chicago (fig. 23.8) • Le Corbusier: Notre-Dame-du-Haut (fig.23.9) • Frank Lloyd Wright: Guggenheim Museum (fig. 23.10)

7. Music/Pop • Leonard Bernstein: Candide, West Side Story • Andrew Lloyd Weber: Cats, Evita, Phantom of the Opera • Rock-and-roll: Elvis, Chuck Berry, The Beatles • Rhythm and Blues/Soul

8. Post-Modernism • Skepticism toward any representation of reality that claimed to be universal or objective • Focus on the “construction of reality” through language and symbol • Emphasis on the local and particular rather than the universal • In the arts, a tendency toward parody, pastiche, and an eclectic mixture of styles (sometimes taken from history)

9. Post-Modern Architecture • Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers: The Pompidou Center, Paris (fig.23.24) • Frank Gehry: Gehry House, Santa Monica (fig.23.25)

10. Minimalism in Music • Philip Glass: opera, Einstein on the Beach • John Adams: opera, Nixon in China, The Death of Klinghoffer

11. Visual Arts • Superrealism • Chuck Close: photographic image in paint • Duane Hanson: sculpted life-sized humans • Earth Art: Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty • Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Central Park Gates (fig.23.23)

12. New Fiction • Meta-fiction: stories about stories, fiction about fiction • Thomas PynchonGravity’s Rainbow • Jorge Luis Borges: Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis, Tertius

13. Magical Realism in Fiction • Qualities: • elements of the fantastic or marvelous • a lack of discursive explanation • an acceptance of the irrational and illogical • an abundance of sensory images and details • temporal distortions and causal disturbances • elements of folklore and legend • multiple perspectives and points of view • ambiguity and uncertainty • Writers: Gabriel García Márquez, Isabel Allende

14. Liberated Voices • Novelist Chinua Achebe (Nigerian): Things Fall Apart • Artist Betye Saar: The Liberation of Aunt Jemima (fig. 24.6) • Playwright and activist Vaclav Havel: Letters to Olga • Artist Judy Chicago: The Dinner Party (fig. 24.2) • Novelist Toni Morrison: Beloved • Writer N. Scott Momaday: House Made of Dawn • Architect Maya Lin: Vietnam War Memorial (fig.24.10)

15. A New Century • 9/11 The Twin Towers • Arata Isozaki:Team Disney Building, Orlando • Renzo Piano: Osaka Airport, Japan • Frank Gehry: Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain • “Hip-hop,” rap • Nam June Paik, video art • Painter Ma Liuming Baby 5 • Architect Daniel Libeskind: Ground Zero