At this point, January 2003, we had to submit our first essay from a list of recommended subjects, or even one of our own with prior permission. It is relatively short as our first 2nd year Essay, 1500 words.

I chose Minimalism. Click here to read my Essay.

1st Lecture

Guardians of the secret, 1943, Jackson Pollack.

Abstract Expressionism. Post Modernism

Several American painters emerged during the cold war after WW2.

Jackson Pollack, Mark Rothko, Arshile Gorky being notable.

later joined by Willem de Kooning, Barnett Newman, Robert Motherwell, Clyfford Still & Adolf Gottleib

Portrait of V I Lenin by V Charngovich (1970) in the style of Jackson Pollack, 1980, Art & Language.

Look closely, it appears to be an icon of postwar experimental art-an early 1960's abstraction by Jackson Pollack. However it is by a group of post- 1960's Conceptual artists.

Give it a minute and and an image of Lenin reveals itself.

This peculiar marriage of styles is clearly bound up with with two divergent artistic principles; realism and abstraction.

Second Lecture

Bed, 1955, Robert Rauschenberg

This work by Rauschenberg was extremely significant. He was associated with the Abstract Expressionists but such work had more of a Dada spirit.

From 1955 to 1960, he had a studio in the same building as his friend, Jasper Johns.

Both artists went on to pioneer new ways and have been recognised as the mediators on the way to Pop Art.

They used "ready mades, junk" not dissimilar to Joseph Cornell

And one can see how Andy Warhol came about after this scene

Target with Plaster Casts, Jasper Johns

These images and a few others comprised our first two lectures.

We also saw a short film made by Jeff Koons and debated his akin to Duchamp, except Koon's "ready mades" were made under his commission to other craftsmen.

Our third lecture was on British Pop Art

Led by a group who called themselves "the Independant Group", they met at the ICA in London. Founded in 1946 by people like Roland Penrose, advocates of Surrealism, they identified with mainland European Experimentation as opposed to Neo-Romantic and Realists. They identified with capitalism's cultural consumers. The word "POP" was first used in about 1955.

The era was also marked by the Festival of Britain era in 1951..........and the Government of the day's saying "You've never had it so good".

This is Richard Hamilton's "Just what is it...?"

Peter Blake produced many works.

This one is called "Bo Diddley"

David Hockney, although domiciled in California, his work of the day followed this style.

"A Bigger Splash" 1967

Film

After this lecture was were shown a BBC documentary film, 4 years old, exposing how the CIA was involved back in the 50's, secretly sponsoring and promoting Abstract Expressionism. The cold war was on and they knew that the Eastern Bloc was restricted by the State in it's arts. They wanted to promote the new freedom in the arts in the USA.

It was also noted that this is not the first time countries or businesses have got involved in art. Pop Art was supported by a German Chocolate company, who purchased lots.

Similary Saatchi can be thought to promote art not recognised at the time by the establishment.

4th Lecture: American Pop Art

How famous can you get? my own digital rendition of my grandaughter is obviously after the style of Roy Lichtenstein, who emerged with Andy Warhol as the first Americans to embrace the emerging effects of new global mass media on popular culture.

Warhol took it to such a degree that he opened his own "The Factory" and using assistants produced 2000 works in the six months between August and the end of 1962.

James Rosenquist

Marilyn Monroe 1, 1962

Tom Wesslemann

Bathtub 3, 1963

5th Lecture: Fluxus

Fluxus was about 'happenings' - 'actions' - 'events' and came about in the late 50's & 60's.

I'ts roots came from Dada and Surrealism but was not the anti-art of these earlier movements. It was a moment in history - a way of looking at Society. "Fluxus is what fluxus does - but nobody knows who dunnit" said Emmett Williams.

Left: Vagina Painting by Shigeko Kubota.

Yoko Ono was also involved at the time with her "Cut Piece" illustrating vunerability & self abuse.

George Maciuna had international ambitions for fluxus establishing a network through Europe. This was brought to an end in 1963 when it took a political turn with Maciuna advocating civil disruption which alienated its members. It continued fractionalised to 1970 but by then had an anti-art tendency.

Left: Willem de Ridder, European Mail-Order House/Fluxshop. (a 1984 reconstrction of his 1964/5 piece) An installation in de Ridder's living room.

One of it's stalwarts at the begining was the composer John Cage who had a great influence. He had radical views on time/space, like you could listen to what you would normally look at; music with no sound, etc.

Fluxus was therefore short lived but from thence came an explosion of performance art.

Rebecca Horn, Carole Schneemann, Vito Accondi, and Gilbert & George to name a few

Minimalism was fundamentaly a male movement until Eva Hesse came along. She was German born and was also a friend of Sol LeWitt. Her work at the time was very significant.

Later the work broadened with artists such as Richard Serra, Bruce Nauman, Barry Flanagan & Niele Toroni

Art Povera was exclusively from Italy, it had no roots from Abstract Expressionism. Povera meant poverty, impoverished art. The phrase was not coined until 1969 by the Italian art critic Germano Celant.

It was also likened to Nomadism, Vagabondism and a shift from traditional materials

This famous piece by Pistoletti is representative Classical vs Chaos.

It was also political, maps of Italy turned upside down representing the North/South divide.(Fabro)

Povera looked at the past in a modern manner. It also reflected the awful time Italy experienced in WW2.

Art Povera challenged the settled order of things, and valued more the process of the artist's life which sough poetry in the presence of materials, than objects offering meaning alone. The viewer of the works of art, confronted with the fact of their existence, ought to feel equally free to explore the implications of their material qualities (Thames & Hudson, Art since 1960, page 88)

Below Victor Burgin's Possession, 1976

The roots can be again traced to Duchamp. Conceptual theory became that art could be language. Ideas could be art. The intention was more important than anything else.

In England, Art & Language group was formed, later joined by people in New York.

Victor Burgin attacked Art & Language for their allegience to analytic philosophical procedures Burgin saw photography as a means to a more social engagement.

We first looked at Modernism in architecture, Corbusier, and the bland style which has now gone out of fashion.

On the left is Vana Venturi House, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1962. Robert Venturi is identified as the instigator of change. This was the beginning of Post Modernism.

From 1962 Architecture took a new turn. Variety returned. As illustrated by hotels, city halls, etc. Examples can be found nowadays in Malls, Disneyland and hotels like the Luxor in Las Vegas (pillage from Egypt) and Museums

It is also described as "Duck and decorated Shed" (Venturi). One ultimate building shown is the Jewish Museum in Berlin, by architect Danial Libeskind (shown here)

Buildings have become hugely influenced by "Art"

Danial Libeskind's Spiral, the extension to the V&A coming soon.

Of course such a contemporary building is not to everyones taste.

The two examples; Barbara Kruger used words and 'borrowed' images to get her message across. Sherrie Levine here printed a 1936 photo in 1981 and the work became her own. Both were connected with feminism.

The photograph came more into being as art. Questions were raised concerning photographers moving war bodies to ensure dramatic photos.

Jeff Koons "rabbit" was an example of how the art work refelects the gallery space.

Art itself became a commodity. Large corporations competing with each other at auctions. A Van Gogh fetched a record price of $24.75m in 1997. This was not new, as Vollard was the dealer who promoted the Impressionists, but the sheer size of how Art has now become a commodity is unprecedented.

Capitalisation has been divided into categerories;

1. MARKET CAPITALISM (18th - 19th c)

2. MONOPOLY CAPITALISM (19th - 1st half 20th c)

3. MULTI NATIONALIST CAPITIALISM (2nd half 20th c)

We then saw a short modern documentary video, The New Eastenders, all about Sothebys auction house and an auction. A piece by Tracy Emin was re-sold for £95k and was purchased by Charles Saachi. Art as a commodity was well illustrated.

First we saw an image from Art and Language, art with a plywood board with holes obcscuring it, so you could never see the whole image, even through the holes.....Art & Language's protest of how they view the modern Gallery Museum system.

Museums arrived in 1700, but they were only for the elite, the chosen few. Other art was displayed prior to this only in wealthy landowners private collections, again only for the elite apart from staff and servants. The Church was about the only place for the masses to view art, but even then it was "instructional" art, the Trinity.

The British Museum opened in 1759 but was limited to referenced entry, forms had to be filled in and you were vetted as suitable material. Even then it was limited to 10 people and hour.

So viewing art was a preserve of the few..........the rich and wealthy only.

The turning point came with the Great Exhibition of 1851 followed soon after with the Great Paris Exhibition.

Museums and Galleries were constucted for grandeur, mainly Neo Classical architecture. They required them to be awesome, quiet, dictating spectatorship and asking to be relevant.

The British were very conservative along these lines but avante garde museums did spring up with buildings such as the Guggenheim in Bilbao.

The white cube commenced with such buildings as the Moma, New York. The Moma was started by three women at a time when Modern Art was out of favour in the USA.

Other museums of note the D'Orsay in Paris, a converted railway station, where the architecture can overpower the art. Paris also has the Pompidou, a very modern building.

We looked at the history of curating, early galleries were hung floor to ceiling, the best considered work was hung at eye level, the remainder was elevated or hung near the floor.

It is recognised now how significant the curating and the whole philosophy of gallery or museum works. Art does not always work ... "Museums can seriously damage your health". The whole scene is important, the seating, the restaurant facilities, the merchandising, the way you are lead through the system, the way the walls are decorated, the lighting arrangement and even to the frames.

It was interesting to note that the "impressionists" work was originally in plain cheap wood frames but it now adorned by ornate gilded versions. The galleries and museums have a huge resonsibility to the art world and as most curators now have as a minumum qualification, an art degree, they themselves are considered artists in their presentations.

The private world also has a responsibility, such as Saachi vs Tate Modern.

Museums have changed from being the educator to theatre perhaps?

They have also become political, such as the Great Exhibition of 1851 welding the country together in times of strife. Similarly political art is readily accepted..........this can also keep the populus happy.

We first looked at Duchamp's Urinal and then works such as the photo of the NY Moma wrapped up and the Los Angeles Museum on fire, the latter two a pun by artists. Many contemporary artists resent the power of the Museums and Galleries. Artists thmselves have continued to "buck" the system such as Susan Hillier's portable museum.

People took to "land art" out of the Museums. Marcel Broodthaers set up his own "Eagles" museum in 1972. He also set up a museum on a beach and the whole thing was obliterated when the tide came in.

The Guerilla girls had posters printed connected with the exclusion of women from galleries. There was a big "expose" of the directors of the Guggenheim exploiting people by owning and renting slum dwellings in New York with "extortion" muted.

The private galleries and politicians were not let off the hook, Hans Haacke's "Taking Stock", 1983/4, depicted Margaret Thatcher, symbolism, and the Saatchi Bros. An allusion to Thatcher's Victorian values and the Saatchi bros supporting the Conservative Party.

When NY Mayor, Guilliani, attempted to stop the "Sensation" exhibition, artists took him to court and won the day.

Art away from the galleries flourished. Alan McCullen, Andrew Marlaux, Andy Goldsworthy, Anna Merziata all being artists who worked independantly from the system.

Fred Wilson put on a show to illustrate how galleries could affect the public's interpretation. Power by curating was a topical theme, it can make or break an art piece.

After the lecture we watched excerpts from TV documentaries on art. Kenneth Clarke, Robert Hughes, Mathew Collins, James Turell, John Berger, Adorno are all names which came up.

Adorno concluded there is a smugness and totalitarian about what we are fed from TV. "More and more information but less and less meaning"

Post Colonialism brought huge changes to identity and culture.

All people were not affected equally; eg. The culture of Hip-Hop, music originated from the ghettos of the USA was now widespread creating an imaginary community worldwide. Similary Soul and Funk Jazz with white influences had become a worldwide cultural music, part of life today.

Post Modern, eclectic, the map of the world was redrawn culturally as the great Empire declined.

It became Post Colonial theory that other cultures should have a say in a multicultural society.

Edward Said, Homi Bhabua and Gayatri Spivak were three writers who researched and wrote on this subject

Eurocentrism, such as collective singing artists raising funds for Etheopia were examples, this was Eurocentric.

This thinking can be found in art.

Picasso pillaged from Africa. Orientalism came to being example such as Delacroix's "the Women of the Harem"

During Modernism non Western Art was labelled as "other". It was virtually excluded. The NY MOMA put on a show in 1984 entitled Primitism in 21c Art. Tribal and Modern. Brancusi's "Endless Column" was shown as were many western Modernists alongside Tribal Art from Africa.The show came out as implicating Tribal Art was insignificant; Tribal Art was religious, shamanistic !

A good reference to all of this is Michael Tucker's book "Looking through Open Eyes"

But Western Art cultures pillaging from African art and artifacts became commonplace after Picasso. It quickly assimilates the work as becoming your own and loses the old symbolic identity of the work as "magic", "healing", "protection", "fertility". But this pillaging can be seen as allowing Western Art to move forward. Many artists can be seen to adopt this; Barbara Hepworth, Dego Rivera, Jackson Pollack to name a few.

Inspite of their success it was impossible for any "original" work from anyone outside the West to be recognised in the Art Word let alone be hung in Galleries.

In 1987, Rasheed Araeen staged a very significant show at the Hayward Gallery. Similarly in 2000, Arnofini had a major exhibition of Gordon Bennett (the Urban Aboriginal Artist) at Bristol. Below work from that exhibition by Gordon.

Of course, Japanese art was similarly pillaged by Western Art. Another book on the subject is Katherine King's Book "Through African Eyes"

The lecture culminated with a video of a film made about the Hayward Gallery's 1987 Exhibition.