Art in the Expanded Field (update 2015)

Dankook UniversityIntroduction to Modern Art and Society

Prof. Simon Morley

Lecture: Art in the Expanded Field.Minimalism, Land Art, Conceptual Art, Performance Art, Installation Art

• Since the 1960’s art exists in an ‘expanded field’. It is an ‘open work’. It is hard to define what it is. The boundaries between art and architecture, art and landscape are ambiguous.

1. Minimalism

• With a small ‘m’, a general tendency in twentieth century art towards the purification and reduction of the artwork to minimal elements of colours, values, shapes and textures; with a capital ‘M’ a specific movement of the 1960’s stressing the idea of reducing a work of art to the minimum, and where no attempt is made to represent or symbolize any other object or experience. This movement is sometimes called ABC art, minimal art, reductivism, and rejective art.

• Donald Judd, Works from 1960s and 1970s

• Carl Andre, Works from 1960s and 1970s

Sol Lewitt

• Dan Flavin. Works from 1960s• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyroGz6TIY0

2. Land Art

• A tendency beginning in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s whose early phases were most associated with sculpture, having resulted from criticism of traditional sculptural forms and practices which were seen as outdated and potentially out of harmony with the natural environment. The category now encompasses many media.

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• Robert Smithson, Works from 1960s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUu0_Zn55yM

• Nancy Holt, ‘Sun Tunnels’• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLml6L9lbQU&list=PLn1Ld44t8ST

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• Christo• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z057rxwJXPo

• Richard Long, Works from 1970s• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlP-_CNTk1c

• Michael Heizer• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UvD4zup3pw&playnext=1&list=PLn1Ld44t8STg4SNtUWQmkyjQ9ikmDv-eN&feature=results_main

• Walter de Maria• ‘Lightening Field’• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFoIY_g6lB4

3. Conceptual Art• Art that is about an idea or a concept rather than aesthetic qualities or

representations. Conceptual Art emerged in the 1960s and continues to be an important tendency in contemporary art.

• concept - An idea, thought, or notion conceived through mental activity. The concepts behind (or informing) his work were fascinating.

• conceptual - In general, referring to a concept or conception. In reference to art and design, works that depart from a concern with aesthetics in favour of a mental formulation, rather than its appearance alone. Art concerned with the conceptual will be primarily interested in ideas, thought, and thinking rather than aesthetics. ‘Her work showed a clear conceptual basis.’

• Marcel Duchamp

Rene Magritte

• John Baldessari• 1960’s

Art and Language, 1970’s

Joseph Kosuth, 1960’s

Lawrence Weiner

Jenny Holzerhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqlZLSshbgU

4. Performance art

• art executed before a live audience.

• Bruce Nauman• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qml505hxp_c

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zfe2qhI5Ix4

• Chris Burden• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26R9KFdt5aY

• Joseph Beuys• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2VH8LzB6AM• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKutq11biOg

• Marina Abramovic• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcyYynu

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• Laurie Anderson• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VIqA3i2z

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5. Installation Art• Installation or installation art - Art that is or

has been installed — arranged in a place — either by the artist or as specified by the artist. It might be either site-specific or not, and either indoors or out. The term became widely used in the 1970s and 1980s, and continues to be employed by many people. Installations may be temporary or permanent, but most will be recorded through documentation. As a consequence, one aspect of installations is often the difficulty with which they can be turned into saleable products or be commodified.

• James Turrell• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyhwhdi_j-

Q&playnext=1&list=PL42A5996A3ECF5C67

• Bill Viola• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_urrt8X0l8• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYcqTgSvDoI

• Olafur Eliasson• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsT9vEpf

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• Fischli Weiss• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTobV-Gnv-8

• Francis Alys• http://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=ZedESyQEnMA

• Francis Alys, When Faith Moves Mountains http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eNuqLnFaYA

Kim Sooja: Korean Pavilion, Venice Biennale, 2015.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUSbYJyvVjU