Midterm Study Guide 1

Alright, you are all going to talk about several of the issues we have been covering. If you haven't noticed, I am not totally convinced that being able to define a term or an idea is the same as being able to talk about it, since definitions are treacherous. So be familiar with things, definitions appear when topics are discussed, so start discussing these things with each other as study sxcercises.

Study topics:

1) semiotics (the study of signs), in relation to Abstract Expressionism, Pop art, minimalism...but think of it mostly in relation to the gargantuan notion of "art":
think of the basics in semiotics: the signifier and the signifier, language(texts, spoken words), image (pictures, paintings, advertising), cultural signs (stop signs, the American flag, etc.)

2) constructivism , in art, familiarize yourself with 'the October Revolution, Suprematism, Malevich, Rodchenko, Tatlin, think of artists as 'workers'.
Constructivism as a development coming out of Russian Futurism. Futurism and Cubism were art movements that were developing more or less simultaneously during 1908-1919. 1919 is the year that constructivism was more or less in full effect. Constructivism was not known in the US, until the cold war was well under way: 1950s. Constructivism represented an alternative to the historical avant-garde than cubism or futurism (which was equated with fascism). Think of Flavin's "Monuments to Tatlin'

3) gestalt "the whole is more than the sum of its parts"

4) ontology (the study of being)

5) phenomenology (just for your thoughts, phenomenolgy has 3 definitions before it becomes very important to art with the publication of The Phenomenology of Perception by Maurice Merleau-Ponty:

a) Hegel says phenomenology is the a philosophical approach to consciousness which begins with the expoloration of phenomena, also called 'dialectical'.

b) Husserl defines phenomenology essentially, that is he studies the essence of phenomenological ontology from the first-person point of view, based on intuitive experience, also called 'transcendental'.

c) Heidegger applies a more structured approach, with object/subject of experience, focusing phenomenology on the 'experience of being' called 'ontological'.

6)The Phenomenology of Perception: of note in this text is that he sees two modes of expression: 1) the spoken language, that is language we speak, what he calls 'secondary expression'. 2) speaking language, that is language that actively engages our perception (senses, emotion, etc.), or 'primary expression'. These are weird I know, but will begin to make sense after spending time with them. Just know that he doesn't define 'art', but talks about it as a 'primary expression', or a speaking language, and discusses how art doesn't have to be in service to beauty, etc., and the Minimalists took to these ideas very intensely.

7) Capitalist-Realism in reference to Socialist-Realism, or even Fascist-Realism, also called the Art of the Third Reich (also called 'Romantic-Realism or Heroic-Realism, depending on who was writing the art history books), think Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter, then think of how this idea relates to the Independent Group and to Pop Art when it emerges in the U.S.

8) Avant-Garde and Kitsch: know the differences between the avant-garde, the historical avant-garde, kitsch, camp, popular taste, populism. Know who Clement Greenberg is, and what his relationship to the Abstract Expressionist was, and then his relationship to Abstract Painting after Ab Ex.

9) Marcel Duchamp, know readymades and his influence on many generations of artists.

10) structuralism, think of semiotics again, structuralism draws the world into binaries, they think of metanarratives, Claude Levi-Strauss and bricolage.

11) scatology poo and aesthetics