The Fifties

1
The Fifties
http//www.laurentianum.de/ldalbe03.gif
2
FORMALISMJosef Albers (German-US,1888 -1976)
selections from series, Homage to the Square
(top right) Ascending 1953 and (lower right)
Atuned, 1958, both are oil on masonite.Émigré
Bauhaus master, influential teacher at Black
Mountain College (1933-1949) and Yale University
(1949-1958)
Albers 1963 Interaction of Color, a classic
pedagogical text
http//www.laurentianum.de/ldalbe03.gif
3
Page from Albers Interaction of Color
4
Helen Frankenthaler (US,1928 - 2011), Mountains
and Sea, 1952, charcoal and oil on unprimed
canvas, 72 x 99Post-painterly abstraction,
Color Field painting
5
Helen Frankenthaler in her studio with Mountains
and Sea, 1952, on the right.
6
Helen Frankenthaler in 1950 on seeing Pollock's
paintings, Autumn Rhythm and Lavender Mist It
was as if I suddenly went to a foreign country
and didn't know the language, but had read
enough, and had a passionate interest, and was
eager to live there. I wanted to live in this
land. I had to live there, and master the
language." Photograph Jackson Pollock (far
left) with Lee Krasner (far right), Clement
Greenberg, unidentified child, and Helen
Frankenthaler at the beach near Springs, Long
Island. Unidentified photographer, ca. 1952.
7
Helen Frankenthaler, Magic Carpet, 1964, 96 X 68
inches, acrylic on canvasColor Field Painting
8
Morris Louis (US, 1912-1962), Tet, 1958,
synthetic polymer on canvas, 8 x 13ft. Influence
of Frankenthaler (1953 visit) and Clement
Greenberg
9
Kenneth Noland (US, 1924-2010) Turnsole, 1961,
synthetic polymer paint on unprimed canvas, 7' 10
1/8" x 7' 10 1/8 Noland made his first
completely individual statement when, as he said,
he discovered the center of the canvas.
Visitor in front of Turnsole in 2004
10
Ellsworth Kelly (US, b. 1923), Red Blue Green,
1963, c. 84 x 136 inches, oil on canvas, Museum
of Contemporary Art San Diego
11
Ellsworth Kelly, Broad Contemporary Art
Museum at LACMALos Angeles, February, 2008
12
Figurative Revival of the Fifties
What was formalist NY critic Clement Greenbergs
view of the return to the figure? (p. 156
Fineberg)
13
Grace Hartigan (US, 1922-2008), Summer Street,
1956, oil on canvas
14
New York School poet, Frank OHara and Grace
Hartigan published together in Folder, a
independent magazine (New York 1953-1956)
15
(No Transcript)
16
(left, at table) Frank OHara, Larry Rivers,
Grace Hartigan (and David Smith standing at far
left) at the Five Spot, NYC 1957 (right) Larry
Rivers, Jack Kerouac, David Amram, Allen
Ginsberg, Gregory Corso New York Schoolpoets
and Beat poets
17
Larry Rivers (US painter, sculptor, printmaker,
poet and musician,1923-2002) Portrait of Frank
OHara,1954, o/c, 97"/ 53. What does Fineberg
say about this portraits perverse irony? (p.
158)
Rivers and Frank OHara at work on collaborative
lithograph, 1958
18
Larry Rivers, Double Portrait of Berdie
mother-in-law,oil on canvas, 1954
 Rivers was also a jazz saxophonist who had
studied at Juilliard (Miles Davis was a
classmate.)
19
Larry Rivers, The Studio, 1956, oil on canvas,
610 x 16 ft, Minneapolis Institute of Art
20
Alice Neel (Pennsylvania US, 1900-1984 active
NYC), (right) Joe Gould, oil on canvas, 1933, 39
x 31 in. Tate Modern, London(left) Pregnant
Maria, oil on canvas, 1964, 32x47 in., private
collection
http//www.aliceneel.com/home/
21
David Amran and Alfred Leslie discussing 1959
independent artist film, Pull My Daisy, filmed by
Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie, narrated by Jack
Kerouac and featuring Allen Ginsberg (Howl was
written in 1955), the Beat poets and New York
Figurative painters, including Larry Rivers and
Alice Neel.
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vN4mQCnhKCd4
22
Clyfford Still (US, 1904-1980), 1951(right) Mark
Rothko,1952Taught at the California School of
Fine Art (now San Francisco Art Institute)
Abstract Expressionist influence on Bay Area
paintersDavid Park, Elmer Bischoff, and Richard
Diebenkorn
23
David Park (US, 1911-1960), (left) Seated Man in
a T-Shirt, 1958, SFMoMA(right) Art, Nature
Civilization, 1934, WPA Mural, Hayes Valley
(below right) Three Violinists and Dancers,
1935-37
WPA Social Realism
Bay Area Figurative Expressionism
24
David Park, Torso (detail, right) 1959,
SFMoMa"David was keen about Abstract
Expressionism as long as it had the immediacy and
tangibility and goopy sensuous arrangement of
forms, but when it got into the very serious
'views of the cosmos' he didn't go along with
that." (Elmer Bischoff)
25
Richard Diebenkorn, (1922-1993, born Portland,
Oregon, active Bay Area), Coffee, 1958, oil on
canvas. Bay Area Figuration
26
Compare (left) Edward Hopper, Morning Sun, oil
on canvas, 1952(right) Richard Diebenkorn, Woman
in Profile, oil on canvas, 1958
27
Richard Diebenkorn, Cityscape I, (Landscape No.
1), 1963, oil on canvas, 60 50 in, San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art
28
Richard Diebenkorn, Ocean Park No. 54, 1972, oil
on canvas, SFMOMA
29
Elmer Bischoff (US, 1916 -1991), Two Figures on
the Seashore, 1957, o/c(right) Orange Sweater,
1955. Bay Area Figuration
30
Joan Brown ,Fur Rat, 1962, wood, chicken wire,
plaster, string, raccoon fur, and nails 20 x 54
x 14 in. University of California, Berkeley Art
Museum. Bay Area Funk (Beat) and Figuration
overlapped. Joan Brown was a student of Elmer
Bischoff part of both movements.
Joan Brown c.1960

• Exhibition of works from the early 70s
  including cardboard sculptures (begun in her
  kitchen from household materials while her studio
  was under renovation)

31
Joan Brown (US, 1938-1990), Bay Area Figuration,
student of Elmer Bishoff(left) Wolf in Studio,
enamel on masonite, 90 x 48, 1972, Crocker MA,
Sacramento(right) Self With Fish, 1970 Brown
is second generation Bay Area Figuration
32
Bruce Conner (US 1933-2008) St Valentines Day
Massacre/Homage To Errol Flyn, 1960, mixed media.
Collection SFMOMAConner moved to San Francisco
in 1957 and wasa key figure in the Beat
community, along with visual artists Jay DeFeo,
Joan Brown, and Manuel Neri, and poets Lawrence
Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, and Philip
Lamantia. Formed The Rat Bastard Protection
Association, which included Joan Brown and Jay
de Feo
33
Bruce Conner, Snore, 1960, 36 1/2 x 15 x 20
inches, wood, fabric, nylon, string, metal vent,
paint, metal can, etc., Collection The Fine Arts
Museums of San Francisco
34
A still from Bruce Conners first film, A
Movie (1958), which was created by piecing
together scraps of B-movies, newsreels, novelty
shorts, and other preexisting footage. The
university library has a DVD with two films by
Bruce Conner Crossroads and Looking for
mushrooms America is Waiting
http//www.ubu.com/film/kitchen_conner.html
35
Bruce Conner, life-sized photogram from
the Angel series (1973-75), images of Conner's
own body floating on a black background.
36
Jay De Feo, The Rose, 1958-66, 129 x 92 x 11 in.,
oil on canvas with wood and mica, weighs over a
ton. Whitney MAARelated work on view at SFMoMA
37
A still from Bruce Conners film, The White Rose,
1967 (When painting was removed from her upstairs
apartment out the window.)
38
Cover of the influential anthology of writings by
Dada artists and writers edited by Abstract
Expressionist painter, Robert Motherwell,
1951(In 1951 painter was a synonym for
artist.)
(In 1951 painter was a synonym for artist.)
39
(left) Italian Futurist music event, 1913, The
music of chance and noise, including the sounds
of urban life (right) Hugo Ball performing Dada
poem at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich,
Switzerland, 1916
New York Dada In Advance of a Broken Arm by
Marcel Duchamp, 1915
Sources for Neo-Dada of the 1950s
Jean Arp, Collage Arranged According to the Laws
of Chance, 1916. Dada
40
John Cage (US, 1912-1992) early 1950s, prepared
piano, aleatory (chance) music, Zen Buddhism and
the I Ching (Book of Changes)"In the nature of
the use of chance operations is the belief that
all answers answer all questions.
Dont try to change the world, youll only make
it worse. -Cage
41
Allan Kaprow (US, 1927-2006), 18 Happenings in 6
Parts, Reuben Gallery, NYC, 1959

• Art News, October 1958, published Allan Kaprows
  article, "The Legacy of Jackson Pollock, which
  was an analysis of Pollock's work and a
  meditation on the meaning of Pollocks death
  (1956) for the painting avant-garde.

42
LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) and
artist Steve Roden reinvented 18 Happenings in 6
Parts (1959/2008) over five nights from April 22
through April 26, 2008.
43
Allan Kaprow, Yard, Martha Jackson Gallery, NYC
1961 compare (right) Pollock painting, 1950
From Action Painting to performance art.
Young artists of today need no longer say, "I am
a painter" or "a poet" or "a dancer." They are
simply "artists." All of life will be open to
them. - Allan Kaprow, The Legacy of Jackson
Pollock, 1958 (Artnews)
44
Allan Kaprow, photograph from Household, a
Happening commissioned by Cornell University,
1964. Open link below for 2008 re-enactment s
of Happenings for the MoCA Los Angeles Allan
Kaprow retrospective
http//www.moca.org/kaprow/index.php/category/hous
ehold/
45
Jiro Yoshihara (Japan 1905-1972), Painting, 1960
founded Gutai (Gutai Bijutsu Kyokai - Concrete
Art Association) in Osaka in 1954
When Jiro Yoshihara died in 1972 the Gutai Art
Association was dissolved.
46
Shozo Shimamoto (Japan 1928), (left) Ana (Holes),
1954, oil on layers of pasted newspapers,
pierced, 46 x 36, Tate London. Gutai
movement(right) Painting, 1955, oil on paper,
slashed and punctured
47
Atsuko Tanaka (Japan,1932-2005), Electric Dress
as performance (left) and display as object
(right) 1956, Gutai http//www.youtube.com/watch?
vJdXcZq16yFc Blinking incandescent lights
covered with red, blue, yellow, and green enamel
paint. Flashing on a circuit, the shapes and
colors of the figure wearing the costume changed
constantly, giving the impression of a body in
constant motion even when standing still.

• I was seated on a bench at the Osaka station,
  and I saw a billboard featuring a pharmaceutical
  advertisement, brightly illuminated by neon
  lights. This was it! I would make a neon dress!
  (Tanaka) The dress also references the
  traditional kimono and the nervous system of the
  body

48
Atsuko Tanaka Electric Dress performance photos,
1956, GutaiPresages the extreme and sometimes
dangerous performances of the 1970s feminist
movement.
49
Saburo Murakami, Gutai perfomance Smashing
Through (21 panels of 42 papers) second Gutai
exhibition, Tokyo, 1956
Internationally, performance art of the post-WW
II era came out of painting.
50
Kazuo Shiraga (Japan b. 1925), Challenge to the
Mud, Gutai performance, 1955
Art as a marriage of concept and raw material
the Gutai notion of allowing the cry of the
material
51
Shiraga, Second Gutai exhibition,1956, action
painting (verb) with feet (center below)
Painting (object) (right) Gutai exhibition of
Shiragas paintings (objects) made with feet
52
Marcel Duchamp (center) with Carolyn Brown and
Merce Cunningham after a performance of Walk
Around Time. Sound by John Cage, set (after
Duchamps Large Glass) by Jasper Johns.
Mid-1960s Neo-Dada
Rrose Sélavy by Man Ray, 1920
53
Marcel Duchamp,The Large Glass or The Bride
Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even, 1915-23
(below) photo of Duchamp by British Pop artist,
Richard Hamilton, c.1968
54
Robert Rauschenberg (US, 1925 - 2008), seated on
Untitled (Elemental Sculpture) with White
Painting (seven panel) behind him in the basement
of Stable Gallery, New York (1953). Paintings
were used for the famous Black Mountain Event
of 1952 by John Cage, who acknowledged that the
White Paintings enabled him to compose in August
1952 his iconic 4'33, during which the pianist
sits at the piano but does not play. Neo-Dada

• John Cages statement for the 1953 Stable show
  White Paintings "... No subject/ No Image/No
  taste/No object/No beauty/No message/ No
  talent/No technique.../No idea...

55
Fred McDarrah (US, b. 1926), Dillon's Bar,
University Place Frank O'Hara, Robert
Rauschenberg, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Jasper
Johns, and Anna Moreska, at Dillon's Bar, NYC,
Nov. 10,1959. Johns and Rauschenberg were
intimate between 1954-1962, when their most
historically significant work was
produced.(right, L-R) Robert Rauschenberg,
Merce Cunningham, and John Cage on tour with the
Merce Cunningham dance company
56
Robert Rauschenberg, Carolyn Brown, and Alex Hay,
Pelican, (MoMA archival footage, 41 seconds)
http//www.sfmoma.org/multimedia/videos/37
Pelican was presented first at America on
Wheels, a roller skating rink in Washington, D.C.
on May 9, 1963 in conjunction with The Popular
Image exhibition at the Washington Gallery of
Modern Art.
57
Robert Rauschenberg, Bed, 1955. Combine painting
oil and pencil on pillow, quilt, and sheet on
wood supports, 6' 3x 31 x 8" horizontal
production with vertical display, like Pollock.
Neo-Dada
Detail iconoclastic, scatological treatment of
paint, an anti-aesthetic, abject, post-Abstract
Expressionist parody of gesture painting. Paint
includes toothpaste and nail polish.
58
"I could never make the language of Abstract
Expressionism work for me -- words like
'tortured,' 'struggle' and 'pain,' I could never
see those qualities in paint. How can red be
'passion? Red is red. Jasper and I used to start
each day by having to move out from Abstract
Expressionism. Robert Rauschenberg
59
(left) Robert Rauschenberg, Erased de Kooning
Drawing,1955, SFMoMA, Neo-Dada (right) Willem de
Kooning, Woman 1, oil on canvas, 1952, MoMA NYC,
Abstract Expressionism. Art after Abstract
Expressionism has been called The Academy of the
Erased De Kooning.
Rauschenberg on The Erased de Kooning
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vtpCWh3IFtDQ
60
As his contribution to an exhibition of
portraits, Robert Rauschenberg sent a telegram to
the Paris Galerie Iris Clert in 1961, which said
'This is a portrait of Iris Clert if I say so.
Neo-Dada conceptualism
61
Rauschenberg, Monogram, 1955 - 59, Combine oil
and collage on canvas with objects.Emblem of the
artist who destroys painting? What could the
dingy tennis ball behind the goat signify? The
tire?
62
2005 exhibition of Robert Rauschenbergs Combines
from the 1950sMetropolitan MA, NYC
63
Robert Rauschenberg, Factum I and Factum II,
1957, oil, ink, pencil, crayon, paper, fabric,
newspaper, printed reproductions, and painted
paper on canvas, 61 x 35. Nearly identical
mixed media paintings that parody the
originality myth of the avant-garde, especially
Action Paintings signature gesture.
64
Robert Rauschenberg on stage in Paris for
performance painting with New Realist artists,
1961. Target of real flowers by Jasper Johns.
Niki de Saint Phalle shoot painting, Tir,
against back wall. Kinetic sculptor Jean
Tinguely looks through stage curtain.
65
Rauschenberg, (left) Tracer, oil silkscreen ink
on canvas, 84 x 60,1963(right) Retroactive I,
1964. I dont want a picture to look like
something it isnt. I want it to look like
something it is. And I think a picture is more
like the real world when its made out of the
real world.
A photograph is an actual trace of the real world.
66
Jasper Johns (US, b.1930), Flag. 195455,
encaustic, oil, and collage on fabric mounted on
plywood (three panels) 42 1/4 x 60 5/8" MoMA NYC.
Literal, conceptual painting. Parodic gestures
of Abstract Expressionism are congealed in wax,
thus contradicting and reifying the aesthetic of
individualism. Non-introspective.
Johns flags and targets, numbers and letters
were things the mind already knows . . . things
that were seen and not looked at, not examined.
67
(No Transcript)
68
Jasper Johns, Target with Plaster Casts, 1955,
encaustic and collage on canvas with objects,
newsprint visible beneath the wax, 51 x 44 x 3.5
A target is already flat (parodic reference to
Greenberg and Kenneth Noland) a sign, a thing
the mind already knows. Is this a target or a
representation of a target?
69
Jasper Johns, Painted Bronze, hand painted cast
bronze (one of two casts), 5.5 x 8 x 4.75, 1960,
Proto-Pop (Neo-Dada) In 1960, Johns heard that
de Kooning had complained of Leo Castelli, Johns
famous dealer "That son-of-a-bitch, you could
give him two beer cans and he could sell them.
Also an homage to his friendship with
Rauschenberg, who had moved to Florida in 1959.
70
Jasper Johns, False Start, 1959, oil on canvas,
67 1/4 x 54"

• It was as though the painter standing in front
  of the canvas, brush in hand, found that what was
  on the end of that brush was no longer a medium
  of wordless expression it was art history, art
  criticism, art theory, concepts words.
• Charles Harrison, Conceptual Art, the
  Aesthetic and the End(s) of Art

71

• Its a different art world from the one I grew
  up in. Artists today know more. They are aware
  of the market more than they once were. There
  seems to be something in the air that art is
  commerce itself.
• Jasper Johns, 2008
• Johns just accepted the 2011 Medal of Freedom,
  the United States highest civilian award