Chapter TwentyTwo The Contemporary Contour

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Chapter Twenty-TwoThe Contemporary Contour
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Toward a Global Culture

• Artistic satire of modern warfare
• Heller, Pynchon, Kubrick
• Global economy, New World Order
• Economic, social inequities
• Search for individual, social meaning
• Social, political oppression

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Existentialism

• Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
• Autonomous individual, self-examination
• Who am I? What am I doing here? Where am I going?
• Sartre (1905-1980)
• Implications of atheism
• Individual place, freedom, ethics

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Existentialism

• Thought Action
• Multi-media expression
• Emphasis on anxiety, alienation
• Existentialist theater, fiction
• Beat poets as existentialists

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Painting Since 1945Abstract Expressionism

• Devoid of recognizable content
• Subjective aesthetic experience
• Line, color, shape
• Action Painting, New York School
• Jackson Pollock (1912-1956)
• Radical break from tradition
• overall painting

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• Image 22.4
• Jackson Pollock, Number 1,1948

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Painting Since 1945The Return to Representation

• Consideration of the object
• Andy Warhol
• Pop Art, popular culture, consumerism

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• Image 21.12
• Andy Warhol, Mick Jagger

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Architecture

• Louis Sullivan (1856-1924)
• Form follows function
• Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1959)
• Function is accomplished through form
• Organic architecture
• Flow of space vs. obstruction of space
• Guggenheim Museum (1957-1959)

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• Image 22.40
• Frank Lloyd Wright, Guggenheim Museum

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Architecture

• Buildings as sculpture
• New materials, flexibility and creativity
• Saarinen, TWA Flight Center, New York
• Utzons Opera House, Sydney, Australia

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• Image 22.42
• Euro Saarinen, Trans World Flight Center

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Architecture

• Bauhaus design
• Less is more
• The Pompidou Center
• Industrial design
• Garishness, nervous energy

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• Image 22.47
• Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, Georges Pompidou
  National Center for Arts an Culture

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Trends in Contemporary Literature

• Human search for meaning
• Experiences of the war
• The American Experience
• Literature of social, political protest
• Postmodernist writing
• Mastery of and extension beyond tradition

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New Music Since 1945Popular Music

• Rooted in Western musical traditions
• Tangled interrelationship of genres
• Medium reflects social change, turmoil
• Concerts as multi-media happenings
• Social document, record of past
• Communication revolution

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Chapter Twenty-Two Discussion Questions

• With contemporary art in its various forms, to
  what extent is the medium the message? What does
  the composition of the art itself contribute to
  the artists theme, message, or primary emotion?
  Explain, citing specific examples.
• The evolution of Western artistic traditions
  reveals subtle changes in the ways in which the
  role of the artist is perceived. What is the role
  of twenty-first-century artists? How is this role
  different than/similar to artists from other
  historical epochs? Explain.
• As an individual living in the twenty-first
  century, what artistic form or genre most appeals
  to you? Why? Do you prefer to view art as a
  reflection of your personal values
  (subjectively), or is your attraction to art one
  of an objective nature? Explain, citing specific
  examples when appropriate.