This Mona Lisa (1963) is one of the earliest works for which Andy Warhol employed silk-screening, the printing process that he adopted in 1962 to quickly and easily make multiple copies of preexisting images. Here, he revels in the act of duplication. By replicating a reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting Mona Lisa four times in two different ways, the artist reduces a masterwork epitomizing traditional notions of artistic genius and authorship to a pale shadow of its former self.
This Untitled Abstract Painting (circa 1963 or 64) is one of the last paintings made by Eva Hesse before she switched to sculpture. Its deconstructed symbols, figures, and shapes evoke natural forms and bodies without ever being directly identifiable. Delicate brushwork, soft colors and a light, witty touch lend this work a feminine quality that she intended as a rebuke to the masculinity of Minimalist Art. Hess was reading Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex at this time, and the text led her to question her own fragmented status as artist, woman and wife. Her work, though not overtly political, explores these issues in poetic, expressive abstractions.
Allan D’Arcangelo’s portrait of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and her young daughter Caroline adopts the bold style of modern advertising, epitomized by the broad areas of bright, unmodulated color. The image trades on the Kennedy’s brand status and visual legibility: its sitters are recognizable merely by virtue of their signature hairstyles and clothing, as well as Jackie’s string of pearls. Made just months before President Kennedy’s assassination1963,Madonna and Child’s take on an age-old religious theme is at once optimistic and disquieting. With their bright halos and featureless faces, Jackie and Caroline appear as contemporary icons and saviors even as they are reduced to mute images for public consumption.
Dan Flavin (1933 – 1996) began to use commercially available fluorescent light tubes in 1963. This work marries color and light, bringing them into three dimensions. In dialogue with the surrounding space, the vertical and horizontal tubes both illuminate and obscure the corner — a location not typically used for displaying art. Continue reading Modern Art Monday: Dan Flavin, Untitled (to the “Innovator” of Wheeling Peachblow)→
June 1st is the Birthday of ex-Smiths drummer Mike Joyce (1963), Alan Wilder (formerly) of Depeche Mode (1959) and Barry Adamson, composer and former bassist for Magazine (born 1958). Although we don’t hear much from Joyce or Wilder these days, Barry Adamson is still making some crazy music and composing soundtracks for mind-tweaking films such as David Lynch’sLost Highway. The soundtrack of Lost Highway is worth owning on the strength of Adamson’s atmospheric soundscapes alone. Happy Birthday, Guys!
Thanks to The P5 Blogspot: This Day in 80s Music, for bringing the Birthday Love!
