Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Earth Art
Fearing for the health of the earth's ecology, artists rediscovered the beauty of rocks, dirt,
trees, even the sound of the wind, using them to create natural art. A rock placed in a mu-
seum or urban square is certainly a strange sight.
Performance Art
The Tate Modern's collection of “sculptures” by Joseph Beuys—assemblages of steel,
junk, wood, and, especially, felt and animal fat—only hint at his greatest artwork: Beuys
himself.
Imagine Beuys (“boyss”) walking through the museum, carrying a dead rabbit, while
he explains the paintings to it. Or taking off his clothes, shaving his head, and smearing
his body with fat.
This charismatic, ex-Luftwaffe art shaman did ridiculous things to inspire others to
break with convention and be free. He choreographed “Happenings”—spectacles where
people did absurd things while others watched—and pioneered performance art, in which
the artist presents himself as the work of art. Beuys inspired a whole generation of artists
to walk on stage, cluck like a chicken, and stick a yam up themselves. Beuys will be
Beuys.
New Media
Minimalist painting and abstract sculpture were old hat, and there was an explosion of new
art forms. Performance art was the most controversial, combining music, theater, dance,
poetry, and the visual arts. New technologies brought video, assemblages, installations,
artists' books (paintings in book form), and even (gasp!) realistic painting.
Conceptual Art
Increasingly, artists are not creating an original work (painting a canvas or sculpting a
stone) but assembling one from premade objects. The
concept
of which object to pair with
another to produce maximum effect (“Let's stick a crucifix in a jar of urine,” to cite one
notorious example) is the key.
Ronald Reagan in America, Margaret Thatcher in Britain, and corporate executives around
the world ruled over a conservative and materialistic society. On the other side were
starving Ethiopians, gay men with the new disease AIDS, people of color, and women—all
demanding power. Intelligent, peaceful, straight white males assumed a low profile.
