The twentieth century has witnessed many transformations in the ways we produce and respond to works of art. It has seen the rise of altogether new media, approaches, and a wealth of new interpretative frameworks. The emergence of manufactured goods, modernism, and a ubiquitous mass culture contribute to the upheaval, in the 1960’s and 70’s, of established art practices and approaches. Pop Art emerges as an important response to, extension of, or parody of what Clement Greenberg called “Ersatz culture” and “kitsch”, which, to paraphrase Greenberg, represent the omnipresent abominations of commercial and replicated art (Greenberg 9). This essay will observe and discuss the interaction of Canadian pop culture, art, and identity in Joyce Wieland’s “O Canada (Animation)”, and will underline how works of Pop Art serve to elevate kitsch into “a new state of aesthetic dignity” (Eco 228).
Made in 1970, the year of Wieland’s return to Canada, “O Canada (Animation)” is a large embroidery piece on fabric depicting a series of luscious, bright red lips mouthing the words to the Canadian anthem, ultimately a visual rendition of its lip-synching. (It also exists as lithographic prints, where the mouths are similar to lipstick). The mouths are analogous to those of pin up girls and advertisements; the piece hangs loosely like a banner or flag. Wieland has just spent several years living in New York City and is now delving into works dealing with Canadian nationalism and traditionally feminine handcrafts. “O Canada” would not become the official Canadian anthem until 1980, but already in 1966, Lester B. Pearson is placing motions so that the song may become the country’s anthem. Similarly, the maple leaf flag is first flown in 1965 – nationali...
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... New York: Schocken Books, 2007. pp 217-51
-Eco, Umberto, “Lowbrow Highbrow, Highbrow Lowbrow” in Pop Art: The Critical Dialogue, ed. Carol Anne Mashun (Ann Arbor & London: UMI Research Press, 1989)
-Fleming, Marie, excerpt from “Joyce Wieland: A Perspective,” Joyce Wieland (Tornto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1987), pp. 44-70
-Greenberg, Clement, “Avant-Garde & Kitsch” (first published 1939) Art and Culture: Critical Essays (Boston: Beacon Press, 1939) pp.3-21
-Hebdige, Dick, “In Poor Taste: Notes on Pop,” chapter in Modern Dreams: The Rise and Fall of Pop (New York: ICA & London: MIT Press, 1988) pp. 77-85
-McTavish, Lianne “Body Narratives in Canada, 1968-99: Sarah Maloney, Catherine Heard, and Kathleen Sellars” in Woman’s Art Journal, Vol. 21, No. 2 Fall 2000 - Winter 2001. pp. 5-20
-Wieland, Joyce, “O Canada (Animation)” Embroidery on cloth. 1970.
Pop Art was a Modern art movement that emerged durring the mid-twentieth century in both England and America. It first began to gain recognition in the early 1950’s, after about twenty years of Abstract, as artists altered their attention and looked to change. In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, Pop Art became much more popular to the general public and successful for the movement’s artists due to the world growing tired of the repeditive forms of Abstract. Found in the Menil Collection, Seated Woman and Lavender Disaster are two examples of Pop Art. The comparison of these two pieces shows although they differ in medium and subject matter both Seated Woman and Lavender Disaster share common underlying themes possesed by all Pop Art.
“…the culture industry has brought about the false elimination of the distance between art and life, and this also allows one to recognize the contradictoriness of the avant-gardiste undertaking: the result is that the Avant-garde, for all its talk of purging art of affirmation with forces of production consumption, became an accomplice in the total subsumption of Art under capitalism.”
"1920's Art." The 1920's - Roaring Twenties - The Nineteen Twenties in History. 2005. Web. 28 Feb. 2011. .
Prior to World War I, Canada as a nation had an identity crisis. A key factor in Canada’s pursuit of an identity are the countries that have influenced it.Through the influences that other countries have had upon the nation of Canada, Canada has been able to create a unique identity. The nation was created without one, but it was able to create a unique nation that in turn, went on to influence those who’s influences it drew from originally. Canada’s national identity is attributed to our role in World War I. Due to our British and French Heritage, there was a conflict of interest concerning the nation’s expectations. In the 1920’s, Canada achieved independence from Britain, as seen in the Statute of Westminster in 1931. Even though Canada remains part of the Commonwealth, its independence was starting to be recognized globally, through foreign and economic relations with non-commonwealth countries. When Britain declared war on Germany in 1914, Canada was automatically enlisted in the war as well. Within three week, 45,000 Canadians had been enlisted, and John McCrae was one of them.1 McCrae was a Canadian physician and soldier. On Sunday May 2nd, 1915, Lieutenant John McCrae scribbled a rough poem on the battlefield of Flanders, France. The day before, his closest friend, Alexis Herlmer of Ottawa had been killed by a shell. McCrae performed the ceremony for his friend the night of his death. As the battle of Flanders continued on, wild poppies began blooming between the marked crosses that marked the various makeshift graves.2
No other artist has ever made as extended or complex career of presenting herself to the camera as has Cindy Sherman. Yet, while all of her photographs are taken of Cindy Sherman, it is impossible to class call her works self-portraits. She has transformed and staged herself into as unnamed actresses in undefined B movies, make-believe television characters, pretend porn stars, undifferentiated young women in ambivalent emotional states, fashion mannequins, monsters form fairly tales and those which she has created, bodies with deformities, and numbers of grotesqueries. Her work as been praised and embraced by both feminist political groups and apolitical mainstream art. Essentially, Sherman’s photography is part of the culture and investigation of sexual and racial identity within the visual arts since the 1970’s. It has been said that, “The bulk of her work…has been constructed as a theater of femininity as it is formed and informed by mass culture…(her) pictures insist on the aporia of feminine identity tout court, represented in her pictures as a potentially limitless range of masquerades, roles, projections” (Sobieszek 229).
Pop art is an experimental art which surfaced in Great Britain in the early 1950’s. One of the major art movements of the twentieth century, it came into its own in the United States in the late 1950’s. This art form incorporated photographs in ways that had not been utilized before. It utilized mass-culture imagery and iconography, in contrast to the traditional tendencies of fine art. Pop art is considered to be one of the last modern art movements and served as a precursor to postmodern art. The art form is characterized by themes and techniques derived from mass culture, including advertising and comic books. Perhaps one of the most famous Pop artists, is Andy Warhol.
From the start of the 1920's, Canadians have faced a considerable amount of threat towards the Canadian culture from it's American neighbours. For Canada, living so close causes a concern on Canadian identity from American implementation, however, being in a close relationship with the States, it has also promoted Canadian culture. An examination of the nation's success with CBC from America's involvement in the airwaves, Canadian nationalism is promoted through Hockey Night in Canada and the establishment of the National Film Board during the growth of American entertainment industries, will clearly prove that American influence has not diminished Canadian identity but in fact has strengthened it.
Rock ‘n’ roll and 20th Century Culture According to Philip Ennis, rock ‘n’ roll emerged from the convergence of social transformations which resulted from World War II (Ryan 927). Despite its pop culture origins, rock music is arguably one of the strongest cultural factors to develop in this century. Artists such as Lennon, McCartney and Dylan defined the emotions of a generation and, in the last decade, it as even been acknowledged by members of the establishment which it hoped to change as a major influence in the country. In order to understand how rock went from a sign of rebellion to a cultural icon, it is necessary to understand where it came from.
“ Canada 's national obsession seems to be its own identity.” For many years Canada has feared the increasing influence of its North American neighbors on its culture - the United States . It has become a matter of growing concern for the people of power and influence in Canada to maintain their separate cultural identity and to promote their own cultural norms. Gaetan Tremblay presents his views on this topic and does this from the perspective of a person living and working in Quebec.
Thompson, John Herd, and Mark Paul Richard. "Canadian History in North American Context." In Canadian studies in the new millennium. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008. 37-64.
Epstein, Dan. 20th Century Pop Culture: The Early Years to 1949. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2001. Print.
These cultural strictures come in a number of forms. First, the artist attacks intellectual conformity, choosing art over all other means of self-expression even though it is not widespread in his or her society. Though it is not explicitly stated - and is perhaps even subconscious - the artist chooses art over either academe or high society. The artist questions society's customs, making this choice explicit in their daily actions. The artist rejects ostentatious displays of wealth and the cultural emphasis on money, replacing it with a frugal simplicity more conducive to authentic experience. Finally, the artist calls into question the cultural construct most important to any understanding of human interaction - the binary conception of gender.
This paper deals, in broadest terms, with the questions of how artwork is connected to the changes and dynamics that prevail in a society. To describe these changes, I will investigate how a specific type of art reflects its social content in contemporary societies. My analysis is carried out by closely looking at the Pop Art movement, especially with Andy Warhol, who has come to be known as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. It will be argued that Pop Art managed to successfully articulate its time, and in so doing, it became a widely influential art movement whose effect is still very much existent in today’s world of art. In order to prove its claim, this paper relies on the theory of “the field of cultural production” by Pierre
In popular entertainment, if not in literature, yesterday's avant garde is often tomorrow's mainstream, so the term can function as a label simply identifying the next trend. As the American poet John Ashbery pointed out in an influential 1968 essay on the nature of the avant garde, where once an innovative artist had to wait a whole career to see their work absorbed into m...
To conclude, the use of body for Feminist and Performance artists in the 1960s-1970s was significant in confronting the way women were viewed as artists in a male dominated art world. It was a vital element in raising consciousness and showing action towards the ideas of feminism. (Holt.J, 2009) Feminine nudity was a controversial problem, which female artists wanted to provoke in order to gain equality. The body became a form of expression to transform social stereotypes, and used as a primary medium, which reasserted aspects of a women’s figure that had been traditionally ignored or repressed by the male majority. (Holt.J, 2009) The body had just become one platform used by feminism and performance artists such as, Cindy Sherman, Carolee Schneemann and Hannah Wilke to rebel and promote their ideas, in order to gain equal rights.