AP Art History Unit 10 Cheat Sheet: Global Contemporary

Timeline: 1978–2005

All 17 Works at a Glance

#	Title	Artist	Date	Medium	Region	Key Concept
01	Untitled	Jean-Michel Basquiat	1982	Acrylic, oil paintstick on wood	American	Neo-expressionism; race & death; SAMO
02	Pink Panther	Jeff Koons	1988	Glazed porcelain	American	Neo-Pop; kitsch elevated; high/low
03	Untitled Film Still #21	Cindy Sherman	1978	Gelatin silver print	American	Feminist photography; male gaze; identity
04	Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.)	Félix González-Torres	1991	Candy pile, 175 lbs.	Latin American	AIDS crisis; participatory; diminishing body
05	Dancing at the Louvre	Faith Ringgold	1991	Acrylic on canvas, fabric border	American	Story quilt; Black women; art history exclusion
06	Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People)	Jaune Quick-to-See Smith	1992	Oil, paper collage on canvas	Indigenous	Columbus 500 years; Native mascots; land theft
07	En la Barbería No Se Llora	Pepón Osorio	1994	Mixed-media installation	Latin American	Latino masculinity; kitsch excess; community
08	Rebellious Silence	Shirin Neshat	1994	Gelatin silver print, ink calligraphy	Middle Eastern	Veil; identity; calligraphy on skin; Iran
09	A Book from the Sky (Tiānshu)	Xu Bing	1987–91	Printed books & scrolls	Asian	Invented characters; language/power; China
10	Darkytown Rebellion	Kara Walker	2001	Cut paper & projection	American	Silhouette; slavery; viewer complicity
11	Old Man's Cloth	El Anatsui	2003	Aluminum bottle caps, copper wire	African	Kente reference; colonial trade; flexible form
12	The Swing (After Fragonard)	Yinka Shonibare	2001	Fiberglass, Dutch wax fabric	European/British	Dutch wax; headless; postcolonial Rococo
13	Pure Land	Mariko Mori	1996–98	Color photograph on glass	Asian	Buddhist digital; bodhisattva; tech+sacred
14	Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps	Kehinde Wiley	2005	Oil on canvas	American	Appropriation; Black heroism; David's portrait
15	Pisupo Lua Afe (Corned Beef 2000)	Michel Tuffery	1994	Flattened corned beef tins	African	Samoan diaspora; colonial food; bull from cans
16	Everywhen (The Pleiades in Hand)	Judy Watson	1993	Pigment and pastel on canvas	Indigenous	Aboriginal dreaming; country; soak technique
17	The Gates	Christo and Jeanne-Claude	2005	7,503 saffron fabric panels	Transnational	Land art; temporary; process; Central Park

Key Concepts

Appropriation

Taking existing images, objects, or styles and re-presenting them with new meaning. Wiley appropriates David's Napoleon; Koons appropriates the Pink Panther cartoon; Walker appropriates the 19th-c. silhouette tradition. The "original" is transformed by the new context.

Postcolonialism

Artistic engagement with the legacies of colonial power. El Anatsui uses liquor bottle caps from brands sold in colonial West Africa. Shonibare's Dutch wax fabric is sold as "African" but manufactured for colonial markets. Tuffery's canned bull critiques food dependency imposed by colonization.

Identity Politics

Art as a site for asserting, questioning, or constructing identity across race, gender, sexuality, and nationality. Sherman questions gendered image-making. Neshat explores split Iranian identity. Quick-to-See Smith reclaims Native identity from mascot commodification.

Participatory Art

Works that require viewer action to be complete. González-Torres's candy pile diminishes as viewers take pieces — you are complicit in Ross's body wasting. Walker's projectors cast viewers' shadows into slave scenes — you cannot remain neutral. The Gates invited public engagement for 16 days.

Installation Art

Art that transforms a space rather than occupying a frame. Xu Bing's book scrolls hang from ceiling and cover floor — the viewer moves through unreadable text. Osorio fills a barbershop with excessive detail. Walker paints the walls of a gallery with silhouette scenes.

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Temporality / Impermanence

The Gates stood for 16 days, then was removed and recycled. González-Torres's candy is consumed and replenished. Temporality is not failure — it is the intended meaning. Compare to Pacific malagan objects: destruction IS the ritual.

Globalization and Hybridity

Contemporary artists work across cultural borders. Shonibare (Nigerian-British) critiques both traditions. Tuffery (Samoan-New Zealander) uses Pacific diaspora perspective. Mori blends Japanese Buddhism with global digital culture. No work exists in a single cultural context.

Photography as Fine Art

Sherman and Neshat use photography to construct, perform, and critique identity. Photography is not documentary here — it is staged, manipulated, and deeply conceptual. The camera does not record; it fabricates.

Exam Traps

Exam Trap

Dutch wax fabric is NOT African in origin

Shonibare's "Dutch wax" fabric is often misread as traditionally African. It was industrially printed in the Netherlands (originally based on Indonesian batik) for sale in colonial West African markets. Its "Africanness" is a colonial construction — that's Shonibare's whole point.

Exam Trap

González-Torres's candy IS replaced

The pile is replenished by the museum — it does not disappear permanently. The ideal weight (175 lbs.) is maintained. What matters is the act of taking (viewer complicity), not the pile's disappearance.

Exam Trap

Xu Bing's characters are INVENTED, not archaic

Students often assume A Book from the Sky uses rare ancient Chinese script. The characters look like classical Chinese but were entirely invented by Xu Bing — they mean nothing. That unreadability is the critique: language as control.

Exam Trap

Kara Walker uses PROJECTION as well as cut paper

Darkytown Rebellion is not just cut paper silhouettes on white walls. Colored light projectors cast pools of light — and viewers' own shadows join the slave-era scenes. The viewer's body is literally inserted into the history of slavery.

Exam Trap

El Anatsui gives installers creative freedom

Old Man's Cloth has no fixed form. Anatsui deliberately allows the museum/gallery to hang it as they choose — the work changes shape with each installation. This is intentional: the textile reference means it drapes, folds, and pools like cloth.

Exam Trap

Neshat's veil is resistance, not just oppression

Rebellious Silence does not simply depict the veil as oppressive. The calligraphy on exposed skin is poetry by Iranian women poets — the veil/text combination is simultaneously constraint AND cultural assertion. It is deliberately ambivalent.

Exam Trap

Christo rejected ALL outside funding for The Gates

Christo and Jeanne-Claude self-funded all their projects through sale of preparatory sketches. They refused government grants, corporate sponsorship, and museum funding. This independence from institutional control was a political stance, not just financial preference.

Exam Trap

Wiley's subject is a contemporary Black man, not Napoleon

Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps substitutes an unnamed Black man (recruited street casting) for Napoleon in David's famous portrait. Wiley finds his subjects on the street — ordinary people placed in heroic historical compositions. Napoleon is the source, not the subject.