AP Art History Unit 10 Flashcards: Global Contemporary

American

Untitled

Tap to reveal · Jean-Michel Basquiat

Answer

Jean-Michel Basquiat

1982 · USA

Acrylic and oil paintstick on wood

Neo-expressionism; roots in SAMO graffiti
Race, death, commodification of Black body
Skull imagery = mortality and race in America
References Black history, anatomy, jazz

American

Pink Panther

Tap to reveal · Jeff Koons

Answer

Jeff Koons

1988 · USA

Glazed porcelain

Neo-Pop art; kitsch elevated to fine art
Appropriates mass-media cartoon character
Challenges high/low art distinctions
Perfect surfaces: commodity fetishism

American

Untitled Film Still #21

Tap to reveal · Cindy Sherman

Answer

Cindy Sherman

1978 · USA

Gelatin silver print

Feminist photography; constructed identity
Artist as both photographer and subject
Critiques the male gaze and film noir tropes
No single "Cindy Sherman" — identity is performance

Latin American

Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.)

Tap to reveal · Félix González-Torres

Answer

Félix González-Torres

1991 · Cuba/USA

Candies, ideal weight 175 lbs.

AIDS crisis memorial; Ross was artist's partner
Candy pile weighs 175 lbs. = healthy body weight
Viewers take candy → pile diminishes = body wasting
Participatory: viewer is complicit in the loss

American

Dancing at the Louvre

Tap to reveal · Faith Ringgold

Answer

Faith Ringgold

1991 · USA

Acrylic on canvas with pieced fabric border

From The French Collection series (12 story quilts)
Black women dancing in front of Mona Lisa
Quilt tradition = Black women's artistic heritage
Critiques exclusion from Western art history

Indigenous

Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People)

Tap to reveal · Jaune Quick-to-See Smith

Answer

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith

1992 · Native American (Salish/Métis)

Oil, paper collage on canvas

Made for Columbus quincentennial (500 years)
Critiques Native mascots (logos on attached objects)
Canoe on canvas = trade, displacement, survival
Questions what was truly "traded" for Native land

Latin American

En la Barbería No Se Llora

Tap to reveal · Pepón Osorio

Answer

Pepón Osorio

1994 · Puerto Rico/USA

Mixed-media installation

Title: "No Crying Allowed in the Barbershop"
Critiques Latino male emotional suppression
Overstuffed with kitsch = community as excess
Installation art as social work and critique

Middle Eastern

Rebellious Silence

Tap to reveal · Shirin Neshat

Answer

Shirin Neshat

1994 · Iran/USA

Gelatin silver print with ink calligraphy

From "Women of Allah" series
Veil as site of both oppression and resistance
Calligraphy covers exposed skin — text as body
Gun barrel divides face: split identity

Asian

A Book from the Sky (Tiānshu)

Tap to reveal · Xu Bing

Answer

Xu Bing

1987–1991 · China

Hand-printed books and scrolls

4,000+ invented Chinese characters — look real, mean nothing
Post-Cultural Revolution critique of language/authority
Unreadability = anxiety about meaning and control
Printing = 4 years of labor; traditional woodblock technique

American

Darkytown Rebellion

Tap to reveal · Kara Walker

Answer

Kara Walker

2001 · USA

Cut paper and projection

Silhouette tradition subverted to depict slavery
Projectors cast colored light — viewers' shadows join scenes
Viewer complicit: you cannot avoid becoming part of it
Antebellum imagery; Black suffering as entertainment?

African

Old Man's Cloth

Tap to reveal · El Anatsui

Answer

El Anatsui

2003 · Ghana/Nigeria

Aluminum bottle caps, copper wire

References kente cloth weaving tradition
Bottle caps = liquor bottles = colonial trade history
Artist gives installer freedom — no fixed form
Transformation: waste → textile → sculpture → cloth

European/British

The Swing (After Fragonard)

Tap to reveal · Yinka Shonibare

Answer

Yinka Shonibare

2001 · Nigeria/UK

Fiberglass mannequin, Dutch wax fabric

Remakes Fragonard's "The Swing" (1767)
Dutch wax = fabric sold as "African" but industrially printed in Netherlands for colonial African markets
Headless figure = identity crisis of colonialism
Rococo leisure → postcolonial critique

Asian

Pure Land

Tap to reveal · Mariko Mori

Answer

Mariko Mori

1996–1998 · Japan

Color photograph on glass

Buddhist Pure Land paradise made digital
Artist appears as bodhisattva/futuristic deity
Technology + spirituality + pop culture merged
Critiques and celebrates media image saturation

American

Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps

Tap to reveal · Kehinde Wiley

Answer

Kehinde Wiley

2005 · USA

Oil on canvas

Appropriates David's 1801 Napoleonic portrait
Black man in heroic equestrian pose
Floral patterned background subverts hierarchy
Reclaims Western art history for excluded subjects

African

Pisupo Lua Afe (Corned Beef 2000)

Tap to reveal · Michel Tuffery

Answer

Michel Tuffery

1994 · Samoa/New Zealand

Flattened corned beef tins (assemblage)

Bull made entirely from corned beef cans
Pisupo = Samoan word for canned food (corruption of "pea soup")
Colonial food dependency replaced traditional diet
Pacific diaspora identity and environmental critique

Indigenous

Everywhen (The Pleiades in Hand)

Tap to reveal · Judy Watson

Answer

Judy Watson

1993 · Aboriginal Australian

Pigment and pastel on canvas

Aboriginal "everywhen" = Dreaming time past/present/future
Pleiades = star cluster in Aboriginal astronomy
Soak/stain technique: pigment absorbed into canvas
Country as living, sentient map; not landscape

Transnational

The Gates

Tap to reveal · Christo and Jeanne-Claude

Answer

Christo and Jeanne-Claude

2005 · Central Park, New York

7,503 saffron fabric panels

26-year proposal process; finally installed Feb. 2005
Environmental/land art; no permanent alteration
Process = art; temporary = intentional
Self-funded; rejected public/corporate funding