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Mestizo Visionary Art of the Americas in the Late Twentieth Century: Hallucinogens, Politics, Aesthetics and Mass Consumer Culture in the United States, Mexico, and ColombiaCadena Botero, Juan David January 2022 (has links)
Unlike their European predecessors in the experimentation with hallucinogens and aesthetics who undertook it as an exotic tradition brought from afar, many Latin American and North American authors turned to visionary practices and substances (cannabis, peyote, psilocybin mushrooms and ayahuasca, among others) as a main element of their own cultural heritage and territory. Though commonly restricted to the specific category of "psychedelia," the narratives in this corpus from the 20th century only acquire their true depth once included within a much vaster realm, that of visionary traditions, mostly originated in non-Western sources --with exceptions among divinators, witches and sorcerers in Europe -- both in the Old World of the Orient and Africa, but particularly in the New World, in America. Problematically blurring use and exchange value, the 20th century seized these substances as sources of forbidden pleasures which alienated laborers, while their prohibition generated immense fortunes that destabilized democracies throughout the continent, motivated violence, and funded mafias, guerrillas and paramilitary groups. Yet, visionary plants and practices spread with a transcultural power that even today allows for the survival of ethnic groups and traditional knowledge long hidden, while also feeding urban consumptions that generate innumerable subcultures, time and again misunderstood as a sign of decadence. In this dissertation these "underworld" practices are also manifestations of something prior and parallel to the birth of a culture of mass consumers: they mark an encounter between Indigenous, Afro, rural and mestizo influences in the voices of authors who contributed to culture from the margins of very hierarchical and racist societies, and assumed a leading role in their intellectual debate, capturing its mixtures, dark humor, conflicts and transculturations via writing and films.
Initially marginalized in the low worlds of taverns, destitute neighborhoods, crime, prisons and prostitution venues, hallucination and hallucinogens--simultaneously a colonial anathema and a sacred pre-Columbian ritual of transcendence--survive and thrive, passing on to the urban minorities of artists and thinkers I will examine in this dissertation, now even including synthetics like Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD). Late Avant-gardes between the 1950s and 1990s--beatniks, counterculture, yippies and Chicanos in the US, the Onda generation and the "jipitecas'' in Mexico, and the "nadaístas'' and the Cali group in Colombia--partially rescued this knowledge, but, above all, its consumptions, preserving some of them as an original heritage within their metaphysics, politics and aesthetics, and as a core part of many of their ideological and secular inquiries. Banned and misconstrued by the viceregal, republican, national and transnational elites, both in the colonial past, and in the contemporary moment of an hemispheric circuit -- within the geopolitics of Nixon‘s War on Drugs -- visionary and hallucinogenic uses continue shaping much of the cultural panorama of America today. The variety of films and texts observed in this project gives a measure of the true heterogeneity of Latin American and US authors of the 20th century: In their works we reconnect a fracture that divides not only two, but many worlds, while it makes possible, for once, to conceive the simultaneous reality of them all.
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Ruins and Remains: Performative Sculpture and the Politics of Touch in the 1970sSuperfine, Molly January 2023 (has links)
This dissertation investigates the materiality of performative sculpture in the Americas during the long 1970s through artists Beverly Buchanan (1940-2015) and Senga Nengudi (1943). United in their disenchantment with second-wave feminism, Buchanan and Nengudi are situated art-historically in the expanded fields of (post)minimalism, conceptualism, and the Black Arts Movement. These artists realize their objects by sourcing non-traditional artmaking materials within what this dissertation conjures as a haptic imaginary—an intervening corrective to both the second-wave feminist and postmodern art imaginaries of the 1970s. Their materials expose the limitations of the visual and offer alternate models of knowing.
For Buchanan’s frustulum series (1978-81), poured concrete, and later, tabby concrete, memorializes the textures of architectural sites to honor experiences of labor and displacement. Tabby concrete, a compound binding agent made of sand and lime, is a localized, inexpensive material that was often used by enslaved people in the southern United States, especially in coastal states like Georgia, which provide access to massive deposits of lime-rich oyster shells.
Nengudi’s R.S.V.P. series (1977) of pliable pantyhose and sand are anthropomorphic objects originally meant to be activated; they mimic bodily expansion, endurance, and fatigue. Pantyhose, made mostly of nylon, the world’s first fully synthetic fiber, are the product of decades of scientific and economic development, whose intertwined history with World War II offers a springboard to understand the potency of Nengudi’s experiments with the garment.
The artists’ materials become sites of investigation into memory, place, body, erotics, and precarity. By offering new epistemological methods of engagement that retaliate against the hegemony of the visual through their twinned interests in ruins for Buchanan, and remains for Nengudi, the artists realize a new womanist politic. Buchanan and Nengudi deploy, respectively, tabby concrete and pantyhose with sand to transmit historical and embodied knowledge. It is precisely through the activated sensorium of touch—imagined and physical—that the past is transmitted and materialized.
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Permutation and performance of the dead body: materiality, science and consumption of the corpse in Latin American art at the end of the centuryCalles Izquierdo, Jennifer January 2023 (has links)
In this dissertation, I study the corpse as a material in Latin American art at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st.
On the one hand, I show that this is a social analyzer of the terrible consequences of dictatorships, neoliberal policies, and criminal violence on the continent. On the other hand, applying the theory of new materialism and focusing on the presence of the dead body -human or non-human- in the work of artists such as Nicola Costantino, José Antonio Hernández Díez, Teresa Margolles, María Fernanda Cardoso, Arturo Duclos, or Nicolás Lamas, among others, I develop what I call corpse art.
As I argue, the impact of this art consists in challenging the limits of the body and its traditional binomials (surface-depth, organic-inorganic, living-dead) using the material capacities of skin, flesh, and bones. The material deployment of the corpse, as well as the re-appropriation of scientific and commercial techniques, put artistic media, their specificities, and their autonomies in crisis. But in addition, this corpse art allows also us to reflect on the manipulation of bodies and power ties that produce objects and merchandise of desire in the Latin American context.
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Teken, landskap en kennis : 'n ondersoek na die rol van teken in Suid-Afrikaanse kunsDe Kock-Wiesener, Cornelia 12 1900 (has links)
Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2003. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis explores the role played by drawings in the creation of knowledge. The study
specifically focuses on drawings of the South African landscape and how it led to
knowledge of our country. The Western perception of the concept of nature in relation to
culture or civilisation is investigated by brief reference to a few periods in Western
history. It is argued that man and nature was separated in Western thought by the
establishment of rational thinking. This concept led to man's exploitation of nature to his
own advantage. The division between man and nature was broadened in the quest for
technological advancement. The first European travellers came to South Africa with a
Western mind set, hoping for better economical conditions. The illustrated traveller's
report reflects the verbal and visual capturing and exploitation of the South African
landscape. It is further argued that European travellers tried to structure the landscape
according to Western aesthetical traditions. Drawings appear to be picturesque but have
radical political, economical and social implications. Colonial depictions created
knowledge, but in fact symbolically legitimise the expansion of power. Until the middle
of the twentieth century Western aesthetic traditions were applied to visual depictions of
the South African landscape. During this period, artists were uncritical of the oppressive
political system and in doing so gave their tacit consent. Ever since the middle of the
twentieth century, several artists voiced their opinions against the unfair policy of the
ruling political party. Visual images asked subtle questions and gave radical judgements;
thus knowledge was created and a contribution made to the freedom of all South
Africans. My drawings of South African landscapes are to be understood against this
theoretical background. I use drawings to ask questions about the relationship between
the visual image and the establishment of knowledge. I also refer to the relationship
between the original and the copy, reality, the photo and the drawing. I conclude the
following: drawings lead to the creation of knowledge and landscape depictions have
implications of power. The solution to this problem lies, in the end, once more III
drawings.My depictions of South African landscapes are given as an answer. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis is 'n ondersoek na die rol wat visuele beelde kan speel in die oordrag van idees.
Daar word spesifiek gekyk na hoe tekeninge van die Suid-Afrikaanse landskap gelei het tot
die totstandkoming van kennis oor ons land. Die Westerse verstaan van die begrip natuur in
verhouding tot kultuur of beskawing word ondersoek deur kortliks te verwys na 'n paar
periodes gedurende die Westerse geskiedenis. Daar word aangevoer dat Westerse denke die
mens en die natuur van mekaar geskei het deur die instelling van rasionele denke. So het
daar 'n geloof in menslike rede ontstaan. Dié beskouing het daartoe gelei dat die mens die
natuur begin uitbuit het tot eie voordeel. Die kloof tussen mens en natuur het al hoe dieper
geword in 'n strewe na tegnologiese vooruitgang. Die eerste Europese reisigers het vanuit 'n
Westerse verwysingsraamwerk na Suid-Afrika gekom met die hoop op beter ekonomiese
vooruitsigte. Die geïllustreerde reisverslag weerspieël die inneming en uitbuiting van die
Suid-Afrikaanse landskap visueel en verbaal. Daar word aangevoer dat Europese reisigers
die landskap deur middel van tekeninge, uitgevoer volgens Westerse estetiese tradisies,
probeer struktureer het. Tekeninge kom skilderagtig voor, maar het radikale politiese,
ekonomiese en sosiale implikasies. Koloniale tekeninge het kennis geskep en in werklikheid
magsuitbreiding simbolies gelegitimeer. Westerse estetiese tradisies is tot die middel van die
twintigste eeu toegepas op visuele uitbeeldings van die Suid-Afrikaanse landskap.
Gedurende dié tydperk het kunstenaars die onderdrukkende, heersende politieke stelsel in
werklikheid ondersteun deur totaalonkrities daarteenoor te staan. Teen die middel van die
twintigste eeu het verskillende kunstenaars in opstand gekom teen die onregverdige beleid
van die regerende party. Visuele beelde is gebruik om subtiele vrae te stel sowel as radikale
uitsprake te lewer en het so kennis geskep en bygedra tot die bevryding van alle Suid-
Afrikaners. My tekeninge van Suid-Afrikaanse landskappe moet teen dié teoretiese
agtergrond gelees word. Ek gebruik teken om vrae steloor die verhouding tussen die visuele
beeld en kennis wat so tot stand kom. Daar word verwys na die verhouding tussen
oorspronklike en kopie, werklikheid, foto en tekening. Die gevolgtrekking is dat tekeninge
kan lei tot die totstandkoming van kennis en dat uitbeeldings van landskappe
magsimplikasies kan hê. Die oplossing vir hierdie probleem lê uiteindelik weer in tekeninge.
My uitbeeldings van Suid-Afrikaanse landskappe word as antwoord gebied.
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Manufacturing cultural capital : arts journalism at Die Burger (1990-1999)Botma, Gabriel Johannes 12 1900 (has links)
Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2011. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study examines the discursive role and positioning of arts journalism at Die Burger
during a period of radical transformation in South African society. The study is conducted
within a critical-cultural paradigm. Arts journalists are considered to be manufacturers of
cultural capital, a term devised by Pierre Bourdieu as part of his comprehensive field theory
framework. While Bourdieu uses cultural capital in the main to describe the role of education
and culture in the maintenance of elite power hierarchies, this study investigates how the
nature of cultural capital at Die Burger was affected by power shifts when competing elites
jostled for dominance in a post-apartheid dispensation.
By drawing on Michel Foucault’s theory of discourse, the focus of research further
incorporates the discursive positioning of arts journalists in their coverage of arts and cultural
events in the 1990s in relation to shifting configurations of power. The argument is that arts
journalism at Die Burger can be situated within networks of power and thus contributed to the
structuring of post-apartheid society. In the words of Antonio Gramsci, arts journalists
became involved in hegemonic and counter-hegemonic struggles.
Flowing from these theoretical departure points, the study identifies critical discourse analysis
(CDA) as an appropriate research method for textual analysis and adapts a five-phase model
suggested by Teun van Dijk as part of his contextual CDA approach. The analysis thus
focuses in turn on the context of discourse, discursive struggles between arts journalists and
political journalists, strategies of classification used by arts journalists, emerging themes of
discourse in arts journalism, and how the selection and presentation of arts journalism on
news and arts pages were influenced by various factors, including the personal background
and experiences of arts journalists (The concept of Bourdieu’s “habitus”). To affect
triangulation and enhance the textual analysis, the study also employs semi-structured indepth
interviews with arts journalists who were prominent at Die Burger in the 1990s.
The study found that arts journalists were at the intersection of different and often diverging
and contradictory power-points in post-apartheid discourses at the newspaper. On the one
hand, some arts journalists embraced a legacy of editorial independence at the arts desk and
sometimes created oppositional discourses to the official political view of the newspaper: for
instance on the issue of alleged “collective guilt” for Afrikaners and whether Naspers should appear before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to explain its role in
supporting the National Party (NP) during apartheid. On the other hand, many arts journalists
shared the editor’s apparent aversion to the international cultural boycott supported by the
ANC and harboured some of the same skepticism about the so-called Africanisation of society
and resultant attacks on Eurocentrism in the arts.
This study -- the first on this level to focus on Afrikaans arts journalism since 1994 --
represents a significant contribution to knowledge in the under-researched field of arts
journalism in South Africa. Its purpose and process has furthermore developed theoretical and
methodological innovations which can enrich the field of journalism studies. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die studie -- vanuit 'n kritiese kulturele paradigma -- ondersoek die diskursiewe posisionering
en rol van kunsjoernalistiek by Die Burger gedurende 'n periode van radikale transformasie in
die Suid-Afrikaanse samelewing. Kunsjoernaliste word beskryf as vervaardigers van kulturele
kapitaal, soos gekonsepsualiseer deur Pierre Bourdieu in sy omvattende raamwerk van veldteorie.
Terwyl Bourdieu die term kulturele kapitaal hoofsaaklik gebruik om die rol van
opvoeding en kultuur in die behoud van hierargieë van elite-mag te beskryf, ondersoek hierdie
studie hoe die aard van kulturele kapitaal by Die Burger beïnvloed is deur magsverskuiwings
waarin mededingende post-apartheid elite-groepe mekaar die stryd aangesê het.
Deur gebruik te maak van Michel Foucault se teorie van diskoers, val die fokus van navorsing
dus op die diskursiewe posisionering van kunsjoernaliste in hul dekking van kuns-en-kultuurgebeure
in the 1990’s. Die argument is dat kunsjoernalistiek by Die Burger binne
magsnetwerke geplaas kan word en bygedra het tot die strukturering van die post-apartheid
samelewing. In Antonio Gramsci se terme het kunsjoernaliste dus betrokke geraak in die stryd
om hegemonie te skep en teen te werk.
Uitvloeiend uit hierdie teoretiese vertrekpunte word kritiese diskoersanalise (KDA) as
navorsingsmetode vir die ontleding van joernalistieke tekste geïdentifiseer. Daarvolgens word 'n model met vyf stappe, voorgestel deur Teun van Dijk as deel van sy KDA-benadering,
aangepas vir gebruik. Die analise fokus dus om die beurt op die konteks van diskoers, die
diskursiewe stryd tussen kunsjoernaliste en politieke joernaliste, strategieë van klassifikasie
wat kunsjoernaliste gebruik het, temas van diskoers wat aan die lig gekom het in
kunsjoernalistiek, en hoe die seleksie en aanbieding van kuns-en-kultuur-nuus deur
verskillende faktore beïnvloed is, insluitend deur die persoonlike agtergrond en ondervinding
van kunsjoernaliste (“habitus” in Bourdieu se teorie). Om triangulasie te bewerkstelling en die
teks-analise te ondersteun, is semi-gestruktureerde in-diepte onderhoude met prominente
kunsjoernaliste aangelê.
Die studie het vasgestel dat kunsjoernaliste in post-apartheid diskoerse in die koerant hulself
op 'n kruispunt van verskillende, soms uiteenlopende en selfs opponerende strominge van mag
bevind het. Aan die een kant het sommige kunsjoernaliste 'n tradisie van redaksionele
onafhanklikheid omarm en soms opposisionele politieke diskoerse in vergelyking met die amptelike beleid van die koerant geskep, byvoorbeeld oor die kwessie van beweerde
“kollektiewe skuld” vir Afrikaners en of Naspers voor die Waarheid-en-
Versoeniningskommissie (WVK) moes verskyn om sy rol as ondersteuner van die Nasionale
Party (NP) gedurende apartheid te verduidelik. Maar aan die ander kant het talle
kunsjoernaliste die redakteur se klaarblyklike afkeer gedeel aan die internasionale kultuurboikot
wat deur die ANC ondersteun is. Kunsjoernaliste was ook skepties oor die sogenaamde
Afrikanisering van die samelewing en gevolglike aanvalle op Eurosentriese kuns.
Ten slotte maak hierdie studie -- die eerste op hierdie vlak oor Afrikaanse kunsjoernalistiek
sedert 1994 -- 'n belangrike bydrae tot die yl kennisveld van kunsjoernalistiek in Suid-Afrika.
In die proses het die studie ook teoretiese en metodologiese innovasies aangebring wat die
veld van joernalistiek-studies kan verryk.
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The politics of system in the art of Carl Andre, Sol LeWitt, and Vito Acconci, 1959-1975Gieskes, Mette 28 August 2008 (has links)
Not available / text
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Marginal disruptions: concrete and Madí art in Argentina, 1940-1955 / Concrete and Madí art in Argentina, 1940-1955Pozzi-Harris, Ana Jorgelina, 1972- 29 August 2008 (has links)
This dissertation analyzes the production of the Concrete and Madí artists, who were active in Argentina in the 1940s and 50s. Concrete and Madí artists proposed, for the first time in this country, the need for an art that was completely different from representational and expressionist art, and they believed that their "inventions," both visual and linguistic, could foster social change. Many aspects of the journal Arturo, published in 1944, and of Concrete and Madí art continue to be a puzzle, such as their relation with past and contemporary artistic and intellectual productions, their relation with the volatile Argentine political climate of the 1940s and 50s, and their ultimate artistic significance. This study interprets the propositions of these artists as responsive to phenomena they experienced in an immediate manner in the time and place in which they lived. The dissertation thus contextualizes Concrete and Madí art in five scenarios: publications by Spanish emigres and Argentine writers which explored the concepts of "automatism" and "invention;" discourses about "Nazism" and "democracy," and about "civilization" and "barbarism" that emerged through literary periodicals of the mid-1940s; political propaganda displayed under the rule of Juan Domingo Perón (1946-1955); the development of modern-looking and functional architecture fostered by Peronist architectural policies; and the artists' dialogues with the ideas of musicians then living in Argentina and Brazil. Ultimately, the dissertation constructs dialogues between specific instances of Argentine cultural and political history of the 1940s and 50s, and a selection of Concrete and Madí works and writings.
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Bordering on the new frontier : modernism and the military industrial complex in the United States and Canada, 1957-1965Howard, David Brian 05 1900 (has links)
In 1964 Clement Greenberg suffered his greatest setback as the critical arbiter of modern painting. The "Post Painterly Abstraction" exhibition he had helped to organize at the Los Angeles Museum of Art was critically demolished, definitively shattering the myth of invincibility surrounding Greenberg's modernism, an aesthetic which had been a powerful influence in the United States and Canada in the post-war period. For many contemporary critics, the early to mid-1960's is the period in which a stultified and institutionalized modernism was finally usurped by an approach to culture that was less elitist and more socially engaged.
The new cultural model that was taking shape within the Kennedy Administration's vision of the New Frontier sought to remotivate a sense of "national purpose" within the United States to counter the nation's preoccupation with consumerism and affluence. The pragmatic liberal concept of culture sought to rework the relationship between work and play in order to promote a new relationship between individualism and civic virtue. The impetus to re-shape the boundaries between art and society under the New Frontier was a direct response to the political and military challenge posed by the Soviet Union in the late-1950s, especially after the launch of Sputnik in 1957, and the inability of the Eisenhower Administration to respond to the anxieties generated by the intense superpower rivalry.
This international environment also exacerbated the ongoing tensions between Canada and the United States, culminating in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis . Canadian Prime Minister Diefenbaker delayed in responding to the U.S. alarm over the presence of Soviet medium range nuclear
weapons in Cuba, and the political firestorm that followed this delay highlighted the frictions that had developed in the unequal bilateral relationship between the United States and Canada after World War Two.
While the Cold War was approaching its ultimate showdown, Greenberg was proceeding to a geographical margin of North America — Saskatchewan — to participate in the Emma Lake Artists' Workshops. Ironically, while Greenberg was extolling the virtues of Canadian abstract painters such as Art McKay and Kenneth Lochhead, going so far as to argue that the Saskatchewan abstract painters were New York's only competition, Los Angeles was asserting itself as New York's cultural rival . As a consequence of the phenomenal post-war growth of the military - industrial complex in the American Southwest, a fierce rivalry was developing with the traditional bases of power in the Northeast. The Southwest, and Los Angeles in particular, was the major beneficiary of the accelerated defense spending resulting from the heightened tensions of the Cold War in the 1950s. Partially in response to a regional dispute over military appropriations, the economic and cultural elites of Southern California sought to counter the pragmatic liberal agenda of the Kennedy Administration by promoting Los Angeles as the Second City of American Art. Greenberg's "Post Painterly Abstraction" exhibition was intended to draw attention to the Los Angeles cultural renaissance and the maturing of the city's independent cultural identity.
Thus, Greenberg's sojourn to Saskatchewan at the height of the Cold War and during a crucial period of his formulation of his theory of modernist painting after abstract expressionism provides the focus for an examination of the status of modernism in the early 1960s, especially in the context of U.S.-Canadian relations and interregional rivalry between the Northeast and the Southwest. This thesis seeks to explain the complex cultural and political dynamic of modernist painting in the United States in the Cold War years of 1957 to 1965 and the effect of this dynamic on the development of Canadian modernist painting.
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Postcolonial monuments and public sculpture in ZimbabweSamwanda, Biggie 10 October 2013 (has links)
The study critically examines public art in postcolonial Zimbabwe‘s cities of Harare and Bulawayo. In a case by case approach, I analyse the National Heroes Acre and Old Bulawayo monuments, and three contemporary sculptures – Dominic Benhura‘s Leapfrog (1993) and Adam Madebe‘s Ploughman (1987) and Looking into the future (1985). I used a qualitative research methodology to collect and analyse data. My research design utilised in-depth interviews, observation, content and document analysis, and photography to gather nuanced data and these methods ensured that data collected is validated and/or triangulated. I argue that in Zimbabwe, monuments and public sculpture serve as the necessary interface of the visual, cultural and political discourse of a postcolonial nation that is constantly in transition and dialogue with the everyday realities of trying to understand and construct a national identity from a nest of sub-cultures. I further argue that monuments and public sculpture in Zimbabwe abound with political imperatives given that, as visual artefacts that interlace with ritual performance, they are conscious creations of society and are therefore constitutive of that society‘s heritage and social memory. Since independence in 1980, monuments and public sculpture have helped to open up discursive space and dialogue on national issues and myths. Such discursive spaces and dialogues, I also argue, have been particularly animated from the late 1990s to the present, a period in which the nation has engaged in self-introspection in the face of socio-political change and challenges in the continual process of imagining the Zimbabwean nation. Little research focusing on postcolonial public art in Zimbabwe has hitherto been undertaken. This study addresses gaps in this literature while also providing a spring board from which future studies may emerge. / Microsoft� Word 2010 / Adobe Acrobat 9.54 Paper Capture Plug-in
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Bordering on the new frontier : modernism and the military industrial complex in the United States and Canada, 1957-1965Howard, David Brian 05 1900 (has links)
In 1964 Clement Greenberg suffered his greatest setback as the critical arbiter of modern painting. The "Post Painterly Abstraction" exhibition he had helped to organize at the Los Angeles Museum of Art was critically demolished, definitively shattering the myth of invincibility surrounding Greenberg's modernism, an aesthetic which had been a powerful influence in the United States and Canada in the post-war period. For many contemporary critics, the early to mid-1960's is the period in which a stultified and institutionalized modernism was finally usurped by an approach to culture that was less elitist and more socially engaged.
The new cultural model that was taking shape within the Kennedy Administration's vision of the New Frontier sought to remotivate a sense of "national purpose" within the United States to counter the nation's preoccupation with consumerism and affluence. The pragmatic liberal concept of culture sought to rework the relationship between work and play in order to promote a new relationship between individualism and civic virtue. The impetus to re-shape the boundaries between art and society under the New Frontier was a direct response to the political and military challenge posed by the Soviet Union in the late-1950s, especially after the launch of Sputnik in 1957, and the inability of the Eisenhower Administration to respond to the anxieties generated by the intense superpower rivalry.
This international environment also exacerbated the ongoing tensions between Canada and the United States, culminating in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis . Canadian Prime Minister Diefenbaker delayed in responding to the U.S. alarm over the presence of Soviet medium range nuclear
weapons in Cuba, and the political firestorm that followed this delay highlighted the frictions that had developed in the unequal bilateral relationship between the United States and Canada after World War Two.
While the Cold War was approaching its ultimate showdown, Greenberg was proceeding to a geographical margin of North America — Saskatchewan — to participate in the Emma Lake Artists' Workshops. Ironically, while Greenberg was extolling the virtues of Canadian abstract painters such as Art McKay and Kenneth Lochhead, going so far as to argue that the Saskatchewan abstract painters were New York's only competition, Los Angeles was asserting itself as New York's cultural rival . As a consequence of the phenomenal post-war growth of the military - industrial complex in the American Southwest, a fierce rivalry was developing with the traditional bases of power in the Northeast. The Southwest, and Los Angeles in particular, was the major beneficiary of the accelerated defense spending resulting from the heightened tensions of the Cold War in the 1950s. Partially in response to a regional dispute over military appropriations, the economic and cultural elites of Southern California sought to counter the pragmatic liberal agenda of the Kennedy Administration by promoting Los Angeles as the Second City of American Art. Greenberg's "Post Painterly Abstraction" exhibition was intended to draw attention to the Los Angeles cultural renaissance and the maturing of the city's independent cultural identity.
Thus, Greenberg's sojourn to Saskatchewan at the height of the Cold War and during a crucial period of his formulation of his theory of modernist painting after abstract expressionism provides the focus for an examination of the status of modernism in the early 1960s, especially in the context of U.S.-Canadian relations and interregional rivalry between the Northeast and the Southwest. This thesis seeks to explain the complex cultural and political dynamic of modernist painting in the United States in the Cold War years of 1957 to 1965 and the effect of this dynamic on the development of Canadian modernist painting. / Arts, Faculty of / Art History, Visual Art and Theory, Department of / Graduate
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