Question 1

The New York artist whose paintings employed color as a doorway to another reality of emotional expression was ____.

Accepted Answer

Mark Rothko is well known for his abstract expressionist paintings that utilized large blocks of color to convey emotion and create a meditative experience for the viewer. He believed that art should be experienced on a deep emotional level, rather than as a representation of a specific object or scene.

Question 2

Which of the following describes Performance Art?

Accepted Answer

Performance art is a form of art in which the artist's performance itself becomes the artwork, replacing physical objects with movements, gestures, and sounds. It often involves a combination of visual art, dance, music, and theater.

Question 3

Conceptual art is best described as work that ____.

Accepted Answer

Conceptual art places a higher value on the idea or concept behind a work of art rather than its physical execution or aesthetic qualities. It often challenges traditional art forms and materials, pushing the boundary of what is considered art.

Question 4

Frank Lloyd Wright described many of his buildings,such as the Guggenheim Museum,as ____.

Accepted Answer

Frank Lloyd Wright's style is known as "organic architecture," which emphasizes a harmony between the natural environment and the built environment.

Question 5

Which artist is known for his/her environmental art?

Accepted Answer

Robert Smithson is known for his environmental art, particularly his masterpiece "Spiral Jetty," which is a 1,500-foot-long, 15-foot-wide (457-meter-long, 4.6-meter-wide) coil made of rock, earth, salt, and other materials on the shoreline of the Great Salt Lake in Utah.

Question 6

Which of the following artists is best known for his superrealist portraits?

Accepted Answer

Chuck Close is best known for his superrealist portraits, which are created using a technique called photorealism, in which a photograph is used as a reference for painting or drawing. Close's portraits are often large-scale, hyper-detailed depictions of faces that capture every pore, wrinkle, and hair on the subject's skin. Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Anselm Kiefer are known for other styles of art, such as abstract expressionism, action painting, and neo-expressionism, respectively.

Question 7

Which of the following artists was a color field painter?

Accepted Answer

Helen Frankenthaler was a prominent color field painter, known for her stained canvas paintings using color washes.

Question 8

Cindy Sherman works in which medium?

Accepted Answer

Cindy Sherman is primarily known for her photography, in which she often portrays herself in various guises and costumes to challenge traditional notions of identity and representation.

Question 9

The subject of many of Diane Arbus' photographs is:

Accepted Answer

Diane Arbus' photographs often featured portraits of individuals who were considered to be on the fringes of society, such as transvestites, dwarfs, and mentally disabled individuals. She aimed to capture the humanity and vulnerability of these individuals rather than presenting an idealized image.

Question 10

Performance Art challenged art's function as ____.

Accepted Answer

Performance Art challenged art's function as a commodity by emphasizing the experience and process over the finished product. The focus was on the live performance rather than a traditional art object that could be bought and sold.

Question 11

Art that produced illusions of motion and depth using only flat,geometric forms was called ____.

Accepted Answer

Optical Art, also known as Op Art, is an art movement that emerged in the 1960s and focused on producing visual illusions of motion and depth by using geometric forms such as grids, stripes, and triangles. This art style often employs bright colors and high contrast to further enhance the illusion of movement. The other choices, Psychedelic Art, Postmodern Art, and Pop Art, do not specifically focus on creating optical illusions through the use of flat, geometric forms.

Question 12

Pop Art originated in ____,but achieved its greatest popularity in ____.

Accepted Answer

Pop Art originated in England in the mid-1950s but achieved its greatest popularity in the United States from the 1960s to the 1970s.

Question 13

What two tools did Audrey Flack use to create her super-realistic paintings?

Accepted Answer

Audrey Flack used a projector to project images onto her canvas for precise detail and an airbrush to achieve smooth, realistic textures in her super-realistic paintings.

Question 14

A good example of Postmodernist architecture is the ____.

Accepted Answer

The Portland Building in Oregon is a prime example of Postmodern architecture with its use of vibrant colors, playful geometry, and mixture of historical and contemporary styles. The building's design intentionally deviates from the traditional modernist aesthetic and incorporates elements of popular culture, creating a visually striking and eclectic composition. The use of ornamentation, non-rectangular shapes, and exaggerated proportions are all signature characteristics of Postmodernism that can be seen in the Portland Building.

Question 15

British art critic Lawrence Alloway coined the term ____ to refer to artists who combined mass consumer culture with familiar imagery from everyday life.

Accepted Answer

Lawrence Alloway coined the term "Pop Art" to refer to artists who combined mass consumer culture with familiar imagery from everyday life.

Question 16

Like ____,Conceptual Art raised questions about the artist's role in executing the work of art.

Accepted Answer

Dadaism was a movement that rejected traditional artistic techniques and focused on absurdity and anti-art. Conceptual art, like Dada, also questioned the traditional role of the artist and emphasized the idea or concept behind the artwork rather than its physical execution.

Question 17

What was the main subject of the postwar New York School artists?

Accepted Answer

The main subject of the postwar New York School artists was the act of painting itself, often referred to as "painting about painting." They focused on exploring and pushing the boundaries of the medium, its materials, and techniques, rather than any specific subject matter such as life on the streets or appropriation. Optical phenomena played a role in some of the artists' works, but it was not the main subject.

Question 18

Cindy Sherman's work interrogates the impact of ____.

Accepted Answer

Cindy Sherman's work is primarily concerned with the impact of the male gaze, which refers to the way in which depictions of women in art and media are often framed in a way that objectifies and sexualizes them for a presumed male viewer. Through her photographs, Sherman seeks to subvert and challenge these established visual tropes, creating images that disrupt traditional gender roles and offer new possibilities for female representation.

Question 19

The terms gestural abstraction and action painting are most appropriately applied to the work of ____.

Accepted Answer

Both terms, gestural abstraction and action painting, are closely associated with Jackson Pollock's work. These terms refer to Pollock's technique of using his whole body to create rhythmic and expressive gestures and marks on large canvases, often in a non-representational manner.

Question 20

Which answer describes the ideas of Post-Painterly Abstraction?

Accepted Answer

Post-Painterly Abstraction rejected the gestural brushstrokes and emotional expressiveness of Abstract Expressionism, and instead favored a more restrained and impersonal style characterized by flat areas of color, hard edges, and an emphasis on the physical properties of the painting itself. The works were intended to be purely abstract, with no references to objects or subject matter outside of the artwork.

Quiz 15: Modernism and Postmodernism in Europe and America, 1945 to 1980