Deck 30: Modernism and Postmodernism in Europe and America, 1945 to 1980

Question 1

How did Carolee Schneeman transform Performance Art?

A) She introduced a political dimension.
B) She introduced a social dimension.
C) She introduced a racist dimension.
D) She introduced a feminist dimension.

Answer 1

D

Question 2

Artists of the New York School of Abstract Expressionism produced paintings that are abstract but ____.

A) indicate a setting
B) relate to the general public
C) express the artist's state of mind
D) convey universal truths

Answer 2

C

Question 3

Which of the following was the purpose of Performance Art?

A) To challenge art's function as commodity
B) To challenge art's function as art
C) To challenge art's function
D) To challenge art's function in the postmodern period

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Which of the following artists is best known for his large-scale portraits?

A) Willem de Kooning
B) Chuck Close
C) Jackson Pollock
D) Francis Bacon

Question 5

Beuys wanted "to shape our thoughts into words." Which of the following did he want to create?

A) Social sculptures
B) Word sculptures
C) No sculpture
D) Formless sculptures

Question 6

Which of the following describes Happenings?

A) Planned
B) Controlled
C) Individualized
D) Participatory

Question 7

Color field painting emphasized painting's basic properties. Color field painters poured diluted paint onto unprimed canvas. Which of the following artists was a color field painter?

A) Jasper Johns
B) Jackson Pollock
C) Helen Frankenthaler
D) Barnett Newman

Question 8

How did Allan Kaprow view art?

A) He had no views whatsoever.
B) He viewed it as an intersection of art and life.
C) He viewed art as the zenith of his existence.
D) He was interested in music as an art form.

Question 9

Which of the following painters illustrates Clement Greenberg's insistence "on purity in art"?

A) Frank Stella
B) Francis Bacon
C) David Smith
D) Jean Dubuffet

Question 10

Performance Art can be described as movements, gestures, and sounds of persons communicating. Which of the following describes the focus of Performance Art?

A) It imitates live theater.
B) It is a commentary on contemporary art.
C) It replaces traditional stationary artworks.
D) It is purposefully confusing the audience.

Question 11

What is the evidence of a Performance Art event?

A) Documentary photos of a rehearsed performance
B) Documentary photos at the time of the performance
C) A script for a repeat performance
D) A script and direction transformed into video

Question 12

The New York artist whose paintings became compositionally simple and focused on color was ____.

A) Jackson Pollock
B) Jean Dubuffet
C) Mark Rothko
D) Willem de Kooning

Question 13

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

A) Jackson Pollock
B) Robert Motherwell
C) Ellsworth Kelly
D) Barnett Newman

Question 14

A leader in Performance Art, John Cage brought to music the ideas of ____ and eastern philosophy.

A) Marcel Duchamp
B) Jackson Pollock
C) Salvador Dalí
D) Andy Warhol

Question 15

Which of the following describes Joseph Beuys purpose for his art?

A) It was illuminating the condition of the political classes.
B) It was illuminating the condition of women.
C) It was illuminating the condition of modern humanity.
D) It was illuminating the condition of the homeless.

Question 16

How did Barnett Newman increase the capacity of color to communicate emotion?

A) By simplifying the composition
B) By creating complex compositions using the widest range of colors
C) By using soft pastel color
D) By creating softly colored complex compositions

Question 17

To distinguish their performances from "happenings," Fluxus artists named theirs ____.

A) art brut
B) "episodes"
C) "events"
D) "immersions"

Question 18

When did the center of the Western art world shift from Europe to the United States?

A) with the Armory Show of 1913
B) during the 1920s
C) during the 1950s
D) during the 1960s

Question 19

How did museum commissions of performance events neutralize Performance Art?

A) The commissions neutralized the purpose of art.
B) The commissions made the events mundane.
C) The commissions neutralized the subversiveness.
D) The commissions nullified Performance Art.

Question 20

How did the Fluxus group see aesthetic potential?

A) In the traditional
B) In the nontraditional and commonplace
C) In the traditional and unique
D) In the experimental

Question 21

What artist used the technique of benday dots, and why?

Question 22

Explain the relationship between modern movements and consumer culture. How have the issues of culture and society shaped the art? Use examples to support your essay.

Question 23

Cindy Sherman addressed the way that much Western art presents female beauty for the ____.

A) sake of tradition
B) importance of the subject
C) wealthy
D) "male gaze"

Question 24

John Cage encouraged his students to link their art to which of the following?

A) Life
B) Music
C) A collaborator
D) Poetry

Question 25

Pollock's painting technique highlights the most significant aspect of gestural abstraction-the emphasis on ____.

A) automatism
B) layered glazes
C) found objects
D) the creative process

Question 26

____ is known for her assembled sculptures of found wood objects and forms.

A) Helen Frankenthaler
B) Judy Chicago
C) Sonia Sheridan
D) Louise Nevelson

Question 27

Who was the sculptor who gravitated toward motion sculpture?

A) Donald Judd
B) David Smith
C) Jean Tinguely
D) Claes Oldenburg

Question 28

Contrast the Sony Building (formerly AT&T building) in New York with the Portland Building in Portland, Oregon. How does each work reflect the postmodern architectural vocabulary?

Question 29

What was the purpose of Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party?

Question 30

What is the artistic issue of Environmental Art-sometimes called earthworks?

Question 31

____ sought to harness the communicative power of art to reach a wide audience.

A) Op Art
B) Pop Art
C) Formalism
D) Minimalism

Question 32

What is meant by action painting?

Question 33

How did World War II impact the second half of the 20th century?

Question 34

How did the principles and the techniques of the Minimalists differ from those of the Abstract Expressionists? Use specific works to illustrate your discussion.

Question 35

What is Performance Art?

Question 36

Compare and contrast the works of Francis Bacon and Jean Dubuffet.

Question 37

Post-painterly abstractionists differed from Abstract Expressionists in their ____.

A) presence of the artist's emotion
B) cool, detached rationality
C) color-field exercises
D) reliance on non-Western influences

Question 38

Critics referrred to Graves's Portland Building as ____.

A) a Las Vegas monstrosity
B) a tribute to Philip Johnson
C) an enlarged jukebox
D) a sham palace

Question 39

Who was Clement Greenberg?

Question 40

A good example of postmodernist architecture is ____.

A) Portland Building, Portland
B) Guggenheim Museum, New York
C) Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamp
D) Seagram Building, New York

Question 41

What is the focus of this work?

Question 42

How do this buildings reflect postmodernism?

Question 43

How is this sculpture contemporaneous with the Superrealist movement?

Question 44

How did these artists assert the feminist doctrine?

Question 45

Describe the influence and use of modern technologies in the arts of the late 20th century. How have artists transformed these "tools" into viable art-making processes? Use examples to support your essay.

Question 46

How is this work "modern"?

Question 47

What does this work evoke?

Question 48

Select three works of art or architecture and evaluate their significance. How does each respond to the issues of modernity and postmodernity? How are they relevant? How do they reveal the 20th and 21st centuries?