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

Question 1

Because of the spontaneous and informal nature of Performance Art, which of the following was the primary medium?

A) the human body
B) newsprint
C) cheap paper
D) cardboard

Answer 1

A

Question 2

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

Answer 2

A

Question 3

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

Answer 3

A

Question 4

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.

Question 5

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 6

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 7

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 Post-Modern period

Question 8

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 9

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 10

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 11

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 1940s
D) during the 1960s

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

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 14

What was the main focus of the work of the postwar New York School?

A) life on the streets
B) optical phenomena
C) the act of painting itself
D) Postmodern appropriation of early material

Question 15

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 physical objects.
D) It is purposefully confusing the audience.

Question 16

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 17

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 18

Which of the following describes Happenings?

A) planned
B) controlled
C) individualized
D) participatory

Question 19

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 20

Which of the following earlier art styles formed the characterizing spirit of Performance Art?

A) German Expressionism
B) Cubism
C) Dada
D) Abstract Expressionism

Question 21

Which of the following describes the Portland Building located in Portland, Oregon?

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

Question 22

How did WW II impact the second half of the twentieth century?

Question 23

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 24

What is Performance Art?

Question 25

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 26

Pop Art, and art that utilized the techniques of advertising, industrial design, and Hollywood movies were at their heights during which of the following decades?

A) 1950s
B) 1960s
C) 1970s
D) 1980s

Question 27

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 28

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

A) life
B) music
C) a collaborator
D) poetry

Question 29

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

Question 30

Who was Clement Greenberg?

Question 31

Which artist stated that she wanted her pieces to be "non art, non connotative, non anthropomorphic, non geometric, non nothing, everything, but of another kind, vision, sort"?

A) Helen Frankenthaler
B) Judy Chicago
C) Sonia Sheridan
D) Eva Hesse

Question 32

Cindy Sherman works in which medium representing the "male gaze"?

A) sculpture
B) acrylics
C) video
D) photography

Question 33

What artist used the technique of benday dots and why?

Question 34

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 35

Which of the following describes what artists working in the Post-Painterly Abstractionist style believed?

A) Abstract Expressionists had gone too far in removing social references from works of art.
B) Their works should contain no reference to the world outside their own compositions.
C) They wanted to express religious feelings through simple forms.
D) They were deeply influenced by the work of African and pre-Columbian cultures.

Question 36

What is the artistic issue of Environmental art-- sometimes called Earth art or earthworks?

Question 37

What is meant by Minimal Art?

Question 38

Who was the sculptor who believed that "the only stable thing is movement"?

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

Question 39

Which of the following describes the work of Jackson Pollock.

A) quiet and intense remaining true to conventional painting
B) strictly organized adhering to conventional painting
C) colorful remaining true to conventional painting
D) significant departure from conventional painting

Question 40

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

Question 41

What does this work evoke?

Question 42

How did these artists assert the feminist doctrine?

Question 43

How is this photograph contemporaneous with the Superrealist movement?

Question 44

Select three works of art or architecture and evaluate their significance. How does each respond to the issues of modernity and post-modernity? How are they relevant? How do they reveal the twentieth and twenty-first centuries?

Question 45

What is the focus of this work?

Question 46

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

Question 47

How is this work "modern"?

Question 48

How do this buildings reflect post-modernism?