Local vs. Global Art

1. Local vs. Global Art
Introduction to Eastern and Western Art

2. ● Relevance of location in art
● Place and Identity
● Local Culture / Style
● Nationalism

3. Utagawa Hiroshige
(Japan), Bamboo
Yards, Kyobashi Bridge
(100 Views of Edo),
Woodblock Print
(Ukiyo-e), 1857

4. Kyobashi was the first bridge on Tokaido Road, south of the Nihonbashi
Bridge, with which it shared the jewel-shaped metal rail ornaments known as
"giboshi." The bridges leading into the gates of Edo Castle were the only
others allowed these ornaments. The ornaments on the Kyobashi were
preserved when the bridge was destroyed in 1965, and are seen today in
front of a nearby police station. Hiroshige began his career as a landscape
artist in 1831 with a variety of bridge and moon compositions. Along the
bank of this river were the bamboo dealers of Sumi-choa, which gave this
area the name of Takegashi ("bamboo quay"). The procession crossing the
bridge is a group of pilgrims returning from Mount Oyama with their souvenir
bonten. Below is a boatman poling a skiff loaded with bamboo baskets.
There is a figure crossing the bridge (about center) carrying a red lantern
and on that lantern is the signature of Yokogawa Hori-take, one of the best
known woodblock carvers of the day. He engraved many of Hiroshige's
designs in the 1850's and carved the memorial portrait of Hiroshige shortly
after the artist's death.
Retrieved by https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/121690

5. Grant Wood
(American),
American Gothic,
1930, Oil on wood,
78 cm × 65.3 cm

6. This familiar image was exhibited publicly for the first time at the Art Institute
of Chicago, winning a three-hundred-dollar prize and instant fame for Grant
Wood. The impetus for the painting came while Wood was visiting the small
town of Eldon in his native Iowa. There he spotted a little wood farmhouse,
with a single oversized window, made in a style called Carpenter Gothic. “I
imagined American Gothic people with their faces stretched out long to go
with this American Gothic house,” he said. He used his sister and his dentist
as models for a farmer and his daughter, dressing them as if they were
“tintypes from my old family album.” The highly detailed, polished style and
the rigid frontality of the two figures were inspired by Flemish Renaissance
art, which Wood studied during his travels to Europe between 1920 and
1926. After returning to settle in Iowa, he became increasingly appreciative
of midwestern traditions and culture, which he celebrated in works such as
this. American Gothic, often understood as a satirical comment on the
midwestern character, quickly became one of America’s most famous
paintings and is now firmly entrenched in the nation’s popular culture.
Yet Wood intended it to be a positive statement about rural American
values, an image of reassurance at a time of great dislocation and
disillusionment. The man and woman, in their solid and well-crafted world,
with all their strengths and weaknesses, represent survivors.
Retrieved from http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/6565

7. Martin Parr
(UK), Think of
England, 2004,
Photography

8. Think of England is a selection of thirty photographs from a body of work
with the same title that Martin Parr made between 1995 and 2003. Parr is a
member of Magnum, the global photo agency based in New York, London
and Paris. He lives in Bristol, England and has photographed Britain with a
singular relentlessness. Parr’s framing, and his use of foregrounded
fragments, captures in spatial form what we cognitively know to exist in the
so-called real world. It is this image structure, as much as the subjects of his
photographs that have established him in his position as the pre-eminent
social documentarian in Britain. Parr’s relation to England is ambiguous
and that ambiguity is expressed perfectly in his pictures. His caring for
the people he photographs seems to be combined with his amazement
at the state that things have come to.
Parr’s England is charming in an other-worldly way, sometimes decaying
before our eyes, product-obsessed, arcanely ritualistic and, overall, a place
where the seagulls look healthier than the people. Demographically, Parr
shows us England’s defenders of Empire, its more recent arrivals, and its
youth, all at their leisure. As well, we see the detritus that all of these groups
leave behind in their search for a better life. Think of England reveals the
English at work and play, as victims of mass consumerism and
seemingly meaningless tourism.
Retrieved by https://thepolygon.ca/exhibition/martin-parr-think-of-england/

9. Site Specific Art
As a site-specific work of art is designed for a specific
location, if removed from that location it loses all or a
substantial part of its meaning.

10. Jaume Plensa (Spanish Contemporary Artist), Crown Fountain (Chicago, USA),
2004, Black Granite Reflecting Pool with 2 LED Screens, glass brick, water), 15 m
tall

11. What is a fountain? How is it relevant to the people who will see it? Why
build it? When deciding upon an artist to tackle these question, there was a
desire to the both visionary and to also acknowledge the rich historical
context. Spanish sculptor Jaume Plensa (Barcelona 1955) was chosen
because his work is principally focused on the human experience of
standing in between, so-to-speak, between past and present, present and
future, knowledge and ignorance, heaven and hell.
The two glass towers of the fountain may be the first indication that dualities,
elements engaged in a constantly evolving dialogue, are at the heart of
experience Plensa seeks to create. These dualities are both formal, as in
the vertical of the towers and horizontality of the granite plaza surrounding
them, the hardness of the stone and the softness of the water, and they are
also conceptual. The latter very much exemplified by the ongiong dialogue
between the faces of the 1000 Chicago residents displayed on the facing
LED screens within the towers, The faces intermittently emerge from the
flow of water and become for a few moments a kind of contemporary
interpretation of a "gargoyle" by spouting water from their mouths. The
emphasis is always on communication, conversation and interaction - the
purpose of a meeting place.
Retrieved by https://jaumeplensa.com/works-and-projects/public-space/the-crown-fountain-2004

12. International Style

13. Ludwig Mies van
der Rohe and
Philip Johnson
(Germany /
USA), Seagram
Building (New
York City), 1958

14. Today when people speak of the "architecture of the modern
movement," they are usually referring to the International Style -
especially the gleaming steel, glass, and concrete forms of its most famous
buildings. More of a movement than a mere aesthetic, the International Style
emerged in Europe partly as a response to the cataclysm of World War I and
related events. Its use in postwar housing gave it renown as a symbol of
social and industrial progress, and not surprisingly, the International Style
often resonated with leftist political groups. In the face of opposition from
totalitarian regimes in the 1930s, many of the International Style's European
proponents resettled in the United States, where economic expansion after
World War II allowed it to flourish, particularly in skyscraper construction.
This, along with the growth of rapid postwar intercontinental communication,
allowed it to become a truly global architecture. But the inability of the
International Style's supporters to solve social problems as its founders had
hoped, coupled with its rigid formal monotony, prompted many architects in
the 1960s to seek new design directions that reflected an increasingly diverse,
commercialized, and post-industrial society. While few architects today call
themselves adherents of the International Style, an equally small number
would say it has not in some way influenced their work.
Retrieved by http://www.theartstory.org/movement-international-style.htm

15. Universality in Art

16. Theo van
Doesburg
(Netherlands
De Stijl),
Composition IX,
Oil on canvas,
1917

17. The Netherlands-based De Stijl movement embraced an abstract, pared-
down aesthetic centered in basic visual elements such as geometric forms
and primary colors. Partly a reaction against the decorative excesses of Art
Deco, the reduced quality of De Stijl art was envisioned by its creators as
a universal visual language appropriate to the modern era, a time of a
new, spiritualized world order. Led by the painters Theo van Doesburg
and Piet Mondrian - its central and celebrated figures - De Stijl artists applied
their style to a host of media in the fine and applied arts and beyond.
Promoting their innovative ideas in their journal of the same name, the
members envisioned nothing less than the ideal fusion of form and function,
thereby making De Stijl in effect the ultimate style. To this end, De Stijl artists
turned their attention not only to fine art media such as painting and
sculpture, but virtually all other art forms as well, including industrial design,
typography, even literature and music.
Retrieved from http://www.theartstory.org/movement-de-stijl.htm

18. Mark Rothko (USA), Mark Rothko Chapel (Houston, Texas, USA),
1964-67, Oil on Canvas Paintings / Architecture

19. Mark Rothko (USA), Mark Rothko Chapel (Houston, Texas, USA), 1964-67, Oil on Canvas
Paintings / Architecture

20. The Rothko Chapel is a non-denominational chapel in Houston, Texas
founded by John and Dominique de Menil and opened in 1971. The interior
serves not only as a chapel, but also as a major work of modern art. On its
walls are fourteen black but color hued paintings by Mark Rothko. The shape
of the building, an octagon inscribed in a Greek cross, and the design of the
chapel was largely influenced by the artist. You can find out more about the
Rothko Chapel in it’s official website.
Susan J. Barnes states “The Rothko Chapel…became the world’s first
broadly ecumenical center, a holy place open to all religions and
belonging to none. It became a center for international cultural,
religious, and philosophical exchanges, for colloquia and
performances. And it became a place of private prayer for individuals
of all faiths”.
Fourteen of Rothko’s paintings are displayed in the chapel. Three walls
display triptychs, while the other five walls display single paintings.
Beginning in 1964, Rothko began painting a series of black paintings, which
incorporated other dark hues and texture effects. A typical question raised by
visitors viewing the massive black canvases which adorn the walls of the
chapel includes some variant of: “Where are the paintings?” The hue of the
paintings vary on the lightning of the moment of the day.
Retrieved from http://www.markrothko.org/rothko-chapel/

21. Globalization and Art

22. Li Lihong (Chinese), McDonald's – Four Gentlemen (Plum, Iris,
Bamboo, and Chrysanthemum), 2007, Porcelain, 14.5 x 17.5 x 5 inches

23. Marrying traditional Chinese aesthetics and materials with
contemporary iconography, Li Lihong creates sculpture that
acknowledges global change in the twenty-first century. His porcelain
sculptures mimic the shapes of recognizable brands’ logos: McDonald’s
arches, Absolut vodka bottles, Mickey Mouse ears, the Nike “swoosh,” and
Apple’s apple. The implication is clear: Western business has become
integrated into Chinese culture.
Less explicit, however, is the artist’s message. Does this sculpture critique
the incursion of American-style commercialism? Does it celebrate the easy
populism of consumer culture? Lihong’s background suggests that his work
embraces both readings. Born in 1974, he came of age in the 1980s, when
China was increasingly opening its doors to the West; McDonald’s launched
its first Chinese restaurant in 1990. The artist was raised with an
understanding of the tensions between old and new, and a balance of these
influences is at the heart of his current work.
Retrieved from http://www.hollistaggart.com/artists/li-lihong

24. Korakrit Arunanondchai (Thailand), Painting with history in a room filled with
people with funny names 3 (video art), 2015

25. Painting with history in a room filled with people with funny names is the
epilogue to a series of works about the process of creating the persona of a
painter. Celebrating connectivity and the merging of art and life, the video ties
Korakrit Arunanondchai's biography together with the constructed image of an
artist, and the social realities of his native present-day Thailand.
Bangkok-raised artist Korakrit Arunanondchai engages a myriad of subjects
such as history, authenticity, self-representation, and tourism through the lens
of a cultural transplant. His work seeks to find a common ground in artistic
experiences through a pastiche of styles and mediums.
Retrieved from http://impakt.nl/channel-2/videos/korakrit-arunanondchai-paintings-with-history-in-a-room-filled-
with-people-with-funny-names-3-thailand-2015/