Sculptural tableaux of the sixties: Edward Kienholz, Claes Oldenburg, and George Segal. (Volumes I and II).
Item
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Title
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Sculptural tableaux of the sixties: Edward Kienholz, Claes Oldenburg, and George Segal. (Volumes I and II).
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Identifier
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AAI8821073
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identifier
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8821073
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Creator
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Clark-Langager, Sarah Ann.
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Contributor
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Advisers: Rose-Carol Washton Long | Robert Pincus-Witten
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Date
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1988
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Fine Arts
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Abstract
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In the dynamic period of the sixties, Kienholz, Oldenburg, and Segal reinvigorated the tradition of tableau in order to engage the spectator in the conditions of American society. This dissertation sets forth Diderot's tableau concept of a dramatic scene, including its stop action, in a staged space without spectators, proposes the Dadaists' and Surrealists' changes in the eighteenth century format, and introduces new influences in the fifties from the visual and performing arts.;Chapter one pinpoints three publications of 1951-52 which provide crucial models for these young artists: Harold Rosenberg's article stressing the "living drama" of the Abstract Expressionists; Cyril Connolly's article emphasizing the Surrealist object and the environmental exhibition; and Robert Motherwell's anthology of Dadaist texts and art ranging from Tzara and Schwitters to Duchamp.;Chapter two discusses the three artists' early work (1958-64) and the formation of their attitudes towards sculptural tableau. The issue is what they obtained from traditional variants of tableau as monuments and moving pictures, the Abstract Expressionist legacy of an art of the environment, assemblages of ordinary objects, and Happenings. Allan Kaprow's publications on aspects of environmental art are used as a gauge for these three artists' diverse choices for their tableau format.;Since critics were initially oriented to the ambiguous meanings of this Neo-Dada and/or Pop Art rather than to the idea of tableau, chapter three focuses on how the three artists used the Dadaist-Surrealist concerns of chapter one and how they built new themes. Their themes are the urban street, the new grotto, social-political events, and the artist in his studio.;Since literalism and an environmental focus are common to Pop and Minimal Art and since Michael Fried grouped these three artists under the theatrical effects of Minimal Art, chapter four suggests comparisons between these three artists and the Minimalist Robert Morris. The conclusion is that these three artists used the Dadaist-Surrealist base of Motherwell's anthology versus Morris who worked with its abstract Dadaist-Constructivist examples. Kienholz, Oldenburg, and Segal used sculptural tableau to move sculpture off its formal axis and into an arena of contextual response.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
