Ten Pieces of 20th Century Art Every Moron Should Know (and WHY you should)- CAC's Late Night Art Thread

This is going to be a rather ambitious project, but none of the 10 weekly posts will be too terribly wordy. There are very few art critics or historians out there hailing from the right side of the political spectrum these days. As my handle implies, I intend to be one of them, what with my fancy 3/4ths of a college degree and crappy art. The brief description of Ace's site is "a smart military blog." Well, you can't have smart without, you guessed it...sm. There will be lots of sm, condensed into a weekly post.

Moron Art will continue, and I have several submissions at the end for this weeks edition. If you would like to show off your mad sm skills, please submit a JPEG of your work HERE. Be sure to include your AoS handle along with the title, dimensions, year and medium of the work.

Tonight's thread will just be a flashy introduction to the Ten Works Any Moron Should Know. Every subsequent weekly post will focus on one of these works and, well, why you should know it. Art for much of its history was a direct reflection of the society as it was, for good or for bad. We can examine a hundred-year-old work with fresh eyes today and find truths still relevant to the basketcase of a world we live in- perhaps a sad reflection that the more our civilization changes, the more things stay the same.

You may be shocked that I opened a new perspective. You may be angry that I grossly overinterpreted a painting. Most of you will be asking “what is going on and where the hell is Ace and the rest of the co-bloggers?," to which I already have an easy answer for you: I have pictures of a certain ewok.

So here are the ten pieces you should know, and if you disagree then you are worse than Nancy Pelosi:

#1 Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon

Pablo Picasso, 1907. Oil on Canvas. 96”x92”. MOMA.

#2 Fountain

Marcel Duchamp, 1917. (photo from 1917 exhibition) Porcelain Urinal. Original lost, replicas at various institutions.

#3 The Treachery of Images

Rene Magritte, 1929. Oil on Canvas 23½”x37”. LACMA.

#4 The Persistence of Memory

Salvador Dali, 1931. Oil on Canvas 9½”x13”. MOMA.

#5 Lavender Mist

Jackson Pollack, 1950. Oil, enamel and aluminum paint on canvas 86½”x119”. National Gallery of Art (Washington).

#6 The Rauschenberg Combines

(Here- Odalisk, Robert Rauschenberg, 1955-1958. Freestanding combine 80¾"x17"x17¼”. Various, Odalisk @ Museum Ludwig (Kohn))

#7 Classical Rothko

(This one- Ochre and Red on Red, Mark Rothko, 1954. Oil on canvas 92 5/8"x63¾". Phillips Collection.)

#8 F-111

James Rosenquist, 1965. Oil on canvas with aluminum, 10'x86'. MOMA.

#9 Tilted Arc

Richard Serra, 1981. COR-TEN steel, 12'x120'. (New York Federal Plaza DESTROYED 1989).

#10 MetroMobiltan

Hans Haacke, 1985. Fiberglass, banners, and photomural, 11'8”x20'x5'. Collection Center Georges Pomidou (Paris).

I will be going in chronological order starting next week with the Picasso.

Now, onto the Moron Art of the Week:

Oriental Phantasy

(lurker)-Capt. Tom Francis, 2010. Digital Photo.

Blue

billypaintbrush, 2005. Acrylic on canvas, 28"x22".

Dancer in Blue and Orange

Troyriser, 2010. Gouche on canvas, 16"x20".

Nightmare

Kurt Peterson, date unknown. Ink on Paper.

That Confounded Bridge

Walt Gilbert, 2010. Digital Photo.

Untitled

peoplesrepublicofbaltimore, 2009. Digital Photo.

Serving Tray & Cutting Board

Matt Dunlap, 2010. Wood.

Moron George Orwell shot me two works but my gmail made them vanish to wherever google sends images. Perhaps next week.

Now, spout off ye morons.

posted by CAC at 11:54 PM

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