1970's Research Paper
Radical Art Movement of the 70’s
Is the art of the 1970’s to suffer a fate similar to that of the 1930’s, which has so often been presented as innovatively dull and empty, not worthy of much consideration?
Ian Burn1
Using a pinnacle moment in history to learn about arts from that era is a fun way to discover artists, and their works, that one might not have otherwise researched. The purpose of this report was to obtain a better understanding of art in the 1970’s. There’s many ways to approach this, you could search for an artist of that era, be it music or modern art, or pick a moment in history and then find art that that was produced around the same time. This report, although it covers the whole decade, is going to be based around the birth of Apple Computers Inc. Finding a history of art, …show more content…
especially British art, from the seventies is not easy. Tap Van Gough, Leonardo Da Vinci, or Rembrandt into a search engine and you’ll get bombarded with links and pictures, type 1970’s art and you’ll most probably get a few YouTube links to some Sex Pistols songs and a picture of The Clash’s album cover for London Calling. It was never going to be an easy topic, but easy isn’t fun.
Art in the seventies is thought to be a result of the social and political issues from the sixties. Artists rebelled against conformity, influenced further by the hippie movement, and started to use the land as a canvas and the media as a gallery. The decade saw a boom in performance art, blending art works with theatre and/or music to set a benchmark todays arts. The 1970s also saw explorations into Photorealism, ignoring the status quo of brushes and canvases.
The earth and its land have long been a platform for art works (think cave paintings, Stonehenge, and the pyramids) but the seventies saw some Americans and Brits start incorporating the earth itself as a tool for creating art. Although this type of art was not a huge political statement it has drastically changed the way modern art is perceived and gave birth to some incredible works of art that have changed the face of the planet including Walter Di Maria’s Lightning Fields in New Mexico, steel rods placed in a pattern in a field, relying on lightning striking the rods to create a truly unique piece of art. Land art was adopted by Christo and Jeanne Claude, and Richard Long, all of whom are associated with modernising this art form.
Because we are denied knowledge of our history, we are deprived of standing upon each other's shoulders and building upon each other's hard earned accomplishments. Instead we are condemned to repeat what others have done before us and thus we continually reinvent the wheel.
Judy Chicago2
Here come the girls!
One of the biggest political, social, and cultural backlashes of the seventies was the feminist art movement, branching from the rise of feminism. Female artists had long been ignored and overlooked throughout history with only a handful of women being recorded as having independent practices. Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party is one of the most well known pieces from the feminist art movement. A dinner table in the shape of a triangle with 39 different place settings, each representing a specific influential woman from history.
Not only did art see a dramatic change in the seventies, but the music industry saw itself being catapulted into the modern era. After the Beatles dominated the music scene for nearly a decade it was time for the super group to denounce their throne and make way for a new sound. The early seventies saw rise to progressive rock, a genre in which average singers could use their instrumental skills to create popular music. This genre of music started to fade out in the mid seventies and from this sound punk rock was born. The punk scene not only heavily influenced British music but also saw a huge change in
fashion.
Around the same time as the birth of punk music a couple of friends started producing a computer, the computer that would later go on to be know as the Apple 1. They might not have known it then but they had created a template for 21st century art going on to create aesthetically pleasing computers that resemble the 1977 works of Donald Judd’s Untitled.
It started with a love for Apple computers, something I’ve been a fan of from a young age, and a keen interest in the 70’s music scene. At first this was a difficult subject, it appeared as if there was no art produced throughout the whole of that decade. After meticulously scouring the internet trying to find a big name artist from the 1970’s, subconsciously ignoring the word feminism, I eventually stumbled across Walter Di Maria. Di Maria created something that I would never have thought of doing, mostly because I would be terrified of being electrocuted, and this was the first of many artists I uncovered whose arts were not just a canvas in a gallery, they are a statement, an enormous piece bigger than any gallery. Then I moved on to books, this provided me with more information than Google was willing to share with me, who knew that those dusty old things we decorate our homes with could be so informative? In books I discovered two words that has completely altered my opinion of 70’s art, ‘radical’ and ‘movement’. The 70’s wasn’t, and never will be, associated with its art, the entire decade was a “radical movement”. This is where that word I ignored earlier comes back. Feminism. It wasn’t a group of angry ladies marching through the streets of London blindly copying what the angry lady next to them is shouting, it was women expressing their feelings through art and music, it was giving a voice to a gender that deserved to be heard, it was a turning point in history, after the women got a voice through feminism black people earned their rightful voice and later followed the gay community to claim theirs too.
I have come to the conclusion that the 1st of January 1970 to 31st December 1979 was one truly inspiring yet controversial but liberating and uplifting gigantic piece of art. The music, fashion, art, politics, and movements were painted as one incredible piece of art and the world was the canvas, and that’s radical.
Is the art of the 1970’s to suffer a fate similar to that of the 1930’s, which has so often been presented as innovatively dull and empty, not worthy of much consideration?
Ian Burn1
Using a pinnacle moment in history to learn about arts from that era is a fun way to discover artists, and their works, that one might not have otherwise researched. The purpose of this report was to obtain a better understanding of art in the 1970’s. There’s many ways to approach this, you could search for an artist of that era, be it music or modern art, or pick a moment in history and then find art that that was produced around the same time. This report, although it covers the whole decade, is going to be based around the birth of Apple Computers Inc. Finding a history of art, …show more content…
especially British art, from the seventies is not easy. Tap Van Gough, Leonardo Da Vinci, or Rembrandt into a search engine and you’ll get bombarded with links and pictures, type 1970’s art and you’ll most probably get a few YouTube links to some Sex Pistols songs and a picture of The Clash’s album cover for London Calling. It was never going to be an easy topic, but easy isn’t fun.
Art in the seventies is thought to be a result of the social and political issues from the sixties. Artists rebelled against conformity, influenced further by the hippie movement, and started to use the land as a canvas and the media as a gallery. The decade saw a boom in performance art, blending art works with theatre and/or music to set a benchmark todays arts. The 1970s also saw explorations into Photorealism, ignoring the status quo of brushes and canvases.
The earth and its land have long been a platform for art works (think cave paintings, Stonehenge, and the pyramids) but the seventies saw some Americans and Brits start incorporating the earth itself as a tool for creating art. Although this type of art was not a huge political statement it has drastically changed the way modern art is perceived and gave birth to some incredible works of art that have changed the face of the planet including Walter Di Maria’s Lightning Fields in New Mexico, steel rods placed in a pattern in a field, relying on lightning striking the rods to create a truly unique piece of art. Land art was adopted by Christo and Jeanne Claude, and Richard Long, all of whom are associated with modernising this art form.
Because we are denied knowledge of our history, we are deprived of standing upon each other's shoulders and building upon each other's hard earned accomplishments. Instead we are condemned to repeat what others have done before us and thus we continually reinvent the wheel.
Judy Chicago2
Here come the girls!
One of the biggest political, social, and cultural backlashes of the seventies was the feminist art movement, branching from the rise of feminism. Female artists had long been ignored and overlooked throughout history with only a handful of women being recorded as having independent practices. Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party is one of the most well known pieces from the feminist art movement. A dinner table in the shape of a triangle with 39 different place settings, each representing a specific influential woman from history.
Not only did art see a dramatic change in the seventies, but the music industry saw itself being catapulted into the modern era. After the Beatles dominated the music scene for nearly a decade it was time for the super group to denounce their throne and make way for a new sound. The early seventies saw rise to progressive rock, a genre in which average singers could use their instrumental skills to create popular music. This genre of music started to fade out in the mid seventies and from this sound punk rock was born. The punk scene not only heavily influenced British music but also saw a huge change in
fashion.
Around the same time as the birth of punk music a couple of friends started producing a computer, the computer that would later go on to be know as the Apple 1. They might not have known it then but they had created a template for 21st century art going on to create aesthetically pleasing computers that resemble the 1977 works of Donald Judd’s Untitled.
It started with a love for Apple computers, something I’ve been a fan of from a young age, and a keen interest in the 70’s music scene. At first this was a difficult subject, it appeared as if there was no art produced throughout the whole of that decade. After meticulously scouring the internet trying to find a big name artist from the 1970’s, subconsciously ignoring the word feminism, I eventually stumbled across Walter Di Maria. Di Maria created something that I would never have thought of doing, mostly because I would be terrified of being electrocuted, and this was the first of many artists I uncovered whose arts were not just a canvas in a gallery, they are a statement, an enormous piece bigger than any gallery. Then I moved on to books, this provided me with more information than Google was willing to share with me, who knew that those dusty old things we decorate our homes with could be so informative? In books I discovered two words that has completely altered my opinion of 70’s art, ‘radical’ and ‘movement’. The 70’s wasn’t, and never will be, associated with its art, the entire decade was a “radical movement”. This is where that word I ignored earlier comes back. Feminism. It wasn’t a group of angry ladies marching through the streets of London blindly copying what the angry lady next to them is shouting, it was women expressing their feelings through art and music, it was giving a voice to a gender that deserved to be heard, it was a turning point in history, after the women got a voice through feminism black people earned their rightful voice and later followed the gay community to claim theirs too.
I have come to the conclusion that the 1st of January 1970 to 31st December 1979 was one truly inspiring yet controversial but liberating and uplifting gigantic piece of art. The music, fashion, art, politics, and movements were painted as one incredible piece of art and the world was the canvas, and that’s radical.