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The Present Art Scene - Online Term Paper

The Present Art Scene

The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between the profusion of the earth and the galaxy of the stars, but that in this prison we can fashion images of ourselves sufficiently powerful to deny our nothingness.
—André Malraux

What images? Among those currently proffered to the public for contemplation: a series of six, large, identically white pictures by Walter de Maria differing only in that on one the artist has written in pencil the word Sky, on another River, on a third Mountain. Four packing-case-sized and identical boxes by Robert Morris, painted white and spaced at equal intervals on the floor. A row of what appears to be eight truncated shoeboxes, the work ...

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in "minimal" art. The present art scene offers other creations: paintings that are an eye-blinding dazzle of stripes; canvases that are cantilevered from the wall right over the living-room sofa; gadgets that jiggle, wiggle, writhe and spin. And, though it is past its peak, there is pop: an assemblage in which a real lawnmower leans against a painted canvas; Brillo boxes designed to look exactly like Brillo boxes; cartoons blown up to mural size, complete with dialogue balloons and lithographic dots; old bits of crumpled automobiles presented as sculpture; an old Savarin coffee can containing 18 brushes in turpentine and frozen in ineffable permanency. Sometimes the subjects are erotic. Edward Kienholz's plaster couple makes love in the back seat of a real, if dismembered, car. Larry Rivers' seven-foot, three-faced Negro in plywood achieves vivid connection with a complaisant friend by way of a flashing light bulb. A disembodied female breast by Tom Wesselman looms, big as a ...

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The Present Art Scene. (2011, March 2). Retrieved January 7, 2026, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Present-Art-Scene/95406

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 3/2/2011 09:28:48 AM
Submitted By: coocoo4puffs
Category: Arts
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 558
Pages: 3

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