Institutions and Anti-Institutions: Pacific Standard Time Exhibition (Article Sample)

Institutions and Anti-Institutions
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Pacific Standard Time Exhibition
Though Los Angeles made little progress in the field of contemporary art in the earlier post war years, it made significant strides within the decades that followed. There were various factors that led to these developments key among them including the aerospace industry, an increase in number of recognised art schools and revolutionary exhibitions, key among them being the Pacific Standard Time exhibition. Its presentations ranged from complex displays of archival documents to modern artwork presentations which both complemented and contradicted each other. The exhibitions not only highlighted the contributions made by both Mexican and African-American artists but they also featured assemblages, photography ceramics and artwork on feminism and its effects. All these changed the way in which art was perceived both nationally and internationally by adding new twist to the art arena such as finish fetish paintings, pop art and illusionistic lighting. The uniqueness from the Pacific Standard Time exhibition came from the fact that more institutions were involved which helped to highlight new areas of art that had little exposure to the art world as new revelations were made.
Pop Surrealism
The terminology Pop Surrealism sources its stylistic roots from the trendy, edgy, hip and self-taught art that was dominant during the early post war years. It was also referred to as “Outsider Art” (Anderson, 2004). In terms of style this type of artwork can be correlated to the assemblage works of Noah Purifoy whose art involved using found objects that could easily be bend as sources of his inspirations. This is because at the initial stages of their development both their styles were viewed as being out of the norm. Noah Purifoy has a striking resemblance to one Lowbrow artist by the name Nicolas Moufarrege. Like Purifoy, Nicolas pioneered new and compelling forms of contemporary art, most prominent of which was “The Mutant International” (Anderson, 2004). This was a period before the mass merchandising of the movie X-Men and adolescents who subscribed to his work were viewed as being socially disconnected. Nonetheless, his works paved the way to many of the art that we see today.
Pop Surrealism and Fantasy Realms
Pop Surrealism and Lowbrow art sourced their inspiration from colourful and controversial graphic tradition some of which included movie poster art and science fiction. This new use of fantasy realms led to the development of monster art and a variety of other children illustrations which differed from earlier art forms and were even dismissed by formal art authorities.
“Dumbing Down To DaVinci” is a piece of contemporary artwork by Robert Williams that explains the challenges that an artist has in explaining to a prominent art historian that Lowbrow art is one of the most aggressive art movements since pop art (Anderson, 2004). In many ways this is similar to Moira’s gender performances which we have covered in our previous readings whereby she assigns the role of a king to a lady. This is bas...