Definition:Hyperrealism/ Radical Realism/ Photorealism/ New RealismSuperrealism = more than normal realism the artists make us more aware of visual realities (things we would

normally take f or granted.)

Images

Influences: •Influenced by the American tradition of realist art in the early 20th Century •Super-realism was popular with patrons - which could also explain its popularity •Some critics claim that Super-realism was a reflection of the conservative political climate in the USA at the time - Nixon’s government

Super-realism reacted to abstract Expressionism & Conceptual art – Super-realists (on the surface) seem to be returning art to the condition it had been in before modernism – a return to traditional figurative realism. Influenced by Photography Influenced by Pop – reminds people of everyday objects that surround one (emphasises the profusion of photographic images)

Characteristics: Descriptive objective (not emotive) – similar to pop art – a comment is implied on the way modern life distances emotion. Love/hatred emotion is often not experienced 1st hand but is seen through the lens of the TV camera, through photos etc. Some artists even turned their source & their artwork upside down – so as to further distance themselves from the subject matter. a new Trompe l’ Oeil Like Pop, Superrealism focuses on the urban/suburban

Has a stop-action stillness & sharp focus & makes most realist work look almost Impressionistic. Time consuming – ironic – seem to capture a moment in time because of their photographic source. (took weeks & even months to produce) Monocular vision Uniform focus throughout the visual field Smooth emulsion –like surfaces (neutral finish – even employ an airbrush to distance the artist & viewer)

Chuck Close

Close, Big Self Portrait, 1967 - 1968, 273 - 212 cm

Abandoned colour – worked exclusively from black & white images Gave up thick luxurious paint – would only use a few tablespoons of pigment for a huge mural sized painting – used airbrush to apply paint (airbrush imitates the smooth impersonal surface of a photograph.)Uses a grid to transfer image – echoes the dot-screen grid used in commercial printing

Chuck Close, Susan, 1972,

252cm X 226.5 cm

Subjects are close friends, but ironically are treated in very impersonal wayHowever, one would think that what Close has done would dehumanise his sitters, yet they seem vulnerable. Their mural size makes them iconic, their frontality – as defiant as police mug shots & as important as colossal classical sculptures.

Warhol also did “mug shots” but his impersonal silkscreen technique disallowed him the same intimacy that Close’s hand work affords him.

Close, Nat, 1972. Watercolor on paper

1970 – readmits colour, but applies the colour in a very strict method- layering cyan, magenta & yellow – imitating the separations used in colour photography & in colour printing.

Close, Linda,

1975-76

Billboard size – similar to Abs. Exp. – our eyes seem to become magnifying glasses – the face almost becomes a landscape & has cracks, ridges etc. – you focus on one area of the face at a time & the areas that would normally be blurred you notice. The heads become less like – rather than more like the person they are meant to resemble. These portraits seem to destroy the concept of scale

Close, Dorothea, 1995 259 X 213.4 cm

His later works are made up of cells - oval or lozenge in form breaking up the portrait into geometric atoms (he at first used his fingerprints to make these shapes) - these heighten the tension between the mechanical & manual aspects of the technique& the fluid & fixed parts of the image. The image almost becomes swallowed by the dominant grid.

Close, Self Portrait, 1997

Close is not really a portraitist but a still life painter – the still life = the photographic print.

estes

Characteristics:•Extreme precision, technically skillful, monumental •New York street scenes are depicted - often unpopulated •Banal subject matter – influenced by Pop artists •Works from several shots of same scene, combining them until they have the right “feel”. Often more complex than what the camera could record. •He renders photographic data until he achieves a higher level of perceptual reality often including things that the camera would not pick up in the natural or human environment. •He makes diptych- like divisions of the images

Estes, Bus Reflections, 1972, oil on canvas, 101.6 X 132.1cm

•often includes a wide-angle viewpoint. •The compositional balance seen in Café Express is too satisfying to be random.

Estes, Café Express

•The window reflections often obscure what is behind them & tells more about what is happening on the opposite side of the street & even what is behind the viewer. •The paintings have a planar emphasis, which comes from the broad sheets of glass that make up his work. •The glass surfaces transmit & reflect the contents of depth & the world seems turned inside out. •The human figure is often eliminated (perhaps to make his images that are based on momentary effects seem timeless.)

Estes, Central Savings

Estes, Supreme Hardware, 1973, oil on canvas

Hanson

Hanson, Blue Boy, 1938At 13, he carved an earnest, realistic wooden replica of Thomas Gainsborough's The Blue Boy.

Gainsborough, Blue Boy, c. 1770

Motorcycle Accident -- a cast of a lifeless boy lying next to his wrecked bike -- caused a sensation and put him on the map. It looks tame now, but in 1968 it was banned from an exhibition as "too grisly."

Hanson, Motorcycle Accident, 1967

Oldenberg, Salmon And Mayonaisse

Segal, The Diner, 1964 - 66

Segal, Woman against a Black Window

Segal, Woman on a Bed

Hanson, Florida Shopper, 1973

He got rid of his early exaggeration and concentrated on the individual. Then he began to paint these meticulously cast works in closely observed detail, down to the veins under fragile skin, liver spots, freckles and beard stubble on faces.

Hanson, Woman with a shopping cart, 1969

Hanson, Couple with Shopping bags, 1976, Polyester resin and fiber glass, polychromed in oil, with clothing & accessories, life size.

Couple with shopping bags: Must have been normally attractive in their youth. In early middle age they are defeated. The woman is sullen, the man despairing. Economically the couple is secure (in the middle bracket of a society that has offered its middle class more material benefits than emotional benefits)Dressed in wonder fabrics that will wash in a wonder washing machine with new wonder detergent. They are victims of a society that has been completely urbanised; yet this society offers no inner satisfaction that less advanced societies have offered in the past.

Hanson, Tourists, 1970, Polychromed fiberglass & polyester.

Hanson, Woman with Dog, 1977

Look at Woman With a Dog. An elderly, overweight lady sits in a living room chair while a dog lies asleep at her feet. She reads a letter addressed to Minnie Johnson of Davie, Fla., from Lily Carlson of Minneapolis. It's perfect; the letter's even about the bad weather back in Minnesota.

it's how they occupy space in the gallery that makes them so convincing.

Hanson, Old Lady

Hanson, Young Worker, 1976

Hanson, Bodybuilder

Richter

Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase

Marey’s Motion Suit

Richter, Emma-Akt auf einer Treppe, 1966 (Emma - Nude on a staircase)

This parodies Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase & imitates a photograph that is an imitation of a painting that itself is an interpretation of simultaneous photography .

De Andrea

Back to Influences

Essay Questions:

Pop& Land:

1. Developments in art during the 20th century opened the way to a new visual awareness. In an essay discuss this statement with reference to the work of Pop & Land art.

(45)

Or

2. Both Pop & Land art were concerned about the “transience” of images. In an essay discuss this statement with reference to at least three specific images from each movement.

(45)

Pop, Land & Superrealism:

1. It has been said that art of the latter half of the 20th Century is not selected(for display in galleries) for whatever individual excellence it may possess, but rather as something representative of a general activity.

Discuss the above statement with reference to the work of artworks from the following three movements:

Pop

Land

Superrealism

(45)