Abstract Expressionism In The 1960s

During the mid-1950s, in America, several artists were attached to small movements such as, Neo-Dada and Funk Art in which they were including articles of mass culture. They wanted art to be more broad than traditional styles like Abstract Expressionism, so the use of non-art materials were incorporated. This focused on ordinary and easily identifiable subjects that expressed the popular culture of the day. By the 1960s the movement's initial affect had been adjusted, yet its methods and supporters remained highly influential in art. This had a profound effect on the work of many artists who followed. Abstract Expressionism influenced all the art movements of the 1960s such as Color Field painting, Lyrical Abstraction, Fluxus, Pop Art, Minimalism, Postminimalism, Neo-expressionism. Abstract Expressionism serves as the gateway to the …show more content…
This connection can be demonstrated through assessing the nineteenth century Romantic landscape paintings. Whereas artists like Frederick Church encouraged viewers to contemplate their place in nature, Color field painters relied on large canvasses overflowing in fields of color to create similar responses among their audience. Whereas, the action painting of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, reveal a connection to Existentialist philosophy. Showing how the Modernist concept of the artist/hero fed into the American values of individualism and democracy seen during the Cold War. The action paintings of Pollock, and its emphasis on the artist’s creative piece, helps explain the shift to assemblage, installation, and performance. The visual contrast between the works of the Color Imagists and the Action Painters paves the way for a discussion of formalist painting, as well as the emergence of creative practices that blurred the realm of art with real