Overview of Postmodern Art

Banksy

Flower Bomber - Blurring the lines between vandalism and art, this graffiti juxtaposes a rioter with a bouquet of flowers swapped for his molotov cocktail

Swinger - Depiction of a boy's water rescue where the ring buoy is modeled after a playful rope swing, done by Banksy on the third anniversary of the Hurricane Katrina disaster

One Nation Under CCTV - Placed next to an installation of security cameras, this criticism of the British government reminded the citizens of London that they were being watched by Big Brother

Ronald McDonald - Art installation featuring a scowling fiberglass Ronald McDonald lording over a live, raggedy shoeshine boy

Umberto Boccioni

Unique Forms of Continuity in Space - Marching figure is shaped and polished by the Futurist motifs of wind, speed, and machinery

Dynamism of the Body - Abstract, that like all of Boccioni's work, expresses dynamism and energy

The City Rises - Depictition of the construction of an electric power plant, which ironically highlights the worker's energy rather than that of structure they are creating

Synthesis of Human Dynamism - Similar to Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, this walking figure is an abstract futurist sculpture of the human body

Chris Burden

The Reason for the Neutron Bomb - 50,000 nickels and match sticks representing enormous buildup of Soviet tanks in eastern Europe

LAPD Uniforms - A row of ominous uniforms released two years after the Rodney King beating

Metropolis II - Kinetic art installation featuring 18 tracks, including one six lane freeway, simulating traffic of 100,000 toy cars every hour in this miniature city. According to Burden: "The noise, the continuous flow of the trains, and the speeding toy cars produce in the viewer the stress of living in a dynamic, active and bustling 21st century city."

Marcel Duchamp

Nude Descending a Staircase - Early work that combines cubism and futurism, expresses motion through superimposed images

Fountain - Urinal signed as "R. Mutt" and originally rejected, but ironically became legitimized because of Duchamp's brand name

L.H.O.O.Q. - Another of Duchamp's "readymades", this cheap postcard picturing the Mona Lisa was transformed into a higher art form by the addition of a penciled in mustache and beard

Jasper Johns

Three Flags - John's work is often labeled as Neo-Dadaist or Pop Art for its use of popular imagery and iconography, an example of which can be seen in Three Flags

Numbers in Color His Numbers series used the Dadaist technique of "found" shapes in a different context to challenge the way viewers look at art, while the repitition and use of symbology are reminiscent of Pop Art.

Barbara Kruger

Your Body is a Battleground - Silk-screened and split photograph that critiques the idealized version of beauty portrayed in the media

I Shop Therefore I Am - Commentary on materialism and our culture's default form of identification

We Don't Need Another Hero - Artwork that questions societal roles including gender, brains vs. brawns, and leaders vs. followers

Kruger thinking of you - Provocative and ambiguous work that compares thoughts of "you" with pain or self inflicted wounds

Roy Lichtenstein

Drowning Girl - Adaptation of a DC Comic that accentuates the melodrama, ambiguity, and style of pop art

Blam - Stylized cartoon violence featuring a pilot ejected from an exploding inverted jet, appropriated from a 1962 comic book series "All-American Men of War"

Sunrise - Representational simplification of a sunrise, done in Lichtenstein's typical halftone pop art style

Rene Magritte

The Treachery Of Images: "This is not a Pipe" - Artistic commentary on semiotics and simulacra, as discussed by Michael Foucault, where an image representation of a pipe is not the same as the original source object

The Son of Man - Famous self potrait with a bowler hat and face obscured by a green apple

Not to be Reproduced - Another postmodern portrait, this time of Magritte's patron Edward James, features a mirror that does not reflect the front of the subject

Jackson Pollock

Autumn Rhythm (Number_30) - Originally named Number 30 because of his belief that titles affected the viewers' perception of paintings, Autumn Rhythm is an example of the "drip" or "action paintings" that he pioneered. Pollock's works of abstract expressionism eschewed traditional processes and composition and were more of historical record of an "event" (much as a seismograph captures an earthquake)

James Rosenquist

F-111 - Enormous room sized painting depicts a larger than life view of the links between American commericalism and the military

President Elect - John F. Kennedy campaign poster turned commentary on commodification and middle class consumerism

Andy Warhol

Campbells Soup Can - Simple iconic soup cans that originally caused an uproar over art featuring mundane commercial products

10 Marilyns - Reflection of the commercialization of culture and the transformation of Marilyn Monroe into a mass-produced symbol

Triple Elvis - Another example of Warhol's obsession with American cultural icons, featuring black and white clones of a cowboy Elvis

Robert Williams

In the Land of Retinal Delights - One of the first major works by Williams in the 1960's, this lowbrow/pop surrealism painting features vast piles of birghtly colored widgets that look as if a modern day M.C. Escher got a hold of a 3d printer

Skulldy Dumpty - Dark take on the classic children's nursery rhyme, where we get to see the reprocussions of the oft repeated fall

Zombie Mystery Paintings - Collection of surrealistic and graphic paintings that were described as "morally insolvent and grossly artistic"

Appetite For Destruction - Was the inspiration and original cover art for Guns N' Roses first studio album, but the artwork was replaced after retailers refused to stock the album