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Art Is a Symbol: Conceptualism and the Vietnam War Michael King

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Art Is a Symbol: Conceptualism and the Vietnam War Michael King Lehigh University Lehigh Preserve Volume 16 - 2008 Lehigh Review 2008 Art is a Symbol: Conceptualism and the Vietnam War Michael King Follow this and additional works at: http://preserve.lehigh.edu/cas-lehighreview-vol-16 Recommended Citation King, Michael, "Art is a Symbol: Conceptualism and the Vietnam War" (2008). Volume 16 - 2008. Paper 7. http://preserve.lehigh.edu/cas-lehighreview-vol-16/7 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Lehigh Review at Lehigh Preserve. It has been accepted for inclusion in Volume 16 - 2008 by an authorized administrator of Lehigh Preserve. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Art is a Symbol: Conceptualism and the Vietnam War by Michael King 32 rt is a symbol. It serves as a visual man- ifestation of the ideas that shape an age, despite perceived distance and removal from that reality. Jackson Pollock, argu- Goodman Campus ably the most influential American The 500-acre site was given to A Lehigh during the 1960’s by artist, suggests, “The modern art- tation. It can be perceived from Bethlehem Steel in an agree- ist cannot express this age, the countless perspectives, based on ment that involved Lehigh airplane, the atom bomb, the ra- a viewer’s experience regarding giving up specific property to dio, in the old forms of the Renais- reality. Gleizes and Metzinger Moravian College. sance or of any other past culture.” present an essentially romantic Though Pollock was refering to view of creating art, one in which the 1940s and 1950s, his insight there are no rules. The only limits remains relevant in understanding are those within an artist’s mind. the art created during the Vietnam Subsequently, Williams and Gle- War. Upon first glance it may ap- izes argue that, “The truly modern pear as though conceptualism, the artist, the artist of the future, ‘will April 12, 1944 major American artistic movement fashion the real in the image of his of the 1960s and 1970s, demon- mind, for there is only one truth, Eighty-one Lehigh Engineers strated indifference toward the ours, when we impose it on every- find out that their recent de- conflict, but this claim could not one.’” This realization liberated ferment from the WWII draft be further from the truth. Con- artists, so that they could expose had been rescinded and even ceptualists of the Vietnam War era pieces of themselves in their graduating seniors are eligible looked to new means and tech- artwork and essentially dominate niques to convey the ideas and to perspective. The individuals who for service. analyze the events that inspired communicated through art during their motivations. To understand the Vietnam War adhered to these the relationship between this attributes outlined by Gleizes and particular artistic movement and Metzinger. the Vietnam War, one must first examine the artistic movements Art During the World War II Era that dominated American creative though over the course of the 20th With the spread of Adolf Hitler’s century. oppressive juggernaut throughout Europe, many of the continent’s Modern Art prominent artists sought refuge across the Atlantic in the United When the artists Albert Gleizes States. Subsequently American and Jean Metzinger published the art experienced significant influ- book, On Cubism, in 1912, they un- ence from the exiled artists and knowingly established a standard thinkers who were in the midst of for what it meant to be an artist in embracing the Surrealist aesthetic the modern world . In On Cub- as prescribed by the movement’s ism, the duo suggests that a work founder André Breton. Breton of art is open to a fluid interpre- claimed that, “Surrealism rests on 33 the belief in the supe- Hostile letters between rior reality of certain the Assistant Secretary forms of association of Defense and an Eth- hitherto neglected, in ics Committee Member the omnipotence of the about the Vietnam War dream, and in the disin- Memorial Wall, Cour- terested play of thought.” tesy of Special Collec- Influenced heavily by the tions, Lehigh Univer- work of Sigmund Freud, sity Libraries. Breton embraced the idea of psychic automatism. artistic movements. Psychic automatism can be In response to the described as a reconcili- evolving cultural ation of sorts between the context, the calcu- conscious and unconscious lated chaos of ab- realms of human existence stract expression- through permitting the con- ism took the then tent of dreams and other de- sacred ideal of sires to permeate one’s con- psychic automa- scious work. This practice was tism to a new lev- an attempt to depict the need el. Unlike their to expand the limits of human predecessors, reality in response to political the abstract and cultural turmoil that had expressionists consumed Europe. Though the neglected con- Surrealists tried vehemently to scious thought ensure that their work retain a all together sense of purity amidst American and allowed unconscious culture and influence it was not thought alone to manifest itself on canvas. meant to be. The different cultural Action painting, the primary technique of the abstract settings required new artistic forms. Art historian expressionists made famous by Jackson Pollock, Matthew Gale suggests, “This signaled the institution- paralleled the dynamism of modern life. That is, the alization of Surrealism in America where exhibitions apparent unpredictability of throwing and dripping passed outside the control of the movement. It was to paint onto canvases served as a reaction to the com- establish a pattern, which divorced the paintings from placency of the populace. Furthermore, the tech- their theoretical and experimental roots.” Despite the niques were a testament to constantly fluctuating geo- introduction of new ideas to American art the situation political demands. A visual style that challenged the was bleak. To refresh and save art from itself artists definition of what constituted art despite exhibiting had to look for new motivation. an undeniably torrid melody, abstract expressionism conveyed its cultural influences through aggressively Art Post-World War II emotive color and dynamic patterns of paint applica- tion. Although nonrepresentational, abstract expres- In the wake of World War II, the United States sionism was nevertheless a revolutionary reaction to entered a period of economic prosperity and social the world surrounding the artists. complacency. Half way around the world the Soviet In the mid to late 1950s and 1960s, artists turned Union emerged as a nuclear superpower threaten- away from abstract expressionism and began forging ing US dominance with nuclear war. This complex art out of images to which popular culture had already geopolitical backdrop led to the emergence of new grown accustomed. Though not necessarily intended 34 to be a critical movement in tone, the work of the President Lyndon Johnson. By the autumn of 1967, Pop artists did challenge established social institu- more than half a million US servicemen and women tions and structures. By appropriating elements that had been sent to serve in Vietnam, but because it was reflected popular tastes and trends, the Pop artists difficult for the public to recognize the importance conveyed a sense of irony as exemplified by, but not of Vietnam to American foreign policy, Johnson at- limited to, the work of Andy Warhol. A gifted tacti- tempted to saturate popular culture with pro-Vietnam cian of manipulation, Warhol used wit to demonstrate sentiment. his contempt for established values and practices. In President Johnson arranged for the White House a series of works known as Death in America, Warhol Festival of the Arts to be held on June 14, 1965. If he addressed the way in which the mass media reduces could win the favor of the painters, sculptors, writ- death to a trivial and meaningless happening. The ers, musicians, and photographers who were invited grotesque suicides and car accidents that Warhol through alleged interest in their work and recogni- reproduced from newspaper photographs initiated tion of their influence on American intellect, then it a shift in what was deemed acceptable to address appeared as though Johnson would have in a sense by contemporary artists. According to art historian legitimated his decisions as a leader by engendering Thomas Crow, “he was attracted to the open sores in respect and perhaps admiration on a personal level. American political life.” The Pop artists produced ar- Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Robert Lowell was one of tistic images that were directly referential, unlike the those expected to attend. In an effort to demonstrate subtle means pursued by the movement’s his contempt for Johnson’s insurgency into Vietnam predecessors. This perspective is vital Lowell publicly renounced his invitation stating, “I in understanding the movements that nevertheless can only follow our present for- emerged in the years to follow. eign policy with the greatest dismay and distrust.” He continued, The Origins of Conceptualism “Every serious artist knows that he The 1960s were characterized cannot by a shift in the foreign policy of enjoy the US government. The Kennedy public administration was preoccupied cel- with the “domino theory.” This ebration theory’s central principle was without that if a country fell to com- making munism the surrounding subtle countries would do the same. public com- Thus, when Ho Chi Minh’s mitments.” nationalist movement in Several other Vietnam was identified as notable art- embodying communist ists, including tendencies, President leading painter John F. Kennedy set the Mark Rothko and stage for massive US in- photographer volvement in the coun- Paul Strand, fol- try. Through a system lowed Lowell’s lead of military advisors, and denounced the Kennedy initiated event. The festival a prolonged con- took place despite flict that came to its tarnished image. fruition under Many of those in atten- 35 dance used the event as a The Students’ Army Training Corps “was estab- ever that his stance paralleled platform to publicly vocal- lished at Lehigh University on October 1, 1918, the conceptualist identity as ize their opposition to the and was continued until December 11, 1918.” aforementioned.
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