New materials in 20th-century art

technique c. 1910-2000 France Europe

Twentieth-century art changed as fast as its materials. From the collage experiments of Picasso and Braque in 1912, artists folded non-art matter into art: printed paper and oilcloth, then Duchamp's readymades, then Pollock's household enamel and aluminium paint, Rauschenberg's combines of tyres, stuffed animals and cardboard, Dan Flavin's fluorescent fixtures, and Pop art's commercial packaging and comic strips. Later decades brought crushed auto parts (John Chamberlain), broken crockery (Julian Schnabel's plate paintings), mud and tar (Anselm Kiefer), elephant dung (Chris Ofili) and, closing the century, Tracey Emin's own bed (1999). Traditional media never went away - oil painting and stone carving continued throughout - but the question of what a work may be made of became one of the century's main artistic motors.

Pablo Picasso , 1913, Compotier avec fruits, violon et verre ( Bowl with Fruit, Violin, and Wineglass ), Charcoal, chalk, watercolor, oil pa
Pablo Picasso , 1913, Compotier avec fruits, violon et verre ( Bowl with Fruit, Violin, and Wineglass ), Charcoal, chalk, watercolor, oil paPD-US (credit: Pablo Picasso) · source

Defining characteristics

  • Non-art and industrial matter visible as itself: scrap metal, plastics, neon, broken crockery, mud
  • Collage and photomontage breaking the painted surface with printed and found material
  • Assemblage and combine structures where objects project from or replace the picture plane
  • Manufactured, commercial surfaces - silkscreen, packaging, fluorescent fixtures - left unmediated
  • The texture and physicality of the material treated as expressive content
  • Traditional media persisting alongside innovation rather than being displaced

Key figures

  • Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) — With Braque, inventor of collage, folding printed paper and oilcloth into painting
  • Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) — Pioneer of the found object and the readymade as sculpture
  • Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) — Pioneered house paint, aluminium and industrial media in painting
  • Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) — Combines such as Monogram merged tyres, stuffed animals and paint into one object
  • Dan Flavin (1933-1996) — Made sculpture from commercial fluorescent lights and fixtures

Example works

Sources

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