Chinese Cultural Revolution

Here is the link.

Caminoa, Benedetti &  Cruz, Vanesa

Music in the 60's & 70's: Pop & Beat

Follow the link below to see the work done by Batiz, A., Pavilonis, M & Espósito, S.

http://prezi.com/haeyjehibxob/pop-beat-60-70/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

20th Century Art (part 1)

20th cent art from Patricia Guzman

Welcome to Language & Culture II 2013!!!

Hello, Dear Students. This is the blog of our subject. This means will be used for complementing, sharing work and it`s our path to the subject's virtual platform called ecaths. 

My piece of advice is to check this blog and the platform on (at least) a weekly basis, as you will be assessed for participating.

Here goes link to  2013 syllabus:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B89-Hv57WDTqXzdGOHpNTmItMDQ/edit?usp=sharing

And this is an essay on High and Low cultures for the first classes:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qovvskzWMA4R4ff-9cSejd72gDMvVjs6O5ckBzKihic/edit?usp=sharing

The Cultural Revolution

Read about protests against Vietnam War.







Read about French May.






Read about The Cultural  Revolution


By Jungblut & Cardozo

Cubism

 CUBISM

Cubism is 20th century avant garde art movement that revolutonized European art. Until the first decade of 20th century, art, was essentially pictorial and  was based on themes of real world ideas, with the emergence of a new "modernist" thinking and an increasing use of machines in industry and daily life, artists sought new ways to interpret the changes taking place around the world. Modern concepts of art were born in Europe. Modern artists reacted abandoning intellect for intuition and depicting the world as they percieved it, they rejected the old victorian standars of how art should be made. Cubism emplied a rupture with the classical aesthetic and a new way to see works of art with the eyes of the mind. The viewer is obligaged to move his eyes to reasemble the picture. Cubism is one of the most influential art styles and it was pioneered by Pablo Picasso and George Braque in Paris , 1907. Its main characteristics are the use of geometric forms, mostly cilinders, cones, spheres and cubes. Artists reduced and fractured the objects into geometric forms and then reasembled them to show several views of objects simultaneously.

In 1914, the start of the world war I wiped out a generation of young artists. After the war, many cubist artists continued developing this style at the U.S.A. where modern art became popular as in the case of collage.  

In fact the geometric forms gave the name to the movement.
Cubism is not only found in paintings but also in literature , poetry and arquitecture.
The major part of the work has been done between 1907 and 1914 .
Les demoseilles D"avignon is the first cubist work done by P.picasso... (  Although this is a painting about prostitutes in France   which caused
surprise was not the sexual subjet. It was the new and revolutionary tecnique).
As the cubist artists rejected the established concept that art should copy nature as well as the traditional tecniques did.


According to critics of art from that time this movement has been divided in two phases:

The first one is called ANALITIC CUBISM where painters reduced and fractured the objects into geometric forms to realined them, so that they could  be reassembled in an abstrat form, the predominant colours were the monocromatic of blue, grey, green and brown.

This ANALITIC period lasted up to 1912 when Picasso incorporated everyday materials such as newspaper cuttings, tickets, tobacco wrappers to the paintings , this marked a difference from the previous phase. So this second Phase was known as SINTHETIC CUBISM.
by introducing physicall elements of real life art  ,would become more real and simpler.Colour and texture became more relevant and the word Collage gained and space within art.

Although cubist painters intertwined their work with other styles , from time to time they came over to cubism.In 1937  P. Picasso painted  El Guernica, which reflects the Spanish civil war in the city of guernica and the total destruction of the same.
In this picture there is no colour at all , just white and black to express the horror, the sadness  and the mourning.

  It is necessary to mention in the arquitecture field the work done by Le Corbusier and the Curuchet house here in La Plata.

arquitecture characteristics:
 spacial ambiguity,transparency and multiplicity. not classical perspective. IT BECAME AN INFLUENTIAL FACTOR FOR MODERN ARQUITECTURE FROM 1912 . IT IS THE LINKING OF BASIC GEOMETRIC FORMS, BEAUTY AND INDUSTRIAL APPLICATION..

In Argentina one of the most well known  cubist painter  is Emilio Pettoruti who has been highly influenced by their contemporaries.

More pictures here.

Welcome Emma!!!

Emma Greaves is a young  University student from England. She`s    Language Assistant with the British Council  and will be working in La Plata for four months. She has visited our class  and has  introduced us to her country and the cultural diversity that means being British in the 21st century.  This is the second time a Language Assistant works in our Institute and it`s a pleasure to share knowledge, culture and friendship with them. (Alice Roughton visited us two years ago).
It is also good to remember, as Emma pointed us, that the British Council  programme for "Asistentes de Idioma" is also available for Argentinian students to work in the UK. If you want more information, click here.


Emma will be working with us for the rest of her stay and we hope that many classes benefit from her warmth, knowledge and understanding. Besides , her accent is extremely clear for all!!! Thanks, Emma!!! 


Log into our ecaths blog and find more about her class.

Pop and Mass Culture

These are the links to the PPP about Popular and Mass Culture we dealt with in class.


https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/129Ja-UXcF5sEql5bFYZHEw9YIiocVqdOcFxK77fIPbU/edit



https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1BnO_5sLQ50MXtNWTV5ZoTh92pStUzME-8_EqfJyD3hE/edit

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/12FMtvTj8LpVKxDLibrrB6vh4Nw2CpjYR6BT7uVCW5dA/edit

Welcome to Language and Culture II!!!

Hiya 2012 students!!! You will soon see that this blog will help you  complement, give opinion, share and download material for the subject. So here is my piece of advice: check this blog on a weekly basis.
Here goes a link to this year syllabus:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HVeS787et0KSkylu3CSA2eviIese53NBjP-MKMSbZhU/edit


And this is the essay on High, Low and Mass Culture we`ll discuss on the first classes.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qovvskzWMA4R4ff-9cSejd72gDMvVjs6O5ckBzKihic/edit

See you next Monday at 5pm!!!

Feliz comienzo!!!

Para festejar el comienzo de clases, algo de Arte y Cultura...
Una maravilla (el cuadro de Van Gogh y la animación)
A disfrutar...


Starry Night (interactive animation) from Petros Vrellis on Vimeo.

Young People as Agent of Change

During the '50s, everyone was still recovering  from the horrors of World War II. People from around the world idolized the Americans, who definitely prospered during this era. During the 1950s, youth became more self-aware, and they were determined to create their own styles, which the designers followed. Throughout the decade, the teenagers became a distinct group of society, which had never been done before. Young people gained much freedom, which was attributed by some to the lack of discipline after the war and the invention of Rock'n'Roll.

 Rock’n’Roll roots lay principally in Rhythm and Blues (R &B).  Blues, and rhythm and blues, were too adult, sexual, angry, and solely identified with black culture to be acceptable either emotionally or commercially without adaptation. Major record companies had for years been producing records for black audiences called "race records." The emergence of rock 'n' roll signified a slight weakening in resistance to black culture.  Rock 'n' roll was for and about adolescents. Its lyrics articulated teenage problems: school, cars, summer vacation, parents, and, most important, young love. Though rock has used a wide variety of instruments, its basic elements are one or several vocalists, heavily amplified electric guitars, bass and drums. Its melody, the lyrics and the harmony were simple. The greatest exponents were Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Billy Haley and the Comets, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. Saturday nights were spent at local dances where teens jived to their favourite music. Adolescents gathered at coffee bars or diners and listen to jukeboxes while they smoked cigarettes. In America, that concern was conveyed even in youth cultural artifacts like comic books.

At the turn of the decade Detroit (where General Motors is settled) became an important centre for black singers, and a certain type of sound known as “Motown” (motor town), was named Motown Records. One of the most popular exponents of this style was Diana Ross and the Supremes.

In the 1960s music mirrored the tensions of the Vietnam War era and played an important role in American culture. The verbal content of rock songs turned toward rebellion, social protest, sex, and, increasingly, drugs. From this decade it was simply called "rock music", and it was no longer just for dancing.

Rock music surged to popularity in 1962 with the emergence of the Beatles, a group of four long-haired lads from Liverpool, England. They were initially acclaimed for their energy and appealing individual personalities rather than for any innovations in their music, which was derived from Berry and Presley. They produced a boom which was called “British invasion”. Their popularity inevitably produced other groups with unusual names. One of the most important of these was the Rolling Stones , whose music derived from the black blues tradition.  An important transformation of rock occurred in 1965 at the Newport Folk Festival when Bob Dylan, noted as a composer and writer of poetic folk songs and songs of social protest appeared on stage, playing electric guitar and backed by an electrified rock band. In 1967 the Beatles again made history with their album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which included drug-oriented songs. And from that year onward, the rock festival was regarded as the ideal context in which to hear rock music, and thousands of fans attended. The most successful and peaceful rock festival, Woodstock, was held near New York, in August, 1969. Some other performers of this decade were Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Eric Clapton, and Jimmy Page.

The '60s marked an era of teenagers, as they truly became a distinct part of North American culture, the baby-boomers. A baby-boomer is a person who was born during the demographic Post-World-War II baby boom (a peak in birth rate in U.S.) and who grew up during the `60s and `70s. They were widely associated with privilege, and as a group they were the healthiest, and wealthiest generation to that time, and amongst the first to grow up genuinely expecting the world to improve with time. As these teens received more money, they had an easy time finding jobs. One important feature of Boomers was that they tended to think of themselves as a special generation and, furthermore, to define the world in terms of generations, which was a relatively new phenomenon.

 The '70s proved to be a drastic change in thoughts and beliefs of teenagers from the '60s. Many young people held pessimistic views of the world, and they felt very uncertain about what the future would hold. A turning point in rock music occurred in the mid-1970s in the form of punk rock, which was a response to the stagnation of the genre and a nihilistic political statement.  In Great Britain, Punk music was performed by the Sex Pistols and the Clash; punk also quickly became popular in the Unites States, played by the Ramones among other groups. Movies and television shows also had a great impact on the styles of young people in the 70’s. On the other hand, Saturday Night Fever made disco very popular and many teens copied the costume worn by John Travolta in the famous movie. The Bee Gees were part of this style.

Work done by Muratore and Funes 

Fashion Prototypes

From June 1941

Rationing was on food as well as on clothing. Details of the rationing were announced in newspapers and women magazines. The message was in in simple language for the masses to understand without any misunderstanding.

Limited Coupons to Spend:

This meant that women were forced to wear clothes that they had in their wardrobes. This scheme ended in 1952. Some families were too poor that having the coupons made no difference on them.

During the Second World War Paris produced restrained clothing to match the economic atmosphere. The general wartime scene was one of drabness and uniformity. People were encouraged “to make do and meant”

1945 Post War Functionalism in Sportswear

After 1945 a whole new range of synthetic fibres often best suited in the early days of production to knitted fabrics were made into pullover dresses, underwear.

The fifties saw revolutionary changes in sports clothes much of due to the earlier invention and new use of synthetic fibres particularly nylon combined with practical techniques developed in military clothing for example hood

                                                   pockets in jacket 

                                                   elastic inserted in the side of the sky pants

                                                   anorak

 THOUGHTFUL COLOUR COORDINATION ONLY BECAME A NORM IN TH 60s

Functional Clothes for mass production

Functionalism became strongly associated with sports clothes in the 50s .Consumers noticed how useful the features often were in everyday life. Hooded anoraks and parkas for wet were a big feature. The greater availability of goods in the 50s meant that consumers now made choices.

After the War the new look of 1947

After the war the people became resentful and patient when rationing was not relaxed on clothes.  People were bitter because clothes were being made, but were exported in an effort to rebuild the British textile and wool economy.

Paris continued to produce exotic fashions, but America was developing a look of its own which was mainly found in Claire McCardell’s designs. The American look was simple and classic.

New Times, new Look

Christian Dior’s New Look of 1947 was frowned upon by both the American and British governments and people were discouraged from wearing clothes that “wasted too much fabric”. The advice was ignored particularly by Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret who were soon wearing it because it had influenced her own designers. People were craving for newness .

The growth of a Media and Consumer Influence on Society

Hollywood Influence

In the 1940s and 1950s American culture became very dominant in Europe. The influence of movies films and the prominence of films starts set the fashion in manners, make up, hair and clothes. Women, Men, and youth all desired look- alike copies of outfits, accessories and jewelry worn by the most popular screen idols.  One way to achieve the look was to make your own clothes and customize them   to have a similar look.

FOR THE 50s  EASY TO MAKE SWEING PATTERS WERE ALSO PROMOTED

Fashion sewing was very popular during the earlier 60s and was a major subject in secondary modern schools in the UK. Night classes abounded in the 60s were women who attended for about 10 sessions had the rudiments of using a sewing machine and cutting a pattern so they could manage to make a dress.

1960s Talent

For  the first time ever in any fashion era, the younger became the leaders of fashion.  Twiggy . Lesley Lawson née Hornby (born 19 September 1949) known as Twiggy is an English model, actress, and singer. In the early-1960s she became a prominent British teenage model of swinging sixties London with others such as Penelope Tree.

Twiggy was initially known for her androgynous looks, large eyes, long eyelashes, thin build, and short hair.In 1966, she was named “The Face of 1966” by the Daily Express and voted British Woman of the Year.By 1967, Twiggy had modelled in France, Japan, and the U.S., and landed on the covers of Vogue and The Tatler. Her fame had spread worldwide.

Fifties fashion hangs on until 1966

The short skirt was not really worn by many women until 1966 and not nationwide until 1967.

High and Low

Watch this video on differences between High and Low Culture and in view of what you have read, make a comment.

Rock 80-90s and Solidarity

Word done by Pagnotta and Maldonado

The Beat Generation

The Beat Generation

The Beat Generation, also known as the Beat Movement were a group of American writers who emerged in the 1950’s.The most influential members were Neal Cassady, Gary Snyder, William Borroughs, the poet Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac.

The phrase Beat Generation was invented by Jack Kerouac, the leader and spokesman of the Beat Generation. The phrase was introduced to the general public in 1952 when John Holmes, a friend of Kerouac wrote an article for the New York Times Magazine called `This is the Beat Generation´.

The underlying philosophy was Zen Buddhism, visionary enlightenment and Amerindian CultureThe Beat Generation rejected the prevailing American middle class values and the academic attitude to poetry, feeling that poetry should be brought to people.A common theme that linked the Beat Generation was the need for withdrawal and protest.The Beats sought immediate expression in multiple, intense experience and beatific illumination like that of some Eastern religions like Zen Buddhism.The major Beat´s writings were Jack Kerouac´s On the road, Allen Ginsberg´s Howl, and William Borroughs´ Naked Lunch

Dadaism and Surrealism had a direct impact on the Beats. Dadaism with its attack on the elitism of the high culture and the celebration of spontaneity. Surrealism with its focus on revelations from the subconscious.

Ginsberg said that some essential effects of the Beat Generation could be characterized in the following terms:

• Spiritual liberation, sexual liberation, women´s liberation.

• .Liberation of the word from censorship,

• .Decriminalization of marijuana and other drugs,

• .The evolution of rhythm and blues into rock and roll as a high art form,

• .The spread of ecological consciousness,the notion of Fresh Planet,

• .Opposition to the military-industrial machine civilization,

• .Return to an appreciation of idiosyncrasy as against state regimentation,

• .Attention to a second religiousness developing within an advanced civilization,

• .Respect for land, indigenous people and creatures.

To conclude, The Beat Generation influenced a lot of artists such as The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez ,Jim Morrison,etc. The Beat movement were followed by the hippies, an anti-war movement which led to the environmental movement, Deep Ecology and Earth First.

You tube: “Howl” part 1

“Howl” part 2

“Howl” part 3

Hippie movement (1960’s)

The Hippie movement appeared in the 60’s and it was related to their liberal attitude and lifestyle.

They questioned authority and traditional values and they did a cultural revolution.

The hippie culture did not want to conform to society and created their own world trying to escape from reality with drugs.

The hippie generation had influences on music, television and film. It made marks on practices, fashion, hairstyles, the arts, religion and meditation.

The hippies stood for peace, love and freedom and the only way to reached these was though love and tolerance.

It was important to bring virtue, humanity and brotherhood, so they approved the Civil Right movement and protested against Vietnam War.

They developed a close relationship to nature and concerned as environmental pollution, recycling and organic food.

The movement has peaked near the end of the 1960’s with Woodstock.

Woodstock

It was the most important music festival held in 1969 in White lake, New York. It had celebrated from August 15 to August 17 and there were 3 days of “Peace and Music”

That musical festival included different genres such as: Rock and folk, including blues-rock, folk rock, jazz fusion, Hard rock, Latin rock, and psychedelic rock styles.

At first organizers (Michael Lang, John P. Roberts, Joel Rosenman and Artie Kornfeld) decided to sell tickets, but a half million of people travelled to New York, the traffic was stuck and it was not enough secure and fence in the zone. So organisers decided that Woodstock would be free.

The field was covered in mud because of the raining weather, and the audience too. There were not enough bathrooms and comforts.

“Although the festival was remarkably peaceful given the number of people and the conditions involved, there were two recorded fatalities: one from what was believed to be a heroin overdose and another caused in an accident when a tractor ran over an attendee sleeping in a nearby hayfield. There also were two births recorded at the event (one in a car caught in traffic and another in a hospital after an airlift by helicopter) and four miscarriages” said the news.

Besides if we talk about liberal attitude, sex free and drugs in the 1960’s a medicine change the world.

Oral Contraceptives (the Pill) were allowed to be sold by FDA (Food and Drug Administration).

This medicine Helped empower woman to control her pregnancies and prevented illnesses (uterine and ovarian cancers).

Women were free to enjoy spontaneous sex without fear of pregnancy.

This medicine allowed women to decide when she got pregnant.

But when the Pill was introduced in 1960 only married women could buy it. In 1967 single women started to get this pill.

You tube: John Lennon “give a peace of chance” (interview)

Work prepared by Savoy and Bunym

Pop and Opt Art

Work prepared by Monjes and Aceto

Andy Warhol with Argentinian artist, Marta Minujin


"El dìa que me encontré con Andy Warhol en la Municipalidad de La Plata", oil on linen, 2007 by La Plata´s Artist Andrés Compagnucci

Older posts on the subject, here
Other related artists, here.

Fauvism

Fauvism and the 20th Century thoughts

Fauvism is the first 20th Century pictorial movement . I think, it introduces the spirit of the new era. It doesn’t only starts a new way of expressing but also a new way of thinking and viewing reality.

No more “cold”, external “reality”, no more just empty lines and shapes. What each person sees is so hard to describe and so particular that is not possible anymore to express conventionally. I mean, we can’t, for example, agree that the sun in a specific situation, is just yellow, others may think it should be red or orange, or any other colour that expresses our particular and unique view.

Fauvist painters decided to express their feelings towards reality and their subjective view of the world. Matisse is its main figure. He wrote in his “Notes of a painter”:

“There are two ways of expressing things; one is to show them crudely, the other is to evoke them through art.” Matisse

The 20^th century people don’t feel delighted by the exact representation of a landscape or a human body. The advances in technology made possible the photograph which catches the exact shape of things. Art needs to show the truth behind that “apparently real image”. It needs to express the most important aspect of reality: the soul, the feelings and thoughts which make the singularity, the unrepeatable of every human being appear. Matisse narrated about one of his paintings:

“…I looked at it, and then a feeling came over me that it was not I, that it did not express me or express what I feel."Matisse

Fauvism developed through 1905-1908 but its representatives lived during the most terrible wars of the century. Deep and strong emotions needed to be expressed. The sensibility of the moment changed. Many feelings needed to come out and they couldn’t be represented by the traditional ways, which showed a perfect image of the world: a perfect body, a perfect natural order.

It is also true that the advance in technology was so huge that it developed at high speed. The value of art changed so. The photograph, the television then, new artistic materials close to more people, the movies, etc. all these advances and surely a lot of more, gave innumerable new ways of creating and expressing. The fauves started using colour as the main means to express but lately, different artists of other movements will use unconceivable materials as newspapers, plastic objects or whatever was needed to express these new feelings.

Fauvism starts revealing a new way of thinking. It starts making conscious about that new reality of the human being. This new human being that now cares about different issues which need to find a way of expressing in accordance with it. The world will provide with the new materials, feelings and thoughts.

Work by Bellingerri, Paulenko and Destefani

Surrealism

Surrealism

View more presentations from guzpat.

Work presented by Andrea Careri, Vanesa Goñi and Erica Van Boven

Dadaism

Work presented by Emiliana Barreiro and Julieta Sampaoli

Alice in La Plata

Alice Roughton, Language Assistant with the British Council has visited our class. She introduced us to her country and the cultural diversity that means living in modern UK. She also made some key concepts very clear. Her natural warm ways and the good will she showed for our questions and curiosity made it an excellent moment to share knowledge and friendship.
Here is the PPP she made for us with key concepts to understand UK´s culture better.
Luckily for us, next week she will visit us with a talk on the "War Poets".
Thanks, Alice!!!