Looking for Modern Art in London

I´d like to share with all of you a video I made with pictures of great modern Art works I took last July, 2011 in Tate Modern, London. Hope you like it!!!

Pop Art & Opt Art

by Urquiza and Peña

Pop Art
The term Pop Art originated in the middle 1950`s in Britain ,and in the late 1950`s in The United States. It’s an international movement in painting, sculpture and printmaking.
It was the first pos-war art movement to embrace mass media, photography, imagery,popular culture ,consumer products, and photos of media stars.
Artists of this movement were looking for a more playful and ironic strategy.
Unlike abstract expressionism, pop art incorporated a wide range of media, imagery and subject matter that up to this moment it was excluded.
Pop artists cared a little about creating unique art object; they preferred to borrow their subject matter and techniques from mass media, photographs, icons and style into visual artefacts.

There are lots of artist such as Eduardo Paolozzi, Roy Kingenstein, Richard Hamilton. And the most important was Andrew Warhola (1928-1987) known as Andy Warhol. He was an American painter, print maker, and a film maker, record producer, author. He was a leading figure in this visual art movement known as Pop ART.
He applied the technique called "silkscreen”. Silkscreen is a technique that uses " woven mesh " to support an ink blocking stencil, the attach stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink or other printable material which can be presented through the mesh as a sharp -edged image onto a substrate. A roller is moved across the screen stencil ,forcing or pumping ink past of the woven mesh in the open areas. Through this technique we can transfer the same image.
Andy Warhol started doing silkscreens in 1962.One of his well-known painting using this technique is the one called " Marilyn Monroe”, it contains fifty images of the actress, which are all based on a single publicity photograph from the actress film " Niagara" (1953), twenty-five pictures on the left side are brightly colored while twenty five on the right side are black and white and also blurred or faded. The juxtaposition of the cold images with those in black and white is thought to symbolize to Monroe`s life and mortality.

The Press

"

by S. Paulenko  and  D. Bellingeri

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Not to forget!!!

Civil Rights Movement

US Civil Rights Movement

Civil Rights Movements

Civil rights are personal liberties that belong to an individual, owing to his or her status as a citizen.

The civil rights movements aimed to eliminate slavery, racism, and social and religious discrimination. These movements had great, courageous leaders and participants who risked, and in some cases lost their lives for the sake of equality and racial justice. Leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela planned and led non-violent campaigns in pursuit of liberty and equality.

The pioneer of these movements was Mahatma Gandhi. His name means “great soul” in Sanskrit. He was born in India in 1869, when this country was part of the commonwealth ruled by the British Empire. Indian population was divided due to geographical, racial, social, cultural, linguistic, and religious reasons, but also it was divided into rich and poor

He knew about racial discrimination in South Africa, where he moved after graduating as a lawyer in London. It was then the idea of truth and firmness what inspired him “inflicting oneself the suffering one would impose to the enemy”. It demands great control, every insult, beating, imprisonment should be born patiently, make the opponent see their wrongdoing.

True to his belief in peaceful and non-violent civil resistance, Gandhi devoted his life to make India an independent country. By the time he died at 78 years old, India had already celebrated its independence.

Quotes from Gandhi: “They may torture my body, break my bones, and even kill me. Then they will have my dead-body not my obedience; “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind”.

Deeply influenced by the works of Gandhi, King made the struggle for civil liberty for African-American in the U.S.A. his sole motto. Although King became involved in the civil rights movement from his university days, his first major success came only in 1955 in Alabama. That year a black woman named Rosa Parks was arrested by refusing to surrender her seat to a white passenger. In protest, African-American activists boycotted the state’s transport system and chose King as their leader. The boycott continued 383 days until the U.S.A. Supreme Court declared Alabama’s racial segregation laws unconstitutional. In December 1964, King was awarded the Nobel Peace prize. Delivering his Nobel lecture he said: “Non violence is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it”. Four years later, he was shot dead.

As regard Nelson Mandela, he was a son of an African’s tribal chief, and he became leader of the African National congress, political party that called for racial equality. In 1964, after sabotaging the government many times, he was sent to prison; there he became a symbol of South Africa’s struggle against apartheid.

Civil rights movements were successful at least by some measures. The movements were also an inspiration; they evoked and embodied high moral ideas of racial equality and justice. Technology played a key role in these movements by making the struggles of protesters highly visible. The world could not help but recognize the righteousness of the protesters cause and the evil, violent repression necessary to subdue the wish for justice.

Students:

Cuello, Ana

Orieta Bertolotti, M. Cecilia


Other posts on the subject: Pioneer in India; A bird in a cage;   America also needs equality; Human Rights. 

Women´s rights. Women and young people as objects of consumerism.

WOMEN´S RIGHTS

Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.

In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behavior, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed.

Issues commonly associated with notions of women's rights include, though are not limited to, the right: to bodily integrity and autonomy; to vote (suffrage); to hold public office; to work; to fair wages or equal pay; to own property; to education; to serve in the military or be conscripted; to enter into legal contracts; and to have marital, parental and religious rights.

During the whole 19th century, women had no political rights though there had been some movement in other areas to advance the right of women. In 1839 a law was passed which stated that if a marriage broke down and the parents separated, children less than 7 years old should stay with their mother. In 1857 women could divorce husbands who were cruel to them. In 1870 women were allowed to keep money they had earned. In 1891 women could not be forced to live with husbands unless they wished to. These were very important laws which advanced the rights of women.

The First World War provided the first opportunity for women to take on traditional male jobs so it isn't surprising that in 1918 women over 30 were given the same political rights as men. But this change was not just a result of war - women had been campaigning for decades to be given the right to vote. During the 19^th century the right to vote was gradually extended in many countries and women started to campaign for their right to vote. In 1893 New Zealand became the first country to give women the right to vote on a national level.

 In the U. K., The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies - the Suffragists - was formed in 1897 and led by Millicent Fawcett. The group was made up of mainly middle-class women and campaigned peacefully. The organization built up supporters in Parliament, but private members' bills to give women the vote all failed.

The Women's Social and Political Union - the Suffragettes - was formed in 1903 and led by Emmeline Pankhurst. Although this group was also middle class, it heckled politicians, held marches; members chained themselves to railings, attacked policemen, broke windows, slashed paintings, set fire to buildings, threw bombs and went on hunger strike when they were sent to prison. One suffragette, Emily Davison, ran out in front of the king's horse during the Derby of 1913 and was killed.

The East London Federation of Suffragettes - formed in 1914 by Sylvia Pankhurst - was made up of working-class women. This group concentrated on social reform, and rejected the violence of the WSPU.

Women were not given the vote before the war. At the end of the war, in 1918, however, the Representation of the People Act gave women over 30 the vote, and in 1928 this was extended to all women over the age of 21.

The arguments for and against women's suffrage

For	Against
Women are equal before God.	A woman's place is in the home; going out into the rough world of politics will change her caring nature.
Women already have the vote in local elections.	Many women do not want the vote, and would not use it if they got it.
Women pay taxes.	Women do not fight in wars.
Some women (eg doctors and mayors) are far better than some men (eg convicts and lunatics) who have the vote.	The vast mass of women is too ignorant of politics to be able to use their vote properly.
Other countries have given women the vote.	If women are given the vote, it will not be the gentle intelligent women who will stand for Parliament, but the violent Suffragettes. Parliament will be ruined.

Cold War

Watch this video made by students about the Cold War and make a comment.