Biomorphic forms: Biomorphic forms or images are ones that while abstract nevertheless refer to, or evoke, living forms such as plants and the human body

Automatism: the accessing of material from the subconscious or unconscious mind as part of the creative process

Surrealist object: The mundane, mostly mass-produced objects found new resonances when arranged in unprecedented and provocative configurations.

- Dream images
- Randomness related to dream states
- Juxtaposition of unrelated objects 
- Stream of consciousness
- Chance, irrationality
- The collective unconscious
- Reactions to war
- Both naturalistic and non-objective forms

Mobile: a decorative structure that is suspended so as to turn freely in the air.

Gesture Painting: a method of fine art painting characterized by energetic, expressive brushstrokes deliberately emphasizing the sweep of the painter's arm or movement of the hand.

All-over painting: area of the composition is given equal attention and significance. Compositions vary widely and include canvases entirely covered in layers of paint, or filled with brushstrokes, drips, stains, or other markings, sometimes with unorthodox materials embedded in the surface.

Color Field Painting: a style of American abstract painting prominent from the late 1940s to the 1960s which features large expanses of unmodulated color covering the greater part of the canvas.

“Zips”: the spatial structure of the painting, while simultaneously dividing and uniting the composition.

Interest in mass media, consumer culture

Reaction to elitism and deep emotion of Abstract Expressionism

Similar to Dada in love of ready-made, common objects

Interested in materialism of consumer culture

Clement Greenburg and his definitions of Modern Art, Post-Painterly Abstraction, Minimalism

Hard-Edge Abstraction 

Mass production methods in sculpture (Donald Judd)

Art that can’t be collected

Improvisation/Art as experience

Art with a political point

Art as physical experience

Entropy—Art that changes with time

Site-specific sculpture

Taking art out of the gallery

Art that can’t be collected

Sculpture as monument (Vietnam Veterans Memorial)

lack of narrative (Diebenkorn, Katz, Celmins)

- Photorealism emerges as an extreme response to non-objective and Minimalist art; also 

as a response to photography

- Re-emergence of symbolism (Flack)

- Pattern & Decoration emerges as both a response to Minimalism and its lack of 

embellishment and as a homage to women’s art mediums of the past

and in many ways opposite to the ideals of Modernism; characterized by:

- Post-structuralism (the denial of fixed rules in forms or structures)
- A return to ornament and embellishment

- A reintroduction of historical references (beginning in architecture)

- An interest in sense of place and local interests (vs. international style)

- Appropriation as a deconstruction of the modernist myth of genius and of authoritarian 

control

- Irony and skepticism

- Emphasis on multiculturalism 

- Pluralism of styles vs. a logical order

- Emphasis on collaboration vs. individual genius

- A denial of fixed truths

- Extension of Modernism, since it continues to question rules of the past

- A return to seeking influence from the past

- A return to expressing contemporary issues

- For many Germans, a time of confronting and coming to terms with the Nazi past 

(Baselitz, Kiefer, Richter)

- For many, a reaction to corporate, capitalist culture (Polke, Longo)

- Pluralism of styles vs. a logical order (Richter)

- Taking art to the masses

Michael Jackson and Bubbles

, 1988

- Art as an object to be bought and sold, art that is not “made” by the artist

- Idea of fragility of life

Kui Hua Zi (Sunflower Seeds)

, 2010

- Interactive art

- Installations

- Art as political statement

Man and Woman in Large Room

, 1957

Dana Gordon

, 1972 

Under the Elms

, 1971-72

The Red Band

, 1978 

Mural for Harvard Square Subway Station, 

1984 

Rhapsody,

 1975-76 

Wheel of Fortune

, 1977-78 

Tourists

, 1970 

After Piet Mondrian

, 1983 (Appropriation)

Untitled (We Won’t Play Nature to Your Culture). 1983

20 Plaster Surrogates, 1982-85

Untitled 

Film Still #35, 

1979 (or any other work from this series)

The Idleness of Sisyphus, 

1981

Shulamite

, 1983

Vase

, 1984

Richter, 

Betty, 1988

Watchtower

, 1984

Schnabel, 

The Sea

, 1981

Untitled (Men in the Cities Series), 

1981

Art Part

, 1981

Horn Players

, 1983

Hirst, 

The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living

, 1991/2006

La Cama (The Bed

), 1987

Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People)

, 1992

Kusama, 

A 

Dream I Dreamed

, 2014