Page 261 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

258 ART AND CRAFTS

the visual arts would eventually lead
this art towards the theatre. George
Segal, a contemporary artist of
Kaprow, created a figure-based
sculpture and installed it in the actual
compartment of a train in order to give
it an image of the atmosphere (Subway,
1968). The Fluxus movement got
under way at the beginning of the 60s,
and attempted to popularize music and
performance based ‘happenings’.
Young artists in Germany and France
pursuing alternative trends began to
join this movement. George Maciunas
(1931-1978) organized regular exhibitions of happenings in his own gallery ‘AG’ and
also published a journal on art. The objective of the journal was to protest against the
disconnection between art and life and to promote live art which would be understood
by everyone, not only the critics, experts and artists.
Not only in happenings and performance art, artists began to create various art forms
in assemblage, Pop and even Minimal Art developed in response to Abstract
Expressionism. These became difficult to define within the traditional concept of
painting or sculpture.
From the very beginning of the 70s, the doctrines of the mainstream visual arts of the
west were severely questioned. Conceptual Art in the visual arts thrived on the
described background of the 60s. Instead of being material-based Minimalism, art
became ‘art as idea’ or ‘art as information’ (fig.6.6). Prominence of idea and
information can also be noticed in assemblage and Pop Art. Artists of the alternative
trend also questioned the classification of high and low art as well as all other
conventional classifications of arts. A part of the alternative trend artists began to
create presentations in nature instead of the art market, which is the gallery. Apart
from protesting politically against the gallery and market, another reason for creating
these artworks in nature was the availability of materials. This gave birth to a new
trend of art - site-specific artworks or earthworks, their examples being the works of
fig. 6.6 (top) Joseph Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt or Christo (fig.6.7). A part of these artists also made use
Kosuth, Art as Idea as of the art galleries, by showing
Idea, photostat, 1966 works through recorded videos,
photographs or animation. Art
fig. 6.7 (bottom right) began to include and develop
Christo Javachef and different socio-political issues.
Jean Claude, fabric,
5.5×39 mtrs., North Anti-class, anti-third world
California theory, anti-racist and feminist