Fountain, Marcel Duchamp, 1917

 

Marcel Duchamps mission with Fountain was to challenge the public into truly deciphering art. Viewers considered a urinal placed upside down was illogical, senseless and no Fountain.  The piece was rejected from an art show but soon after Duchamp claimed that he was the artist and that “R. Mutt” was an alias the piece was quickly accepted. 

Empress of India, Frank Stella, 1965

Frank Stella’s minimalist work presents shapes and images in their purists forms. The canvas cut into four triangles shows no iconography. The title “Empress of India” gives the painting an implied narrative. 

Whaam!, Roy Liechtenstein, 1963

One of Americas earliest forms of Pop art, “Whaam !” introduced artists to a new movement of mass production, iconography and popular culture. 

Odalisk, Robert Rauschenberg, 1955-58

Known for his ability of collected “garbage” and manipulating them to create art, Rauschenberg uses a variety of mixed mediums to create masterpieces. The iconographic pin up girls are used to present one with a more modernized version of a Harem girl juxtaposed with an image of a male chicken symbolizing gender roles in American society in the early 50′s. 

(oil paint, watercolor, crayon, pastel, paper, fabric, photographs, printed reproductions, miniature blueprint, newspaper, metal, glass, dried grass, steel wool, a pillow, a wooden post and lamps on a wooden structure mounted on four casters and topped by a stuffed rooster. )