Will Gompertz - What Are You Looking At?: The Surprising, Shocking, and Sometimes Strange Story of 150 Years of Modern Art

WHAT

ARE YOU

LOOKING AT?

The Surprising, Shocking, and Sometimes

Strange Story of 150 Years of Modern Art

WILL GOMPERTZ

A Plume Book

PLUME

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Copyright Will Gompertz, 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this product may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Reproduction, including downloading of Andy Warhol works, is prohibited by copyright laws and international conventions without the express written permission of Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Cover art: Campbells Soup Can (Tomato), 1962 (graphite and casein on canvas), Warhol, Andy (192887)/Private Collection/Photo Christies Images/The Bridgeman Art Library; 2013 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

An extension of the copyright page can be found on pages 40811.

First Plume Printing 2013

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE DUTTON EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

Gompertz, Will, 1965

What are you looking at? : the surprising, shocking, and sometimes strange story of 150 years of modern art / Will Gompertz. 1st [edition].

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-101-56113-3

1. Art movements. 2. Art, Modern19th century.

3. Art, Modern20th century. I. Title.

N6447.5.G66 2012

709dc23 2012027995

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

To my wife, Kate, and children, Arthur, Ned, Mary and George

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

BLACK AND WHITE

Cartoons by Pablo Helguera

.Marcel Duchamp, Fountain ( 1917 ), replica ( 1964 )

.Gustave Courbet, The Origin of the World

( 1866 )

.douard Manet, Le Djeuner sur lHerbe ( 1863 )

.Utagawa Hiroshige, Station of Otsu (c. 1848 )

.Edgar Degas, The Dance Class ( 1874 )

.Vincent van Gogh, The Potato Eaters ( 1885 )

.Auguste Rodin, The Kiss ( 1901 )

.Constantin Brancussi, The Kiss ( 1907 )

.Alberto Giacometti, Walking Man ( 1960 )

.El Greco, The Opening of the Fifth Seal

( 1608 )

.Georges Braque, Violin and Palette ( 1909 )

.Pablo Picasso, Ma Jolie ( 191112 )

.Giacomo Balla, Dynamism of a Dog on a

Leash ( 1912 )

.Umberto Boccioni, Unique Forms of

Continuity in Space ( 1913 )

.Kazimir Malevich, Black Square ( 1915 )

.Vladimir Tatlin, Corner Counter-Relief

( 191415 )

.Vladimir Tatlin, Monument to the Third

International (Tower) ( 1919 )

.Marcel Breuer, BChair/Wassily ( 1925 )

.Walter Gropius, Bauhaus, Dessau ( 1926 )

.Kurt Schwitters, Merzbau ( 1933 )

.Louise Bourgeois, Maman ( 1999 )

.Jeff Koons, Puppy ( 1992 )

.Pablo Picasso, The Three Dancers ( 1925 )

.Ren Magritte, The Menaced Assassin ( 1927 )

.Man Ray, The Primacy of Matter Over

Thought ( 1929 )

.Hans Namuth, Jackson Pollock painting

Autumn Rhythm: Number ( 1950 )

.Eduardo Paolozzi, I Was a Rich Mans

Plaything ( 1947 )

.Michelangelo Pistoletto, Venus of the Rags

( 1967 )

.Dan Flavin, Monumentfor V. Tatlin ( 1964 )

.Sol LeWitt, Serial Project, I (ABCD) ( 1966 )

.Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still # ( 1978 )

.Jeff Wall, The Destroyed Room ( 1978 )

.Eugne Delacroix, The Death of

Sardanapalus ( 1827 )

.Jeff Wall, Mimic ( 1982 )

.Damien Hirst, A Thousand Years ( 1990 )

.Damien Hirst, The Physical Impossibility of

Death in the Mind of Someone Living ( 1991 )

.Jeff Koons, Made in Heaven ( 1989 )

.Ai Weiwei, Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn ( 1995 )

.Banksy, Maid Sweeping ( 2006 )

COLOR PLATES

.Eugne Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People ( 1830 )

.douard Manet, Olympia ( 1863 )

.J. M. W. Turner, Rain, Steam and Speed ( 1844 )

.Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise ( 1872 )

.Vincent van Gogh, TheStarry Night ( 1889 )

.Paul Gauguin, Vision After the Sermon, or

Jacob Wrestling with the Angel ( 1888 )

.Georges Seurat, A Sunday Afternoon on the

Grande Jatte ( 18846 )

.Color wheel

.Paul Czanne, Still Life with Apples and Peaches ( 1905 )

.Paul Czanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire (c. 1887 )

.Henri Matisse, Le Bonheur de Vivre ( 1905 )

.Henri Rousseau, The Hungry Lion Throws

Itself on the Antelope ( 1905 )

.Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles dAvignon ( 1907 )

.Umberto Boccioni, States of Mind I: The Farewells

( 1911 )

.Wassily Kandinsky, Composition VII ( 1913 )

.El Lissitzky, Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge ( 1919 )

.Lyubov Popova, Model of a Dress ( 1923 )

.Piet Mondrian, Composition C (No. III), with

Red, Yellow and Blue ( 1935 )

.Gerrit Rietveld, Red-Blue Chair (c. 1923 )

.Joan Mir, Harlequins Carnival ( 1924 )

.Frida Kahlo, The Dream ( 1940 )

.Willem de Kooning, Woman ( 1950 )

.Mark Rothko, The Ochre (Ochre, Red on Red) ( 1954 )

.Robert Rauschenberg, Monogram ( 1955 )

.Andy Warhol, Marilyn Diptych ( 1962 )

.Roy Lichtenstein, Whaam! ( 1963 )

.Donald Judd, Untitled ( 1972 )

.Sarah Lucas, Two Fried Eggs and a Kebab ( 1992 )

.Tracey Emin, Everyone I Have Ever Slept With, 1963 1995 ( 1995 )

PREFACE