Eadweard Muybridge was a famous performance artist. He was born in 1830 at Kingston upon Thames near London. His most interesting creation in my opinion, is the Horse In Motion:

Produced in 1886, this photograph consisted of 16 still images all constructed together in a typology grid of 4 by 4. At that time, the way in which objects moved was still being discovered. Muybridge’s motion images helped to educate people on exactly how these movements worked.

Eadweard was hired by the professional photographer that he worked for, to take pictures of horses. Stanford, the University that hired him had some speculation about the racehorse’s at the time and most people betted on a statement. It was that ‘all four of a racehorse’ hooves are off the ground simultaneously’. It was Muybridge’s job to prove this, which he certainly did, as shown in the top row of the image above.

Since at the time, the camera equipment was less advanced, he found it very difficult to produce photographs without blur. Two years later he gained some experience, whilst abroad and came back with something quite special. He set up a row of cameras but this time using tripwires. Geniusly, they would take a picture in the split second the speedy horses went past.

Mood board of his work:

Tableaux photography involves people in a staged manner. The word is defined as a style where people are photographed in a formal and prepared environment. Therefore they are shown in a very particular manner, in a single shot. Here are some examples:

Jeff Wall took both of these great Tableaux images.

Pop art began in the year of 1955 and ended in the year 1974. During this 19 year period, the evolution of art has changed majorly and optimistically created a fresh begging in the world of visual arts.

Nowadays, pop art’s most important figures date back to the 1960’s. These New York artists revolutionised pop art. Some include: Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist and Claes Oldenburg. It became very popular to draw over well known imagery. The artists that did this became part of an international craze.  Shortly after the Abstract Expressionists popularity, which modernised visual arts by reaching out on worldwide levels. The Abstract Expressionists mainly focused depicting on spontaneous and action filled scenes. Examples of their early work includes:

Situationism is defined in the dictionary as the following: The theory that human behaviour is determined by surrounding circumstances rather than by personal qualities. And as a  revolutionary political theory which regards modern industrial society as being inevitably oppressive and exploitative.

Situationism occurred between 1957 and 1972. The small group of Situationists had members of both avante-garde artists and intellectuals. The team were influenced by the concepts of Dada, Surrealism and Lettrism. The Lettrism International was a post-war poetry and music group and they used to change urban landscapes. This group were responsible for founding a magazine called ‘Situationiste Internationale’ at the very begging.

The “surpression of art” was the team’s main focus, because they wanted to separate art and culture and to transform them into present time moments in life. Basically, they were aspiring to be like the Surrealists and Dadaists and sort of became on the same level as them. Early on, the Situationists was mostly based on aesthetics, therefore most members were artists. However, as time went on, they decided to create more cultural masterpieces. A man called Asger John was the most important person in this area. Predominately in 1962, they began to looks at the topic of capitalist society. They weren’t as focused on the beauty of things, and wanted to show unique messages. Guy Debord was the most significant member to practice this new technique.

Surrealism in photography has got many different interpretations. The actual word is defined as: “A 20th-century avant-garde movement in art and literature that sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, for example by the irrational juxtaposition of images.”

It was first created in 1924 by a poet called Andre Breton. It was created in France, specifically in Paris. Here is an example of his work:

It was fully packed with a strong ideological ideas which resulted in the movement growing into such fame. Surrealism was much later than Dada and Symbolism. Whilst these two concept were focused irrational and subversive visual arts, Surrealism was quite different.

Surrealism is mostly concerned with the spiritualism, Marxism and Freudian psychoanalysis. The outcomes that were produces were very direct. They demonstrated an unusual perception. The aim was to show an unconscious representation, this meant there was a lot of freedom. Their ideas mainly went against morality and aesthetical qualities. The idea of showing an the subconscious mind intertwining with the conscious inspired them to look at dream imagery.

Cubism first appeared in 1907 and this amazing concept continued until 1916. It was the beginning of Modernism. It was another way in which photographers could exhibit their great thinking processes and express themselves. Cubism consisted of showing present moments in time. It didn’t depict any kind of religious stories. Many works from cubism only showed the artists mental view on the subject matter. The mental beliefs and views were much more in depth and they avoided showing a naturalistic observation. A naturalistic observation is defined as looking at something in it’s natural environment.

Cubism, is very different. Instead it focuses on unrealistic qualities, hence the mental beliefs, which are useful here. The elements which are intertwined into the photograph are purely aesthetical and mostly ‘out of the blue’.

Pablo Picasso created many cubism paintings. Here are some examples: