Sixties Surreal | Art & Artists
Enigma
7
Jess, If All the World Were Paper and All the Water Sink, 1962
This work points to the artist's role in helping produce plutonium for the Manhattan Project and his anxieties about the atomic age. A central figure in the Bay Area art scene, Jess combined unrelated images to create new meanings, relying on both esoteric and traditional symbolism. A nuclear mushroom cloud is encircled with the Greek letter Omega, signifying an apocalypse, and a parrot, representing folly, swallows an owl with a key, representing wisdom. In one interpretation, the owl has unlocked the secret of the ultimate folly: nuclear destruction. The silhouetted figure stands in for both the artist and the viewer; he is observing the violence of the century, even as innocent children play in the center of the composition.
Artists
- Jeremy Anderson
- Benny Andrews
- Kenneth Anger
- Diane Arbus
- Robert Arneson
- Ralph Arnold
- Romare Bearden
- Jordan Belson
- Ed Bereal
- Wallace Berman
- Judith Bernstein
- Lee Bontecou
- Louise Bourgeois
- Joan Brown
- Kay Brown
- Roger Brown
- T.C. Cannon
- Eduardo Carrillo
- Mel Casas
- Vija Celmins
- Barbara Chase-Riboud
- Ching Ho Cheng
- Judy Chicago
- Bruce Conner
- Jean Conner
- Adger Cowans
- Robert Crumb
- Dale Brockman Davis
- Jay DeFeo
- Roy De Forest
- Martha Edelheit
- Melvin Edwards
- Ed Emshwiller
- Roy Fridge
- Lee Friedlander
- Rupert Garcia
- Nancy Graves
- Nancy Grossman
- Barbara Hammer
- David Hammons
- Alex Hay
- Wally Hedrick
- Mike Henderson
- Eva Hesse
- Oscar Howe
- Luchita Hurtado
- Miyoko Ito
- Suzanne Jackson
- Ken Jacobs
- Jae Jarrell
- Jess
- Luis Jimenez
- Daniel LaRue Johnson
- Barbara Jones-Hogu
- Edward Kienholz
- Kiki Kogelnik
- Shigeko Kubota
- Yayoi Kusama
- Lynn Hershman Leeson
- Linda Lomahaftewa
- Lee Lozano
- Marisol
- David McManaway
- Ron Miyashiro
- Bruce Nauman
- Gunvor Nelson
- Senga Nengudi
- Jim Nutt
- Claes Oldenburg
- John Outterbridge
- Edward Owens
- Kenneth Price
- Noah Purifoy
- Joseph Raffael
- Christina Ramberg
- Deborah Remington
- Faith Ringgold
- Suellen Rocca
- James Rosenquist
- Martha Rosler
- Barbara Rossi
- Edward Ruscha
- Betye Saar
- Niki de Saint Phalle
- Lucas Samaras
- Peter Saul
- Raymond Saunders
- Carolee Schneemann
- Fritz Scholder
- Kay Sekimachi
- Joan Semmel
- Jack Smith
- Ming Smith
- Robert Smithson
- Nancy Spero
- Anita Steckel
- Harold Stevenson
- Sturtevant
- Paul Thek
- Michael Cullen Todd
- Carlos Villa
- Shawn Walker
- Timothy Washington
- H.C. Westermann
- Jack Whitten
- Dorothy Wiley
- William T. Wiley
- Hannah Wilke
- Franklin Williams
- Karl Wirsum