Immoral America: The Vietnam War

 “I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.”

                        - "The Things They Carried", Tim O'Brien

As we have established throughout this course, art has a profound sense of storytelling, giving life, meaning, and narrative at the viewer's discretion. The Vietnam War was nothing short of a revolution in art, inspiring and urging artists from all walks of life to speak out on the horrors of war. The stories told in these pieces remain transcendent, and their messages of morality, humanity, and injustice remind us of the refusal to obey an American government that aimed to dehumanize its own people.

Yoko Ono, Cut Piece, 1964-66

• Yoko Ono would sit on a stage in front of an audience with a pair of scissors in front of her and call on each person to cut a piece of her clothing off. 
• The intention was to provoke the audience to consider how long one would wait before intervening in harmful circumstances.
• She performed this piece five times from 1964 to 1966.
• She is Chinese, but her Asian appearance serves as a representation of Taiwan in this piece.
• This piece is also read as feminist and served as a dual inspiration in the women's rights movement, speaking out on the injustices and vulnerability of women at this time.
• It creates a lot of internal turmoil between being told to commit an immoral act, performing the act, and seeing how long it takes for someone to speak out against cutting off the clothing.
• She was telling people to come up, denying the ability to choose, much like young men drafted into the war.

About This Piece

Artist: Yoko Ono

Media: Performance

Dimensions: NA

Location: (Pertaining to this photograph) Performed at Carnegie Hall, New York, March 21, 1965

Kim Jones, Mudman Structure (large), 1974

• Originally a performance piece that is now displayed as a sculpture.
• Jones was drafted into the Vietnam War and felt very differently afterward, creating this sculpture eight years later (Smee).
• During the performance, he wore a crown of aviary wire and foam, combat boots, and slathered himself in mud.
• He created this large bundle of wooden poles and thin planks strapped, tied, and bound together with various bits of cloth and other materials. He carried the piece around with his arms through the shoulder straps.
• He walked for 18 miles along Wilshire Blvd in California.
• To me, it is a display of the discomfort and dehumanizing state that war can put you in.
• It seems like a way to combat the unease one feels after facing war and the inability to express how that really makes one feel.
• As someone who has "rucked" hundreds of miles in her lifetime, I feel the pain. There is a weight so unbearable, paired with clothing sticking to your hot, sticky skin. I can feel the scrapes of the wood on my back, the mud drying and digging into my skin before flaking off in hard crusts. Or worse, the sweat making the mud that much stickier, that granular feeling rubbing the skin raw.
• Incredibly powerful piece that speaks volumes of being in the throws of War.

About This Piece

Artist: Kim Jones

Media: Mixed Media

Dimensions: +/- 213 x 264 x 100 cm

Location: Zeno X Gallery

David Hammons, Pray for America, 1969

• Afro-American David Hammons used lithography in this piece. After lathering his body in grease and pressing it to the paper, he would cover the grease with graphite or charcoal.
• This piece was created after the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the peak of the Vietnam War following Johnson's coming into office.
• Having a black man shrouded in an American flag while in prayer was very bold for the time, given that the civil rights movement was also taking place. 
• This piece is simple yet bold. The context in which it was created speaks more to how unstable and scared America and its people were at this time, afraid of what may become of the great country.
• I love the ghostly, "x-ray-like appearance taken on by the figure in this piece. It allows the flag to carry more weight on the figure. The weight and the way it is draped make the flag feel like a blanket, a sign of comfort, peace, and refuge, as if the flag itself could deflect the atrocities facing the nation it represents.

About This Piece

Artist: David Hammons (American, 

Media: Screenprint and pigment of paper

Dimensions: 60 1/2 x 30 in. (153.7 x 76.2 cm)

Location: MoMA

 Red Stripe Kitchen from the series House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home (ca. 1967-72)

• This first piece by Rosler is one of her more well-known. House Beautiful is a series of collage art created with the same title as the magazine's images as a canvas for the work.
• Plays off of the popular term "Livingroom war" used during the Vietnam War. Many events and tragedies were witnessed by Americans on their very own television screen.
• Reminds us that the war took place in another country but affected the everyday lives of Americans regardless.
• In this piece, the kitchen is neat, modern, and sleek. The soldiers in the background look about the room as if looking for something, which creates an eerie feeling in the image. What are they looking for? Should I also be cautious? Should red-striped walls be approached with severe hesitation?
• The soldiers are well blended into the image but grab the viewer's attention, forcing us to look closer at just how strange and out-of-place they really are.

About This Piece

Artist: Marth Rosler (American, 1943 - )

Media: Photomontage

Dimensions: 23 7/16 x 17 13/16 in. (59.5 x 45.2 cm)

Location: The Met

Balloons from the series House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home (ca. 1967-72)

• This piece is from the same House Beautiful series by Martha Rosler.
• I chose this piece because it stuck out to me the most and was the most jarring.
• Again, this parent and infant fit into the image well, but they feel more like a main focus. Immediately, I look about the room for other context clues, but all I see is a calm, elegant living room with balloons in the corner. 
• The parent has a ghastly look on their face, holding what seems to be their flailing baby. I want more information; I need more, but the image gives me nothing. This solidifies the feeling of the unknown that was consistently haunting the minds of men, women, and children, both sitting in an American living room or in a tent facing the war head-on. 
• The stark contrast of the infant's momentous body against such a still and unmoving backdrop increases the tension of the piece.
• Serves as a cry for humanity and the very real destruction of human lives in Taiwan because of the war.

About This Piece

Artist: Martha Rosler (American, 1943 - )

Media: Photomontage 

Dimensions: 23 11/16 x 18 7/8 in. (60.2 x 47.9 cm)

Location: MoMA

Bruce Nauman, Raw-War, 1971

• My favorite piece in the display was created to preserve a previous piece by Nauman: a red and orange flashing neon sign with the same lettering.
• This creates a distinct connection between how sensitive everyone was feeling about the war during this time. Everyone had an opinion or stance on the war, and many artists felt the pressure to speak on it in their art.
• Nauman's choice of neon light wordplay allows us to digest the extreme heat of the war without overthinking its effect on soldiers and civilians across American Taiwan.
• The way that the "R" is inverted in the piece and then repeated faintly behind the original allows the reader to read the palindrome both ways.
• The fade, gleam, and glow of the neon are seen in the medium and emphasized by the rich black background.
• The very last repetition is mottled but lends to the movement of the piece, which is meant to mimic the flashing of the light.
• Effective display of the demoralizing and "stripped-down" feeling veterans felt after fighting in a war that was starting to feel futile by this point in time.

About This Piece

Artist: Bruce Nauman (American, 1941- )

Media: Lithograph on paper

Dimensions: image - 567 x 717 mm, frame - 1020 x 722 x 25 mm

Location: Tate (Britain)

Resources:

Catlin, Roger. “How American Artists Engaged with Morality and Conflict during the Vietnam War.” Smithsonian, Smithsonian Institution, 29 Mar. 2019, www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/vietnam-war-american-artists-engage-morality-conflict-180971818/.

Jones, Kim. “Mudman Structure (Large) by Kim Jones.” Ocula the Best in Contemporary Art Icon., ocula.com/art-galleries/zeno-x-gallery/artworks/kim-jones/mudman-structure-large/. Accessed 1 Aug. 2024.

Manchester, Elizabeth. “‘Raw-War’, Bruce Nauman, 1971.” Tate, 1 Aug. 2000, www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/nauman-raw-war-p77582.

O’Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Broadway Books, 1998.

Smee, Sebastian. “‘Artists Respond: American Art and the Vietnam War’ Review: How the War Changed Art Forever.” The Washington Post, 18 Mar. 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/how-the-vietnam-war-changed-art-forever/2019/03/18/619eff44-4743-11e9-90f0-0ccfeec87a61_story.html.

“The Things They Carried Quotes by Tim O’Brien.” Goodreads, Goodreads, www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1235619-the-things-they-carried. Accessed 1 Aug. 2024.

“Vietnam War: Causes, Facts & Impact.” History.Com, A&E Television Networks, www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/vietnam-war-history. Accessed 1 Aug. 2024.

“‘Balloons’ from the Series House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home. c. 1967-72 | MOMA.” Museum of Modern Art, www.moma.org/collection/works/150119?artist_id=6832&page=1&sov_referrer=artist. Accessed 1 Aug. 2024.