U.S. Events and Art (Danielle)

U.S. events:

The Vietnam War:

Following the Geneva Accords, Vietnam was temporarily divided into a socialist north zone and an anticommunist south. President Eisenhower sent military aid to South Vietnam, President Kennedy sent military advisers, and President Johnson provided massive military aid and American troops. An undeclared war had started in Vietnam, and it was met with an antiwar movement back in the United States. President Nixon hoped to withdraw American forces from 1968, and in 1973 a peace agreement was reached with North Vietnam allowing America to exit the war. In 1974, North Vietnam launched a successful offensive and a unified communist country resulted in 1975.

Connection Across Continents: Antiwar protests spread to Western Europe. Many European critics were angered by America’s presence in Vietnam. They believed that it was an invasion into a distant civil war.

American Consumer Culture: In the 1950s a consumer-oriented American economy developed. Upper-class products became available to middle-class and the popularity of things like television skyrocketed. Refrigerators and automobiles became normal possessions. A massive movement of whites out of the cities and into the suburbs occurred, which is known as white flight. In the 1960s, a counterculture appeared that rejected social norms and stressed simplicity and drug use.

Connection Across Continents: Things like U.S.-style supermarkets were constructed in Europe. Critics of consumerism appeared in Europe. Many feared the threat of an Americanization of European culture. They didn’t want the conformity and lack of creativity that was seen in the United States. 

Art Pieces:

Kim Prisu painted on the Berlin Wall in 1990 as part of the East Side Gallery (a collection of 105 paintings by artists from all over the world that were painted o the east side of the Berlin Wall). His work captures humor and imagination in contemporary images. During the 1980s, graffiti art appeared on the Western side of the wall, while the Eastern side remained blank. When the East German government opened the Berlin Wall in 1989, artists also began to paint the Eastern side.

Chapter Connection: Since its construction in 1961, the Berlin Wall divided the city and stood as a symbol of Cold War division in Europe. When the hated division was suddenly torn down twenty-eight years later, Germans were overjoyed. This was an important part of the fall of communism throughout east-central Europe.

In 1971, Martin Sharp created his Jimi Hendrix painting. Sharp was a leading pop artist in the 1960s and 1970s and designed many music posters, covers, cartoons and illustrations. Pop art was a movement that appeared in Britain in the 1950s and consisted of art that was based on modern popular culture and mass media.

Chapter Connection: A counterculture movement emerged in Europe in the 1960s. This movement consisted of sexual openness, drug use and rock music. Bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones became popular. Like Sharp’s Jimi Hendrix, similar pop artwork advertised these rock groups.