“I Lived without Seeing These Art Works”: (Albanian) Socialist Realism and/against Contemporary Art

ARTMargins ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-49
Author(s):  
Raino Isto
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Socialist Realism ◽  
National Gallery ◽  
Art World ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Art Works ◽  
Fundamental Misunderstanding ◽  
Historical Phenomenon ◽  
Global Art

Abstract This article looks closely at the inclusion of Albanian Socialist Realism in one of renowned Swiss curator Harald Szeemann's last exhibitions, Blood & Honey: The Future's in the Balkans (Essl Museum, Vienna, 2003). In this exhibition, Szeemann installed a group of around 40 busts created during the socialist era in Albania, which he had seen installed at the National Gallery of Arts in Tirana. This installation of sculptures was part of an exhibition entitled Homo Socialisticus, curated by Gëzim Qëndro, and Szeemann deployed it as a generalized foil for “subversive” postsocialist contemporary art included in Blood & Honey. The Homo Socialisticus sculptures occupied a prominent place in the exhibition both spatially and rhetorically, and this article examines how we might read Blood & Honey—and the socialist past in general—through Szeemann's problematic incorporation of this collection of works in one of the key Balkans-oriented exhibitions staged in the early 2000s. The article argues that understanding how Szeemann misread—and discursively oversimplified—Albanian Socialist Realism can help us see not only the continued provincialization of Albania in the contemporary global art world, but more importantly the fundamental misunderstanding of Socialist Realism as a historical phenomenon and a precursor to contemporary geopolitical cultural configurations

scholarly journals Contemporary Taonga: The Art Works of Brett Graham

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Anna-Marie White
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Art History ◽  
Art World ◽  
Art Practice ◽  
Collaborative Process ◽  
Western Art ◽  
Art Works ◽  
Kaupapa Māori ◽  
The Impact

<p>The production of taonga is a sovereign Māori tradition closely guarded in contemporary Māori society. Many Contemporary Māori Artists observe taonga principles in their work though these qualities are stifled within the New Zealand art system. In the 1990s these subjects were fiercely debated resulting in Contemporary Māori Art being defined differently to the ancestral tradition of taonga. This debate created a rupture, which disturbs the practice of Māori art and is a major concern in the emerging practice of Māori art history. Reviving earlier arguments for Contemporary Māori Art to be defined according to the principles of taonga, this thesis applies the concept of ‘contemporary taonga’ to the art works of Brett Graham (Ngāti Koroki Kahukura), to argue that taonga production is active in contemporary Māori life and offers a new method to reconcile Māori art histories.  The practice of Kaupapa Māori research and theory enlivened the taonga principles of Brett Graham’s art works. Intensive accounts of two art works, produced a decade apart, reveal ‘contemporary taonga’ to be a collaborative process involving recognition and instrumentalisation by authoritative Māori viewers. Kahukura (1996), produced in response to the debates was, however, overwhelmed by competing interests of the time. Āniwaniwa (2006) undertook an arduous journey—to the centre of the Western art world in order to be shown within the artist’s tribal rohe—where Ngāti Koroki Kahukura kaumātua recognised Graham as a tohunga. Iwi leaders also employed Āniwaniwa in their Treaty of Waitangi claims process, functionalising the art work as taonga to support the advancement of their people. Āniwaniwa then left New Zealand to play a role in the formalisation of an international indigenous art network.   As a type for contemporary taonga, Āniwaniwa is an expansive model to introduce this concept to contemporary art discourse. The impact of this concept is yet to be realised though immediately reconciles long-standing issues in Māori art. ‘Contemporary taonga’ has the potential to radically reconcieve, and reorganise, Contemporary Māori Art practice and history according to the practice of ancestral Māori traditions and determined by the authority and agency of Māori people.</p>

scholarly journals Inside and Outside the Market for Contemporary Art in Brazil, through the Experience of Artists and Gallerists

Arts ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 113
Author(s):  
Amanda Brandellero
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Art Market ◽  
Art World ◽  
Visual Artists ◽  
Roles And Responsibilities ◽  
Market Expansion ◽  
Market Consolidation ◽  
Global Art ◽  
Opening Up ◽  
World Development

In this paper, I seek to extend our understanding of global art markets by focusing on the relationships between different art world agents and their perceived responsibilities and roles in a market considered locally ‘incipient’ and emergent on the global scene. For this purpose, I draw on over 50 interviews with art gallerists, independent art spaces and visual artists represented by them, living in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the two largest clusters of the contemporary art market in Brazil, at a time of market expansion and internationalisation. In an incipient market, two main functions are considered important: Developing the commercial circuit and opening up the market, and; enhancing the value of art in society. Such functions occur against the backdrop of a large and complex country, where the ‘eixo’ (axis) of the main cities offers greater opportunities for visibility and valorization. The findings help to elucidate the perceptions of responsibility and roles in a context of market development, as well as the emerging boundaries between culture and the market. Moreover, the paper explores the emerging dynamics and strategies of art world development as they are enacted, offering insights into how art market actors perceive their roles and responsibilities, as well as the strategies available to them to support market consolidation.

scholarly journals REDRESSING DIGITAL ORIENTALISM: VIETNAMESE CULTURAL PROFESSIONALS’ DIGITAL WORK DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (43) ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Duester ◽  
Michal Teague
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Digital Technology ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Art World ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Digital Ethnography ◽  
Art And Culture ◽  
Digital Work ◽  
Facebook Pages ◽  
Global Art

The current study investigates how digital technologies can potentially be used to re-orientate the global narrative on Vietnam, overcome an imbalance in representation and help redress digital orientalism. Global digital technologies allow Vietnamese cultural professionals to reach beyond the borders of their nation and to become part of the global art world. With this,they can participate in the production, dissemination, and circulation of discourses on art and culture globally. In doing so, they can redress digital orientalism by contemporizing narratives on Vietnam. However, there is an underlying tension, as the very means by which their voicesare heard is achieved by using global (western) technologies, tools and platforms. The research uses a digital ethnography of the Facebook pages of 7 contemporary art spaces in Hanoi and 20 semi-structured interviews with art and cultural professionals in Hanoi. The interviews were carried out during the Covid-19 Pandemic and addressed its impact and use of digital technology in their work during this time.

scholarly journals Art journalism and the impact of ‘globalisation’: New fugal modalities of storytelling in Austral-Asian writing

2008 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-161
Author(s):  
Ruth Skilbeck
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Art Market ◽  
Art World ◽  
Story Telling ◽  
Art Writing ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Global Art

The writing of art journalism has played a key yet little acknowledged role in the ongoing expansion of the international contemporary art world, and the multi-billion dollar global art economy. This article discusses some contradictory impacts of globalisation on art journalism—from extremes of sensationalist record-breaking art market reporting in the global mass media to the emergence of innovative modalities of story-telling in Australian independent journalistic art writing.  This article discusses some contradictory impacts of gobalisation on art journalism— from extremes of sensationalist record-breaking art market reporting in the global mass media to the emergence of innovative modalities of story-telling in Australian independent art writing. 

The Factors of Market Success and Failure of Contemporary Artists from ASEAN countries | ปัจจัยทางการตลาด ที่ทำาให้ศิลปินร่วมสมัยจากประเทศอาเซียนประสบ ความสำาเร็จ หรือ ล้มเหลว

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rémy Jarry ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Multidisciplinary Approach ◽  
Art Market ◽  
Art World ◽  
Asean Countries ◽  
Global Art ◽  
Do So ◽  
Contemporary Artists

The market of contemporary art from Southeast Asia hasn’t been explored in-depth, despite its rise in sales and notoriety over the last two decades at national and international levels. Our aim is to identify the factors of success and failure of contemporary artists from ASEAN countries in the global art market. To do so, we map the trajectories of those artists and evaluate the role of the other stakeholders of the art world. Our methodology relies on a multidisciplinary approach, balancing quantitative and qualitative data. The period of study focuses on the art market data since 2000.

Abstraction in Motion

2015 ◽  
pp. 63-70
Author(s):  
Cristina Ghetti ◽  
Emanuele Mazza
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Art World ◽  
Folding Pattern ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
Art Works

Folding Pattern is an art project developed by the team of artists, Cristina Ghetti and Emanuele Mazza. The work starts from the idea of proposing a revision of the foundations of perceptual abstraction, that had in it's derivations, one of the art movements more connected with the use of new technologies and one of the art tendencies with more powerful and interesting arguments. We are interested in exploring the developments of abstraction in the digital era, incorporating new media tools, and analyzing how contemporary art is developing the ideas of modernist abstraction introducing the utilization of new technologies, in a context where the influence of science, and of new ways of producing and exhibiting the art works, changes completely the art world.

scholarly journals Glocalization: An Analytical Path Towards More Inclusive Contemporary Art?

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-12
Author(s):  
Lina Abazine
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Art World ◽  
Social Anthropology ◽  
Art Exhibition ◽  
University Of Vienna ◽  
Art Worlds ◽  
The University ◽  
Global Art

A student essay for the Special Student Issue of the Journal of Extreme Anthropology accompanying the art exhibition 'Artist's Waste, Wasted Artists', which opened in Vienna on the 19th of September 2017 and was curated by the students of social anthropology at the University of Vienna. This essay deals critically with the notion of the 'global art world', showing that there may instead be numerous self-centred and ethnocentric art worlds, while also critically engaging with inequalities that persist within and across these art worlds and markets. In this respect it also deals with the work of the Iranian artist Aria Vooria, based in Vienna, and his struggle to escape streotypizations across different art worlds.

scholarly journals La educación artística como configuración de lo contemporáneo en el arte

2018 ◽  
pp. 149
Author(s):  
Daniel Montero
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Art Criticism ◽  
Art World ◽  
Art Theory ◽  
Palabras Clave ◽  
Or Practice ◽  
Art Research ◽  
Global Art ◽  
Art Schools ◽  
Arte Contemporáneo

Resumen: El siguiente texto es una reflexión personal que parte de mi experiencia profesional como investigador en historia y crítica de arte, así como de mi labor docente en escuelas de formación artística en niveles de licenciatura y posgrado y que permite pensar en cómo es que tanto la teoría, la historia y las prácticas del arte coinciden necesariamente. Se argumenta, en general, que la noción de arte contemporáneo, más que un estilo o una moda, es un espacio de experimentación que puede ser aprovechado en las escuelas de arte como un lugar para pensar en cómo es que se percibe la realidad inmediata y cómo es que se pueden singularizar ciertas experiencias de una manera única, de forma muy diferente a cualquier otra disciplina. En ese sentido, y al contrario de lo que se podría esperar por las reglamentaciones y tradiciones que lo predeterminan, el espacio académico se convierte a su vez en un lugar en que la práctica del arte puede escapar y empezar a dialogar de otra forma con la institucionalidad del mundo del arte global y de ciertas maneras de hacer que se han convertido en códigos fácilmente comprensibles. Así, la noción de arte contemporáneo incorporada a la escuela podría incluso cuestionar las mismas bases del conocimiento artístico permitiendo cierta movilidad de los sujetos, así como de las prácticas. Palabras clave: Investigación artística, Arte contemporáneo, Arte crítico, Escuela de arte, Formación artística.   Abstract: The following text is a personal reflection from my professional experience as a researcher in arte history and art criticism, as well as from my teaching work in art schools at undergraduate and graduate levels. That allows me to think about how the art theory, art history and practice of art necessarily coincide. It is argued, in general, that the notion of contemporary art, rather than a style or a fad, is a space for experimentation that can be used in art schools as a place to think about how it is perceived the immediate reality and how it is that you can single out certain experiences in a unique way, very differently from any other discipline or practice. In that sense, and contrary to what could be expected by the regulations and traditions that predetermine it, the academic space becomes a place where the practice of art can escape the institutionality of the global art world and of certain ways of doing that have become easily understandable codes. Thus, the notion of contemporary art incorporated into the school could even question the very foundations of artistic knowledge allowing certain mobility of the subjects, as well as of the practices. Keywords: Art research, Contemporary art, Critical art, School of art, Artistic education.   http://dx.doi.org/10.7203/eari.9.11492

scholarly journals Contemporary Taonga: The Art Works of Brett Graham

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Anna-Marie White
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Art History ◽  
Art World ◽  
Art Practice ◽  
Collaborative Process ◽  
Western Art ◽  
Art Works ◽  
Kaupapa Māori ◽  
The Impact

<p>The production of taonga is a sovereign Māori tradition closely guarded in contemporary Māori society. Many Contemporary Māori Artists observe taonga principles in their work though these qualities are stifled within the New Zealand art system. In the 1990s these subjects were fiercely debated resulting in Contemporary Māori Art being defined differently to the ancestral tradition of taonga. This debate created a rupture, which disturbs the practice of Māori art and is a major concern in the emerging practice of Māori art history. Reviving earlier arguments for Contemporary Māori Art to be defined according to the principles of taonga, this thesis applies the concept of ‘contemporary taonga’ to the art works of Brett Graham (Ngāti Koroki Kahukura), to argue that taonga production is active in contemporary Māori life and offers a new method to reconcile Māori art histories.  The practice of Kaupapa Māori research and theory enlivened the taonga principles of Brett Graham’s art works. Intensive accounts of two art works, produced a decade apart, reveal ‘contemporary taonga’ to be a collaborative process involving recognition and instrumentalisation by authoritative Māori viewers. Kahukura (1996), produced in response to the debates was, however, overwhelmed by competing interests of the time. Āniwaniwa (2006) undertook an arduous journey—to the centre of the Western art world in order to be shown within the artist’s tribal rohe—where Ngāti Koroki Kahukura kaumātua recognised Graham as a tohunga. Iwi leaders also employed Āniwaniwa in their Treaty of Waitangi claims process, functionalising the art work as taonga to support the advancement of their people. Āniwaniwa then left New Zealand to play a role in the formalisation of an international indigenous art network.   As a type for contemporary taonga, Āniwaniwa is an expansive model to introduce this concept to contemporary art discourse. The impact of this concept is yet to be realised though immediately reconciles long-standing issues in Māori art. ‘Contemporary taonga’ has the potential to radically reconcieve, and reorganise, Contemporary Māori Art practice and history according to the practice of ancestral Māori traditions and determined by the authority and agency of Māori people.</p>

scholarly journals The Geological Present: A Critique of the Aesthetic Anthropocene

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Lachlan Gregory Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Aesthetic Theory ◽  
Art World ◽  
Art Making ◽  
Critical Methodology ◽  
Art Works ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

<p>This thesis is a response to an emergent discourse on the relationship between the visual arts and the Anthropocene. The latter—the stratigraphic designation for a new geological epoch—has accrued a popularity within the contemporary art-world that is rarely afforded to a concept from the earth sciences. The uptake in Anthropocene-themed exhibitions, publications, and think-pieces reflects the concept’s promise of an art-making and art-critical methodology that may foster a revised relationship to nature in the age of climate change.   Despite the new-found fashionability of the term, this relationship between art and the Anthropocene has neither been comprehensively demonstrated, nor disproved. Consequently, the purpose of this thesis is to undertake this necessary interrogation.   Firstly, this is an engagement with the competing philosophies and intentions that have attached themselves to the Anthropocene label as it progressed from a straightforward geological statement, into a profound suite of assertions regarding the relationship of humanity to our planet. The influence of the posthumanist ecological philosopher, Timothy Morton, is a particular focus for understanding what the aesthetic theory of the Anthropocene consists of. Taken together, this theory is a promise of a new relationship with the natural world through the jettisoning of Romantic fantasies of nature in favour of an engagement with a sub-discursive, material world.   Secondly, this theory is read against ecologically conscious contemporary art works. The practices of Pierre Huyghe, Simon Starling, and Conor Clarke speak to the same concerns as the aesthetic Anthropocene. Reading these works through the lens offered by the stratigraphic concept investigates and tests the capability of the aesthetic Anthropocene for delivering its promises of an art without nature, and a new engagement with our environments.   Ultimately, the innovations of the aesthetic Anthropocene are novel, plentiful, but unconvincing. As a theory, it is beset by flaws and contradictions which undermine its applicability and critical potential. Consequently, ecologically conscious art does little to reflect the aims and aspirations of the aesthetic Anthropocene, rendering it an unhelpful tool for understanding the geological present.</p>

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