Metropolis Ecologies

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-175
Author(s):  
Meiling Cheng
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Ecological Approach ◽  
Art World ◽  
Situated Knowledge ◽  
Career Trajectory ◽  
Individual Female ◽  
Cross Media ◽  
Ecological Art

This article takes an ecological approach to Beijing-based artist Yin Xiuzhen’s cross-media artworks, which comprise installations, performances, and inhabitable sculptures. Yin’s creative outputs—from her earliest installations that bemoan the vanishing old Beijing, through her Portable Cities series that uses fabric architecture to convey her impressions of world cities, to her latest “ecoengineering” projects that provide contemplative spaces for viewers to temporarily inhabit—delineate the career trajectory of an individual female artist establishing her position within the contemporary art world. The author’s inquiry suggests that Yin’s reluctance to embrace her gender identity as central to her ecological art reflects her species-based environmental ethics that goes beyond identity politics. Yin’s ecological focus manifests her situated knowledge as a metropolitan resident living and traveling in a glocalized era. While we may debate about the feasibility of (en)gendering her art, many of Yin’s ecology-leaning solutions point to urgent ecological imperatives that are much less negotiable for our continued terrestrial survival.

scholarly journals Contemporary Art Practice and Indigenous Knowledge

2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-128
Author(s):  
Gerald McMaster
Keyword(s):  
Medicinal Plants ◽  
Indigenous Knowledge ◽  
Traditional Knowledge ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Art World ◽  
Art Practice ◽  
Knowledge Practices ◽  
Communal Sharing ◽  
Cultural Hero ◽  
The Way

AbstractIndigenous artists are introducing traditional knowledge practices to the contemporary art world. This article discusses the work of selected Indigenous artists and relays their contribution towards changing art discourses and understandings of Indigenous knowledge. Anishinaabe artist Norval Morrisseau led the way by introducing ancient mythos; the gifted Carl Beam enlarged his oeuvre with ancient building practices; Peter Clair connected traditional Mi'kmaq craft and colonial influence in contemporary basketry; and Edward Poitras brought to life the cultural hero Coyote. More recently, Beau Dick has surprised international art audiences with his masks; Christi Belcourt’s studies of medicinal plants take on new meaning in paintings; Bonnie Devine creates stories around canoes and baskets; Adrian Stimson performs the trickster/ruse myth in the guise of a two-spirited character; and Lisa Myers’s work with the communal sharing of food typifies a younger generation of artists re-engaging with traditional knowledge.

Who (or What) is an AI Artist?

Leonardo ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Kieran Browne
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Art History ◽  
Art Market ◽  
Art World ◽  
Significant Disagreement ◽  
History And Theory

Abstract The mainstream contemporary art world is suddenly showing interest in “AI art”. While this has enlivened the practice, there remains significant disagreement over who or what actually deserves to be called an “AI artist”. This article examines several claimants to the term and grounds these in art history and theory. It addresses the controversial elevation of some artists over others and accounts for these choices, arguing that the art market alienates AI artists from their work. Finally, it proposes that AI art's interactions with art institutions have not promoted new creative possibilities but have instead reinforced conservative forms and aesthetics.

Made in Basel? A commentary on the contemporary art world in Asia

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 182-186
Author(s):  
Matthew J. Waters
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Art World ◽  
Sociocultural Perspective ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Global Power ◽  
Recent Emergence ◽  
Made In

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess the recent emergence of contemporary art in Asia from a macro, sociocultural perspective. Design/methodology/approach This commentary is based on secondary research and recent visits to contemporary art centres in major cities across Asia. Findings The author argues that contemporary art in Asia emerges by extension of the Western contemporary art world and suggests that more must be done if Asia is to create a contemporary art world that is both internationally recognised and distinct from its Western precedent. Originality/value This commentary debunks the hyperbole surrounding contemporary art in Asia as a regional phenomenon and provides a critical examination of the global (power) dynamics at play.

Masters of High and Low: Exhibitions in Dialogue

2020 ◽  
pp. 211-214
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Art World ◽  
Public Dialogue ◽  
Art Spiegelman ◽  
Comic Art ◽  
Museum Of Contemporary Art

This is a brief interstitial introduction by art historian Kim A. Munson explaining the importance of and interaction between two blockbuster exhibitions featuring comics, High and Low: Modern Art, Popular Culture (MoMA, 1990) and Masters of American Comics (Hammer & Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2005). This chapter discusses The Comic Art Show (Whitney, 1983), Jonah Kinigstein’s satirical cartoons about the NY art world, and the critical and public dialogue surrounding both High and Low and Masters, which has shaped many of the comics exhibitions that followed. This chapter tracks the team of comics advocates that organized The Comic Art Show (John Carlin, Art Spiegelman, Brian Walker, and Ann Philbin), their reactions to High and Low and the production of Masters of American Comics in response.

Institutional Elaboration

2021 ◽  
pp. 271-338
Author(s):  
Mark Minett
Keyword(s):  
Formal Analysis ◽  
Media Influence ◽  
Career Trajectory ◽  
Archival Material ◽  
Cross Media ◽  
Institutional Norms

Accounts of Altman’s career trajectory tend to efface dynamic intra- and intermedial relationships in favor of presuming the constraint and emergence of norm-breaking expressivity. Industrial filmmaking is paradoxically said to have groomed Altman to be an observational documentarian while also somehow training him in Hollywood’s illusionist norms. Filmed television is taken to be a forum in which Altman’s expressive agency was shackled by the producer-dominated medium’s attenuated version of Hollywood style, inadvertently fueling his later desire to reject Hollywood’s norms. Chapter 5 employs archival material and formal analysis to specify the contingencies of Altman’s industrial contexts and to demonstrate how they actually contributed to his development, steering him toward practice-oriented preferences and providing opportunities to push beyond standard approaches. The manner in which Altman’s elaborative attitude toward institutional norms extends across “Earlier Altman” to “Early Altman” challenges hierarchizing assumptions about the nature and direction of cross-media influence.

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