scholarly journals But is it art? : the construction and valuation of illustration in Victoria's Island Illustrators Society

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shannon Jaleen Grove
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Art History ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Division I ◽  
Traditional Art ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Commercial Art ◽  
Binary Oppositions ◽  
History Of

In Canada, illustration, commercial art, and conservative, traditional art are often spoken of as separate from and opposite to "non-commercial", "contemporary art", a division I argue stems from the older distinction between art and craft but one that can be subverted. Using concepts from Gowans, Greenhalgh, Mortenson, Shiner, and Bourdieu's theory of the field of cultural production, this thesis traces the sociology and art history of the division between traditional and modern art that led to the formation of the Island Illustrators Society in 1985 in Victoria, British Columbia. I argue illustration is an original, theoretical art form indistinguishable from but alienated by contemporary art, that conservative art is neither static nor irrelevant, and that non-commercial contemporary art is a misnomer. I find the Society challenged the definitions of art and illustration by promoting illustrative fine art and by transcending binary oppositions of conservative and contemporary, commercial and non-commercial.

scholarly journals But is it art? : the construction and valuation of illustration in Victoria's Island Illustrators Society

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shannon Jaleen Grove
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Art History ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Division I ◽  
Traditional Art ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Commercial Art ◽  
Binary Oppositions ◽  
History Of

In Canada, illustration, commercial art, and conservative, traditional art are often spoken of as separate from and opposite to "non-commercial", "contemporary art", a division I argue stems from the older distinction between art and craft but one that can be subverted. Using concepts from Gowans, Greenhalgh, Mortenson, Shiner, and Bourdieu's theory of the field of cultural production, this thesis traces the sociology and art history of the division between traditional and modern art that led to the formation of the Island Illustrators Society in 1985 in Victoria, British Columbia. I argue illustration is an original, theoretical art form indistinguishable from but alienated by contemporary art, that conservative art is neither static nor irrelevant, and that non-commercial contemporary art is a misnomer. I find the Society challenged the definitions of art and illustration by promoting illustrative fine art and by transcending binary oppositions of conservative and contemporary, commercial and non-commercial.

scholarly journals Kazimir Malevich in Avant-Garde Discussions in 1928–1930

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 36-41
Author(s):  
Oksana Salata
Keyword(s):  
Modern Art ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Scientific Controversy ◽  
Traditional Art ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
Art Form ◽  
History Of Art ◽  
History Of ◽  
Traditional Approaches

The article is devoted to the figure of Kazimir Malevich as an artist and art critic, who introduced new tendencies and approaches to the depiction of objects into traditional art; representation of the artist in avant-garde discussions in the period of his teaching at the Kyiv Art Institute in 1928–1930; searches and experiments of the artist, which were closely connected with the feeling of modernity and new impulses in culture. Malevich’s activity on creation of a unique history of art of Modernism is revealed. It is shown that the scientific controversy between artists over traditional approaches and pictorial methods acted as a catalyst for the development of a new direction in modern art. Discussions between Kazimir Malevich and Mykhailo Boichuk became fundamental for an artistic discussion which continues among contemporary artists and art critics. The artist based his work on objectlessness, which became a method of interpreting art. In this way, he shifted the emphasis from defining the content to defining the form, the very essence of art. Being a theorist, Kazimir Malevich discovered the patterns of development of art form, explaining the importance and sequence of emergence of each new direction: Suprematism, Cubism, Cubofuturism. Artistic discussions with contemporaries were of great importance. Malevich’s ideas continued to spread thanks to students and like-minded people who developed them and developed new approaches to painting techniques. The experience embodied by the artist at the Kyiv Art Institute showed the peculiarity of the artistic space that was formed in Kyiv in the late 1920s. Kazimir Malevich’s ideas are a promising scientific research for both historians and art historians as they show new facets of the avant-garde style.

Hans Sedlmayr (1896–1984): Structural Approach and Pre-Modern Values

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Angel Angelov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Art History ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Socialist Realism ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
Structural Approach ◽  
Sacred Text ◽  
Modern Conception ◽  
Art Historians ◽  
History Of

The prevailing part of art historians, critics and theoreticians from the mid-1950s even until today feels related to the means of expression of the modernist art trends from the last decade of 19th c. until the end of 1960-s. Modernism has become a sacred text, whose complexity should be interpreted, but not criticized. Sedlmayr’s conception of art is built on moral, religious, aesthetic and political grounds, which are the very reason for the actuality of his works – both in the specialized sphere of art history and in the wider public debate on values. That is why I will analyse his structural approach mainly in relation to his anti-modern conception of art. This is the task of this study. Sedlmayr’s effort to turn art history into a “strict science” is an independent part of his scientific pursuit; it is in relation, but is not subordinate to his conception of modern art. Those publications of his are discussed but only in the specialized literature on history of the methods in humanities, while his conception against modern art acquires an exceptional popularity. Because of that reason his theoretic contribution to the study of art remains in a penumbra. I argue that Sedlmayr’s conception has the following coinciding points with the official understanding of art in the time of socialism: – A denial to estimate art with aesthetic criteria, which the ideologists of socialist realism define as formalism, and Sedlmayr as aesthetism; – In socialism art should represent a positive ideal; Sedlmayr calls this ideal “human measure”; – Art should habituate to morals; – A conviction that the modern art from the end of 19th c. on is decadent; – A criticism against the “dehumanization” of art.

Documenting Media Art: An Archive and Bridging Thesaurus for MediaArtHistories

Leonardo ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (5) ◽  
pp. 435-441
Author(s):  
Oliver Grau ◽  
Sebastian Haller ◽  
Janina Hoth ◽  
Viola Rühse ◽  
Devon Schiller ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Art History ◽  
Significant Loss ◽  
Digital Art ◽  
Media Art ◽  
Innovative Strategy ◽  
International Media ◽  
Traditional Art ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Art Community ◽  
Art Research

While Media Art has evolved into a critical field at the intersection of art, science and technology, a significant loss threatens this art form due to rapid technological obsolescence and static documentation strategies. Addressing these challenges, the Interactive Archive and Meta-Thesaurus for Media Art Research was developed to advance an Archive of Digital Art. Through an innovative strategy of “collaborative archiving,” social Web 2.0 features foster the engagement of the international media art community and a “bridging thesaurus” linking the extended documentation of the Archive with other databases of “traditional” art history facilitates interdisciplinary and transhistorical comparative analyses.

Page as alternative space redux: artists’ magazines in the 21 st century

2013 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 10-17
Author(s):  
David Senior
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Art History ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Museum Of Modern Art ◽  
Art And Design ◽  
The Past ◽  
Production And Distribution ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
Selection Of

In the past few years, several new publications and exhibitions have presented surveys of the genre of artists’ magazines. This recent research has explored the publication histories of individual titles and articulated the significance of this genre within contemporary art history. Millennium magazines was a 2012 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art that traced the artists’ magazine into the 21st century. The organizers, Rachael Morrison and David Senior of MoMA Library, assembled a selection of 115 international tides published since 2000 for visitors to browse during the run of the exhibition and created a website as a continuing resource for information about the selected tides. The exhibition served as an introduction to the medium for new audiences and a summary of the active community of international artists, designers and publishers that still utilize the format in innovative ways. As these projects experiment with both print and digital media in their production and distribution of content, art libraries are faced with new challenges in digital preservation in order to continue to document experimental publishing practices in contemporary art and design.

Contemporary Art

Art History ◽  
2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry Smith
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Art World ◽  
Local Language ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Public Media ◽  
History Of Art ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Many

As an art-critical or historical category––one that might designate a style of art, a tendency among others, or a period in the history of art––“contemporary art” is relatively recent. In art world discourse throughout the world, it appears in bursts of special usage in the 1920s and 1930s, and again during the 1960s, but it remains subsidiary to terms––such as “modern art,” “modernism,” and, after 1970, “postmodernism”––that highlight art’s close but contested relationships to social and cultural modernity. “Contemporary art” achieves a strong sense, and habitual capitalization, only in the 1980s. Subsequently, usage grew rapidly, to become ubiquitous by 2000. Contemporary art is now the undisputed name for today’s art in professional contexts and enjoys widespread resonance in public media and popular speech. Yet, its valiance for any of the usual art-critical and historical purposes remains contested and uncertain. To fill in this empty signifier by establishing the content of this category is the concern of a growing number of early-21st-century publications. This article will survey these developments in historical sequence. Although it will be shown that use of the term “contemporary art” as a referent has a two-hundred-year record, as an art-historical field, contemporary art is so recent, and in such volatile formation, that general surveys of the type now common for earlier periods in the history of art are just beginning to appear. To date, only one art-historiographical essay has been attempted. Listed within Contemporary Art Becomes a Field, this essay (“The State of Art History: Contemporary Art” (Art Bulletin 92.4 [2010]: 366–383; Smith 2010, cited under Historiography) is by the present author and forms the conceptual basis of this article. Contemporary art’s deep immersion in the art market and auction system is profiled in the separate Oxford Bibliographies article Art Markets and Auction. This article does not include any of the many thousands of books, catalogues, and essays that are monographic studies of individual contemporary artists, because it would be invidious to select a small number. For similar reasons, entries on journals, websites, and blogs are omitted. A select listing of them may be found in Terry Smith, Contemporary Art: World Currents (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2011; Smith 2011 cited under Surveys). Books on art movements are not to be found because contemporary art, unlike modern art, has no movements in the same art-historical sense. It consists of currents, tendencies, relationships, concerns, and interests and is the product of a complex condition in which different senses of history are coming into play. With regret, this article confines itself to publications in English, the international language of the contemporary art world. This fact obscures the importance and valiance of certain local-language publications, even though many key texts were issued simultaneously both in the local language and English, and many others have subsequently been translated. In acknowledgment of this lacuna, a subsection on Primary Documents has been included.

scholarly journals On the problem of the meaning and scope of the term school in contemporary art history (by the case of the Far Eastern region)

2021 ◽  
pp. 270-275
Author(s):  
Н.А. Левданская
Keyword(s):  
Art Education ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Art History ◽  
Far East ◽  
Eastern Region ◽  
Long Period ◽  
The Far East ◽  
History Of ◽  
Style Preferences ◽  
Far Eastern

Редкое исследование, посвященное современному художественному процессу, его участникам, обходится без употребления термина «школа». При этом его содержание трактуется очень широко: от сложившейся и действующей на протяжении большого отрезка времени системы полного цикла профессионального художественного образования до принадлежности художников одной территории или следования за лидером в выборе стилевых предпочтений. В статье дается краткий очерк истории появления и бытования термина «школа», предлагается уточнение его содержания в современных условиях и на этой основе предпринимается попытка оценить ситуацию с формированием региональных школ в России на примере Дальнего Востока. A rare study devoted to the contemporary art process, its participants, dispenses with the use of the term "school". At the same time, its content is interpreted very broadly: from the system of a full cycle of professional art education that has been established and has been operating for a long period of time to artists belonging to the same territory or following the leader in choosing style preferences. The article gives a brief outline of the history of the emergence and existence of the term "school", suggests clarifying its content in modern conditions and on this basis attempts to assess the situation with the formation of regional schools in Russia, using the example of the Far East.

Documenting Latin American art at the Museum of Modern Art Library

2005 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 33-36
Author(s):  
Taína Caragol
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Art History ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
American Art ◽  
Museum Of Modern Art ◽  
Latin American Art ◽  
History Of ◽  
Geopolitical Region ◽  
Art Community ◽  
American Art History

This article traces the history of the Latin American holdings of the Museum of Modern Art Library, one of the first institutions outside Latin America to start documenting the art of this geopolitical region, and one of the best research centers on modern Latin American art in the world. This success story dates back to the thirties, when the Museum Library began building a Latin American and Caribbean collection that currently comprises over 15,000 volumes of catalogues and art books. The launch of various research tools and facilities for scholars and the general public in recent years also shows the Museum’s strong commitment not only towards Latin American art history but also to the present and the future of the Latino art community.

Visual Arts: Modern Art

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan A. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Visual Arts ◽  
Art History ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Focal Points ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
19Th And 20Th Century ◽  
20Th Century Art

The dominant histories of 19th- and 20th-century art in the West have tended to depict modernism as making deep and decisive breaks from religious thought, practices, and institutions. There are good reasons for scholars seeing the history this way. On the one hand, the development of modern art coincided with major sociocultural shifts that deeply reshaped not only religion (as established religious traditions became increasingly contested and pluralized) but also the functions of art itself, which thrived in forms and spaces that seemed significantly detached from religious subjects, patronage, and purposes. On the other hand, there were also significant theoretical factors shaping the ways that religion was presented—or often conspicuously not presented—in the writing of modern art history. An especially strong secularization theory (a sociological thesis positing that a society’s modernization necessarily entails its secularization) has tended to dominate the scholarship of modernism, coupled with a heavy reliance on critical models that privilege highly suspicious hermeneutics (in the lineages of Marxian, Nietzschean, and Freudian critical theory), which tend to dismantle whatever “religious” content persists in modern art into questions of social power, ressentiment, sublimated desire, and so on. In all these ways, religious traditions became largely invisible and unreadable in the history of modernism, even in cases where they were important factors. Since the 1990s, however, several of the key historical and theoretical underpinnings of this depiction of modernism have been increasingly called into question, and a more complicated, ambiguous picture is emerging—one in which modern art and religion remain deeply entangled in fascinating and confusing ways. There are various ways of identifying and understanding these entanglements, which require not only careful reexamination of the particularities of the histories involved but also reconsideration of the interpretive assumptions and priorities through which those histories are construed. There are at least five focal points where the nexuses of art and religion are being reexamined and brought more clearly into view in the histories of modernism—namely, through object-oriented, practice-oriented, artist-oriented, context-oriented, and/or concept-oriented studies of particular instances in those histories. These focal points provide concrete loci for perceiving and exploring the functions, formations, and effects of “religion in modern art”—an inquiry which also can be reversed to explore examples of “modern art in religion,” including instances where major artworks are situated in churches, cathedrals, synagogues, and other religious contexts. There are, however, varying ways that scholars interpret what they find at these focal points and how they discern the larger implications of these particular entanglements of art and religion in the history of modern and contemporary art. These differences are clarified by recognizing at least four interpretive horizons—anthropological, political, spiritual, and theological—within which scholars are understanding these focal points and rereading these histories. Though often diverging in the accounts they produce, these four horizons (and the potential interplay between them) are vital for a continued rethinking of the relations between modern art and religion.

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