scholarly journals What happened to aesthetics and art over the last 100 years?: Contradictions and antagonisms: Theory wars!

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-246
Author(s):  
Miško Šuvaković
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Conceptual Art ◽  
Art Theory ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
Art And Politics ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Minimal Art ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Relationship

The subject of my paper is the dynamic and transformational relations between aesthetics and art from 1919 to 2019. The first problem to be discussed will be the relationship between art and politics at the Bauhaus and art institutes of the Soviet avant-garde. Next, I will point to differences in Marxist concepts of socialist realism and critical theory on modern culture and art. I will analyse the relationship between the concept of the autonomy of art, especially painting and minimal art. A comparison will be derived between anti-art (Dada, NEO-Dada) and anti-philosophy (Friedrich Nietzsche, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Jacques Lacan). I will highlight approaches from analytical meta-aesthetics to the interpretation of Duchamp's readymade, deriving a theory of art in conceptual art. Special attention will be paid to the "theoretical conflicts" between phenomenology and structuralism, as well as poststructuralism. I will conclude my discussion by identifying the "aesthetic condition" in relation to "contemporary art" (feminist, activist, political, ecological, participatory, and appropriative art). The aim of my discussion will be to highlight the character of modern and contemporary aesthetics in relation to art theory, by way of diagrammatic reflection on the binaries, differences, and reconstructions of dialectics.

Contemporary Art and the Problem of Music: Towards a Musical Contemporary Art

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
G. DOUGLAS BARRETT
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Contemporary Music ◽  
Conceptual Art ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
Sound Art ◽  
Art Theory ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Absolute Music ◽  
Art Form

Abstract This article elaborates the art-theoretical concept of ‘the contemporary’ along with formal differences between contemporary music and contemporary art. Contemporary art emerges from the radical transformations of the historical avant-garde and neo-avant-garde that have led to post-conceptual art – a generic art beyond specific mediums that prioritizes discursive meaning and social process – while contemporary music struggles with its status as a non-conceptual art form that inherits its concept from aesthetic modernism and absolute music. The article also considers the category of sound art and discusses some of the ways it, too, is at odds with contemporary art's generic and post-conceptual condition. I argue that, despite their respective claims to contemporaneity, neither sound art nor contemporary music is contemporary in the historical sense of the term articulated in art theory. As an alternative to these categories, I propose ‘musical contemporary art’ to describe practices that depart in consequential ways from new/contemporary music and sound art.

9.5 Theses on Art and Class by Ben Davis

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 179-196
Author(s):  
Kim Charnley
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
Class Analysis ◽  
Art Theory ◽  
Art And Politics ◽  
Artistic Value ◽  
Aesthetic Politics ◽  
The Relationship

Ben Davis’s 9.5 Theses on Art and Class argues from a Marxist perspective that art and politics should be understood as distinct fields. In a collection of essays on different aspects of contemporary art, Davis attacks the tendency towards ‘aesthetic politics’ and the prevalence of Frankfurt School and post-operaist Marxism in contemporary art. Davis affirms that an understanding of class allows the relationship between art and politics to be correctly gauged, and excessive claims for art to be moderated. While it contains some useful observations, his argument often misrepresents recent art theory and deploys militant populist arguments in support of a conservative notion of the art critic as arbiter of artistic value. Davis’s hostility to work that blurs the boundary between art and politics is part of this conservatism. His argument is contrasted to rigorous analyses of the relation between art and class that emerged from the Art & Language collective since the mid-1970s. The work of this collective demonstrates that a thorough class-analysis always tends to destabilise the field of art, rather than clarifying it.

scholarly journals Mykola Bidenko’s poetry: typology and idiography

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Roman Tkachenko
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Problem Statement ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
First Approximation ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Artistic Heritage

The relevance of the selected inquiry is in the need for urgent understanding of the ways of Ukrainian literature development, in particular, of poetry development, at the turn of the 20–21th centuries. It is no secret that art recreates the spiritual atmosphere of the time, but even more valuable is its ability to respond to subtle changes in the mood of contemporaries and form a spiritual picture of the future. In this sense, the study of contemporary art will be useful not only to literary critics. The subject of research is the typological and idiographic parameters of M. Bidenko’s poetry, its immediate artistic context, unique features of poetics, education and ideological and thematic direction. We understand the problem statement as an attempt to outline the first approximation of the role and place of M. Bidenko’s creative heritage in the context of Ukrainian literature of the late 20 — early 21th centuries. The study used mainly typological method, as well as principles of hermeneutics in the interpretation of key images. The purpose of this article is to outline the aesthetic and typological parameters of the artistic heritage of M. Bidenko, its unique features and features, consistent with the artistic context, based on the analysis of formal means and conceptual principles. As the result of the study Bidenko’s poetry is outlined mainly in the aesthetic coordinates of avant-garde and belongs to the environment of the Kyiv school of poets (verlibre, autotheliality of the word, avoidance of rhetoric, etc.), but in worldview he is more radical, skeptical and paradoxical than “kyivans.” In our view, Bidenko's dominant reception is a paradox. Pain as one of the key images of Bidenko's poetry, is metaphysical. Against such pain, the poet invented a “cure of death.” We see the novelty of this exploration in the definition of the dominant technique and our own interpretation of key images in Bidenko’s poems. Promising for future research are the nature of Bidenko’s verlibrium, features of the author's syntax or the nature of visual flavor.

scholarly journals Intraspecific structural signs of curly silver fir (Abies alba Mill.) growing in the Ukrainian Carpathians

2020 ◽  
Vol 66 (No. 7) ◽  
pp. 299-308
Author(s):  
Ivan Sopushynskyy ◽  
Ruslan Maksymchuk ◽  
Yaroslav Kopolovets ◽  
Sezgin Ayan
Keyword(s):  
Wood Density ◽  
Abies Alba ◽  
Subject Area ◽  
Wood Products ◽  
Silver Fir ◽  
Annual Rings ◽  
Stem Wood ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Relationship

The aim of this paper is to present the intraspecific differentiation of the curly silver fir (Abies alba Mill.) by the wood structure growing in the Ukrainian Carpathians. To find the morphological distinctions by using the silvicultural and biometric methods, 50 silver fir trees with anomalous wavy-relief stemwood formations were investigated. The trees aged from 94 to 132 years were characterised by the diameter at breast height of 32–59 cm. The length of the wave-grained stemwood varied from 6 to 11.5 m. The amplitude of the wood fibre waves varied from 4.4 to 24.1 mm. The smallest values of the amplitude of the wave-grained wood corresponded to the smaller wavelengths. The significant differences in the wood density and annual growth between the silver fir trees with the straight-grained and wave-grained stem wood were determined. The number of annual rings in 1 cm of the curly silver fir was 27.1% lower and 22.7% higher than the same characteristics for the straight-grained stem wood. The obtained linear equation described the relationship between the number of annual rings in 1 cm and the basic wood density of the silver fir with the straight-grained wood. The aesthetic features of the curly silver fir stem wood were discussed in the subject area of a new niche of exclusive wood products.

The Royal Sign and Visual Literacy in Eighteenth-Century London

2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Koscak
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Visual Culture ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Art And Politics ◽  
Everyday Objects ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Aesthetic

AbstractThis article argues that the commercialization of monarchical culture is more complex than existing scholarship suggests. It explores the aesthetic dimensions of regal culture produced outside of the traditionally defined sphere of art and politics by focusing on the variety of royal images and symbols depicted on hanging signs in eighteenth-century London. Despite the overwhelming presence of kings and queens on signboards, few study these as a form of regal visual culture or seriously question the ways in which these everyday objects affected representations of royalty beyond asserting an unproblematic process of declension. Indeed, even in the Restoration and early eighteenth century, monarchical signs were the subject of criticism and debate. This article explains why this became the case, arguing that signs were criticized not because they were trivial commercial objects that cheapened royal charisma, but because they were overloaded with political meaning. They emblematized the failures of representation in the age of print and party politics by depicting the monarchy—the traditional center of representative stability—in ways that troubled interpretation and defied attempts to control the royal image. Nevertheless, regal images and objects circulating in urban spaces comprised a meaningful political-visual language that challenges largely accepted arguments about the aesthetic inadequacy and cultural unimportance of early eighteenth-century monarchy. Signs were part of an urban, graphic public sphere, used as objects of political debate, historical commemoration, and civic instruction.

scholarly journals Journalism or Writing? (On the Syncretism of the Documentary and Fiction in Russian Writers Creative Works)

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 421-432
Author(s):  
Olga Skibina
Keyword(s):  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Ethical Aspect ◽  
Grammatical Structure ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Nonfiction Text ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Artistic Image ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Selection Of

The article continues the discussion of the “phenomenon of journalism” in the creative heritage of Russian writers of the early twentieth century. The diary as a genre has always been at the center of research interests, but so far the criteria for “diary” have not been defined either by literary critics, or by theorists of journalism. At the turn of the century, diaries were kept by many artists of the word, it was the only genre that allowed expressing thoughts on pressing issues, which made it possible to attribute this genre definitely to journalism. At the same time, there is a tendency in the works of scientists to note the “informational possibilities of this type of ego-document for the study of the humdrum of a particular topos” (E.M. Krivolapovа), thus relating it to documentary prose. The subject of the analysis is the genre of diary prose by Ivan Bunin and Mikhail Prishvin. Written at the same time, the diaries of these writers reflect — each in its own way — one era — the bloody revolutionary present. The article poses the problem of the relationship between documentary and fiction in the diary genre. By comparing the diaries of Bunin and Prishvin, the author proves that a nonfiction text may well have a certain aesthetic value, but not the aesthetic, but rather the ethical aspect becomes dominant in nonfiction. This is manifested in the topical, socially significant problems of the work, and in the author’s striving to reduce the distance between his consciousness and the consciousness of the reader, and in the special lexical and grammatical structure of the phrase (Bunin's Cursed Days). Prishvin's diaries on the selection of vital material suggest that his position is artistic when the artistic image becomes the only true one in the presentation and perception of the world.

scholarly journals Modern Crimean Tatar national costume: succession and novelties (based on the example of Crimean dress designers)

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Marina Borisovna Grigoreva ◽  
Nuriya Munirovna Akchurina-Muftieva
Keyword(s):  
Youth Culture ◽  
Scientific Basis ◽  
Present Stage ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Characteristic Features ◽  
Unique Style ◽  
Crimean Tatar

This article analyzes the modern Crimean Tatar costume from the perspective of succession of the traditional elements. The author systematizes general approaches towards design of the traditional and modern costume, indicating the characteristic features. At the present stage, the elements of the traditional Crimean Tatar costume are growing in popularity. Interpretation and modern stylization of the traditional elements of national costume leads to the formation of the unique style. The leading phenomenon in the approach towards design of the modern national costume is the scientific basis, which helps to preserve the traditional elements. The object of this research is the modern Crimean Tatar costume, while the subject is decorative and graphic approaches towards design. The primary task consists in determination of the principles of creation of Crimean Tatar image and its implementation into Crimean modern culture. The novelty of this research is defined by insufficient examination of the modern Crimean Tatar costume on the scientific level, although actively implemented into modern youth culture. The creative direction in the works of modern Crimean Tatar designers is divided into three approaches: verbatim reproduction of ethnic costume (mostly used wedding gear and theater costumes), authorial interpretation, and avant-garde approach, using metaphors as the basics of style. It is noted that in the approach with allusive metaphors it enough to complement modern costume with headwear similar to the traditional to add national flavor to the image. The author underlines the importance of development of modern Crimean fashion in all three directions, as each approach has a particular function.

scholarly journals Toward a Common Configurative Impulse

MODOS ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-127
Author(s):  
Kaira M. Cabañas
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Psychiatric Patients ◽  
Relational Contract ◽  
Brazilian Art ◽  
Geometric Abstraction ◽  
Concrete Art ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Spectator ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Creative Production

Brazilian art critic Mário Pedrosa’s theorization of art’s affective power, whereby the relational contract with the spectator is neither rational nor purely visual but is infused with feeling, was decisive for understandings of geometric abstraction as expressive in the 1950s. “Toward a Common Configurative Impulse” turns to another modernism, nestled alongside the geometric ones that would come to define the aesthetic of artists associated with Concrete Art in these years. Beyond Concrete Art, Pedrosa’s modernism also encompassed the creative production of diverse practitioners, among them, popular artists, self-taught artists and psychiatric patients (the latter is the subject of my book Learning from Madness: Brazilian Modernism and Global Contemporary Art). With this in mind, this essay tracks the historical and discursive origins for such an inclusive modernism and how Pedrosa’s embrace of different artistic subjectivities calls for a necessary shift in the historiography of Brazilian modernism at mid-century.

scholarly journals Easy but not weightless – Pop Art, conceptual art, and politics: the progressive art of Miklós Erdély and Tamás Szentjóby in the second part of the 1960s

KÜLÖNBSÉG ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Péter Kőhalmi
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Conceptual Art ◽  
Pop Art ◽  
The Political ◽  
Art And Politics ◽  
Art Scene ◽  
The 1960S

Miklós Erdély’s theory of freedom can be analysed from the perspective of his general thoughts on the dichotomy of life and freedom.  However, the article focuses on the problem of Erdély’s theory of freedom in the context of the political. If, as he claims, freedom exists in art, then what is the relation of his art to the political, the actual conditions of freedom? This question can only be explored if his work is seen in context, in the context of the contemporary art scene of the 1960s. The paper claims that in comparison with the early neoavantgard art of Szentjóbi Tamás and company, Erdély’s work is tame or easy but surely not weightless.

Lives after Life

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helena Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Modern Culture ◽  
Literary Movements ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter explores the relationship between translations of Ovid’s poetry and arguments about literary taste. Its premise is that translations were part of wider cultural and literary movements; and prefatory material, particularly characterizations of the author, functioned programmatically to introduce and situate the ensuing translation. The chapter focuses on three distinctive moments of translation: the renditions of Ovid of the 1620s, the burlesque versions of the 1650s, and the galant translations of the last third of the century. It demonstrates that they were variously engaged with different forms of cultural confrontation, not only between ancient and modern culture, but also, in the earlier decades particularly, between France and Italy, and later with the tensions both caused by and within the aesthetic and cultural mode of galanterie; it explores how they use portrayals of Ovid to engage in such confrontation.

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