In practice the “white cube” (the white-walled gallery display prevalent in galleries of modern art) renders viewer unaware of the influence that it inflicts upon his/hers perception of what consist a modern art. Under no circumstances one would look twice upon the same bed like My Bed by Emin, standing next to the garbage bin on one of the British streets or thought of Sherman’s work Untitled No.151 from Witches and Wicked Bodies exhibition as nothing more but an interesting photograph taken probably before the Halloween party. Looking at these works through the perspective of Hegelian theory, it is noticeable that to transform these objects into art one needs to apply external factors outside of the work of art itself. Anyone who has no pre-existent knowledge about these practices will not be able to understand the ideas that the artists tries to convey. These artworks are unable to function alone.
The problem of modern art theory is outlined in Hans Belting’s essay The End of the History of Art? from 1984, where he writes that the models of art and its histories present art as an autonomous system, that is assessed by the internal criteria formed by that system. The human functions within this arrangement as either an artist or a patron. He writes that present times require different techniques to write and assess art in hope that an art historian, who will also take on the role of an art critic, will breach the old divide between the art and the life, the gap that alienates modern art from its potential viewer. A question that springs to mind is does art need an audience made up of Average Joes? Does art need any audience at all? Why should art even care that the ordinary people do not appreciate performance and consider ...
... middle of paper ...
...eguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/nov/11/scrotum-top-10-shocking-performance-art.
Cunningam, Colin and Emma Baker, “Introduction” in Academies, Museums and Canons of Art edited by Gill Perry and Collin Cunningham, 19 – 23. New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1999.
Belting, Hans, “The End of the History of Art?” in Art History and Its Methods: a Critical Reader edited by Eric Fernie, 293 – 295. London: Phaidon, 1995.
Greenberg, Clement, Clement Greenberg: the Collected Essays and Criticism. Volume 2: Arrogant Purpose, 1945 – 1949 edited by John O’Brian. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1986.
Duncan, Carol, Civilizing rituals: Inside public Art Museum. London: Routledge, 1995.
Grunenberg, Christoph, “The Modern Art Museum” in Contemporary Cultures of Display edited by Emma Barker, 26 – 49. New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1999.
Getlein, Mark. "Chapter 17-The 17th and 18th Centuries." Living with Art. 9th ed. Boston, MA: McGraw Hill, 2008. 384-406. Print.
Cothren, M. & Marilyn Stokstad. (2011). Art History, Volume 2, 4th Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Learning Solutions.
“Art Museums and the Ritual of Citizenship.” in Exhibiting Cultures. Eds. Ivan Karp and Steven Lavine. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991. Print.
Stokstad, Marilyn and David Cateforis. Art History. 2nd ed. Vol. 2. Trenton: Prentice Hall, 2002.
Goldwater, Robert and Marco Treves (eds.). Artists on Art: from the XIV to the XX Century. New York: Pantheon Books, 1945.
One pleasant afternoon, my classmates and I decided to visit the Houston Museum of Fine Arts to begin on our museum assignment in world literature class. According to Houston Museum of Fine Art’s staff, MFAH considers as one of the largest museums in the nation and it contains many variety forms of art with more than several thousand years of unique history. Also, I have never been in a museum in a very long time especially as big as MFAH, and my experience about the museum was unique and pleasant. Although I have observed many great types and forms of art in the museum, there were few that interested me the most.
Nash, Susan. Oxford History of Art: Norther Renaissance Art. 2nd. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. 30-65. eBook.
Davies, Penelope J.E, et al. Janson’s History of Art Eighth Edition Volume 1. Upper Saddle River: Laurence King Publishing ltd, London. 2011. Print.
Georges Didi-Huberman is critical of the conventional approaches towards the study of art history. Didi-Huberman takes the view that art history is grounded in the primacy of knowledge, particularly in the vein of Kant, or what he calls a ‘spontaneous philosophy’. While art historians claim to be looking at images across the sweep of time, what they actually do might be described as a sort of forensics process, one in which they analyze, decode and deconstruct works of art in attempt to better understand the artist and purpose or expression. This paper will examine Didi-Huberman’s key claims in his book Confronting Images and apply his methodology to a still life painting by Juan Sánchez Cotán.
‘Savage Beauty’ was an exhibition that pushed the boundaries of museology, in its artistic, social and critical undertakings. The questions brought to bear by the exhibition of contemporary art and culture in various situations is something I am interested in researching further with a degree in curating.
Janson, Harry W. History of Art. 5th Ed. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1995. Print.
Barnett, Peter. “The French Revolution in Art”. ArtId, January 7th 2009. Web. 5th May 2013.
Stone, W. F. (1897). Questions on the philosophy of art;. London: Printed by William Clowes and Sons.
Modern art runs a very important role in man’s life throughout history, because it that does not only give us inspiration but also the freedom to express ourselves through the use of different mediums.
Art has had its roots, one may argue, when civilization was born. With each respective civilization and time periods from the past, humans have formed a diverse and unique society, a group of people with their own individual characteristics, cultures, as well as philosophies within which all kinds of differing ideas, thoughts and opinions are always brought upon for challenge and evaluation. These distinct aspects of a culture and/or time period may be recorded by people in varying forms of expression we all know as art. Directly from where culture had originated, events and/or emotions from that time period have been reflected or directly recorded in the arrangement of pictures i.e. paintings from the past which inform us about the people’s experiences and events in the past historical periods. Ultimately, History is the record of the development and how we have evolved as humans together in a society. History can be expressed and reflected in different kinds of music, sculptures, as well as paintings. There are several different periods of Art, each has contributed and reflected to how a society was. Art has been usually used by historians as one of the vehicles of history to illustrate and illuminate it as they are able to recognize that some types of art may be able to help them identify and explain the nature of societies and periods in history. Art and society have counteracted with each different type bringing forth new arts and new societies for many generations to come. Ideas have caused responses by citizens and therefore bring forth several different types of influences on a period’s background, heredity, and environments. These influences are then translated into new a idea, which then triggers the circle to repeat it...