“Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life” – Pablo Picasso
Art was once thought to be an outlet from the mundane, boring and apparently meaningless lives we live in. Artists used art to intentionally bring the viewers into an external world, to present an experience they would not get in their everyday lives. With contemporary art, this has changed significantly. Contemporary Art now plays a significant role in cultural politics.
“The term cultural politics refers to the way that culture—including people’s attitudes, opinions, beliefs and perspectives, as well as the media and arts—shapes society and political opinion, and gives rise to social, economic and legal realities”
Many artists use their work as a platform for social
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Yet, this taboo is probably the one which most defies logic. India played a significant role in the history of sex, from writing the first literature that treated sexual intercourse as a science, to in modern times being the origin of the philosophical focus of new-age groups’ attitudes on sex. It may be argued that India pioneered the use of sexual education through art and literature. However, in modern Indian society, sex and sexuality is frowned upon and alienated as a discussion to be had between married couples in the privacy of their bedrooms. The acceptance of homosexual and ambisexual behaviours is still lacking and sex education is unheard of. In fact, the high occurrence of incest in India is often attributed to repressed sexual …show more content…
Entitled Sacred and Profane, T. Venkanna, represented by Gallery Maskara, did a performance work in the nude, where he sat behind a black curtain, with a Frida Kahlo reproduction in the background, and where visitors could take a picture with him as a tableau vivant version of the painting. The intent of the artwork was to 'removing the trappings of identity', by posing naked, and holding the hands of the visitors in front of a replica of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo's The Two Fridas. Many found this work to be overstepping boundaries. Some even claimed this was pornographic. However, T Venkanna’s point was really to emphasise that the open discussion of sexuality and the acceptance of all forms of sexuality is the start of a healing process where the society becomes more
Culture is an essential part of every human being. People can fall under the category of one culture or they can fall under many. Values derived from culture tend to reflect in an individual’s or a society’s understanding of what is wrong and right. In culture, there are many significant features. Some are material, such as food and clothing, and non-material, such as beliefs and ideas. These material and non-material objects help to push people into powerful roles and they maintain the power. With the power these people then have a strong influence on the beliefs and ideas of the lower people. They have the ability to alter and change their beliefs at any time and most times, they follow along with it. These ideas and thoughts have been in place for many decades, since cultural theorists, such as Marx and Habermas, began explaining them. They have been a thought for decades
The culture of a community invariably determines the social structures and the formation of a society. Developed over time, culture is the collection of beliefs and values that a group of people maintain together. Culture is never constant, and thought to be continually renewed over years as new ideas and concepts become mainstream. It ranges from how people live, day to day topics for conversations, religion, and even entertainment. It is analogous to guidelines, or the rulebook of the said group of people. Society, on the other hand, emanates from the social structure of the community. It is the very institutions to which create a regulated and acceptable form of interaction between peoples. Indeed, culture and society are so perversely intertwined in a
What does the concept of cultural citizenship bring to our analysis? It enables us to recognise the affective dimension of our relationship to politics and to media texts as a whole. Rather than simply using popular culture as a source of knowledge of the wider world (and of politics), we engage emotionally with popular cultural texts and that is precisely what makes us bridge popular culture and politics. As it has been argued, cultural citizenship is a deeply ‘affective relationship to the sovereign state’ (Miller 2007: 39) – it involves notions of bonding and belonging to an imagined community. Popular culture, as we have seen, addresses values, representations, and issues of social identity (Curran 2011: 63-68). Cultural citizenship, in turn, enables us to look at popular culture as a source of collective identity – whether it involves bonding and ‘commonality’, or distancing oneself from others (Street, Inthorn and Scott 2011: 350). It views popular culture as having ‘relevance for identity construction, ideology, and norms, aiding us to work through important [and might I add, conflicting] contemporary ideas and issues’ (Dahlgren 2009: 141). Popular culture allows us to engage affectively as well as cognitively in crucial issues, such as ‘how we should live (and live together) and what kind of society we want’ (Dahlgren 2009: 141).
Modern art serves to immerse us more thoroughly in a scene by touching on more than just our sight. Artists such as Grosz, and Duchamp try to get us to feel instead of just see. It seems that this concept has come about largely as a way to regain identity after shedding the concepts of the Enlightenment. “Philosophers, writers, and artists expressed disillusionment with the rational-humanist tradition of the Enlightenment. They no longer shared the Enlightenment's confidence in either reason's capabilities or human goodness...” (Perry, pg. 457) It is interesting to follow art through history and see how the general mood of society changed with various aspects of history, and how events have a strong connection to the art of the corresponding time.
A Political Culture is a set of beliefs and practices held by how a person shapes their political behavior, and a person’s attitude about how the government should function. This includes moral judgment, political myths, beliefs, and ideas about what makes a good society.
The behaviors of the Pokot wives and husbands illustrated in the article “Human sexuality in cross-culture Perspective” show the norms of sexuality behaviors that are different from the U.S norms. The Pokot wives believe that their behaviors are right things to be done or are the appropriate sanctions given to a husband who is not able to sexually satisfy his wife. However, the US perceives these behaviors differently. In the US perspective, it is considered to be a deviance that is against the law within the society. It is considers to be domestic abuse which might lead some individuals involved in this behaviors to be given a negative sanctions like sending them to prison.
In terms of sex and sexuality, Europeans has been going through a process from public to privacy, from openness to shame, from community control to social control, but later sex was gradually liberated and back to public sphere. The Industrial Revolution in eighteenth Century and the Sexual Revolution in 1960s and 1970s act as watershed in this transformation. People living in pre-industrial era were open to the talk of sex. Living an agrarian life in rural areas, they were familiar to sex presented by human nudity and sex behaviors performed by animals in the farms. Besides, the mention of prostitutions was accepted for that time, thus, there was no necessity to operate educations on sex.
Having realized art as a structured cultural phenomenon, and having emptied its direct and apparent meaning, it is possible to identify all its possible significations. Interestingly enough, I find that art reveals many diametrically opposed significations: expression and oppression, bias and acceptance, individual and society, creativity and confinement, and freedom and convention, among others. Art signifies the de-politicization of our culture, for even the most political of pieces cease to cause a stir among the masses.
Pakistani society has always been a conservative and traditional one; one which is often vehemently opposed to any new ideals or propositions which even remotely challenge the status quo of society. One such issue, which has been gaining in prominence- and inciting often violent reactions in the process-, is the controversial issue of sex education. In the conservative Pakistani society, sex tops the list of subjects which are largely shunned and considered to be taboo. Globalisation, which has led to widespread dominion of the Western culture and promoted freedom of speech and expression, has proved to be pivotal in breaking through this age-old taboo and inciting the controversial debate regarding sex education in Pakistan. Although many Pakistanis oppose the induction of sex education in Pakistani educational institutions, it is nevertheless undeniable that in light of the modern world and its associated problems, sex education should be made an integral part of the curriculum of all educational institutions since it helps to tackle rapidly spreading sexually transmitted diseases, removes misconceptions and confusions regarding basic sexual processes and practices and helps alleviate sex related problems in our society.
Contemporary art is produced at the present period in time, which it mainly refers to the meaning of the spirit, and have a modern art Modern language. When people are faced with a work of art, there is a complex judgment or intuition feeling which to consider about it has artistic value or not. Exposure of today's artists and cultural environment and in the face of today's reality, their work will inevitably reflect the characteristics of today. “A work of art is a tautology in that it is a presentation of the artist’s intention, that is, he is saying that a particular work of art is art, which means, is a definition of art” (Diarmuid Costello, Jonathan Vickery, pg.22, 2007). Artistic inheritance is a historical necessity of any art is constantly successor of the previous generation of art. Development of contemporary art can be said to follow the human development and growth. Of course, no matter what kind of art form, and they reflect the performance of all modern social changes which to bring the social and psychological characteristics to show the artist's exploration of artistic expression.
What is cultural policy? Cultural policy is defined as having a policy that identifies the differences in other cultures and how to incorporate those differences in all aspects of a person’s being. Cultural policy is connected to all the major issues of our society: economic stratification, race relations, international relations, technology, education, and community development. It happens at places ranging from a family’s dinner table to the boardrooms of national foundations, corporations,
Throughout the ages art has played a crucial role in life. Art is universal and because art is everywhere, we experience it on a daily basis. From the houses we live in (architecture) to the movies we see (theatre) to the books that we read (literature). Even in ancient culture art has played a crucial role. In prehistoric times cave dwellers drew on the wall of caves to record history. In biblical times paintings recorded the life and death of Christ. Throughout time art has recorded history. Most art is created for a specific reason or purpose, it has a way of expressing ideas and beliefs, and it can record the experiences of all people.
...iffered in society for social, religious and cultural ways from the medieval times till our world today. Medieval Europe, India, and Japan have all had an impact on how we see sex and love in our society today. Each one contributing a small piece of their values and teachers whether it be spiritual or physical, about love or sex, they have all helped us shape our concept of sex and love today. Love and sex today are looked at as a bonding of two people and are intertwined with one another, there is no love without sex and no sex without love. These three cultures have showed us though how they can be separated though. They showed us how love and sex are connected but completely different. In the end they helped play a large part in developing our ideas of love and sex in our world today because of the different religious and social ideas that were brought into play.
Shah, Amna T. “Sex Education: Its Importance and Need in the Society.” Ezine @rticles. 6 Dec.
The political culture of a country is the basic values, attitudes, beliefs, and ideas of the people t...