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What happens between a spectator and an art work? How do we experience 'meaning' in an art work? How can the process of interpretation be understood and articulated? To address these questions, the author explores the field of reception aesthetics, with its central premise that the contemplation of art is a matter of interaction between the art work and the observer. The research is focused on unravelling and problematising the theoretical terminology of the interaction between art work and spectator, deriving from reception aesthetics as well as from hermeneutics and phenomenology, with the aim of building a new theoretical foundation for this terminology. Additionally, different concepts of spectatorship are extensively discussed. 'I believe it is more productive to research how the art work works or signifies than what it shows or might signify. This 'how' reveals itself mainly in the performative act of experiencing the work.' This book addresses scholars and students in the fields of art history, aesthetics and visual and cultural studies, as well as artists and art students, and all those art spectators who wish to develop a deeper understanding of the experience of art.
The shape of evidence' examines the role and use of visual documents in contemporary art, looking at artworks in which the document is valued not only as a source of information but also as a distinctive visual and critical form. It contends that for artists who use film, photography or written sources, adopting formats derived from specific professional, industrial, scientific of or commercial contexts, the document offers a way to develop a critical reflection around issues of representation, knowledge production, art and its history. It addresses several issues that are key both in art and in general culture today: the role of the museum and the archive, the role of documents and the trus...
'Failed Images' attempts to understand the divergence between photography and the reality it portrays, analysing the various ways the photograph transforms that which exists before the camera. Because the photographic medium enables very different practices, which in turn results in many kinds of images, it must also be examined from a perspective outside of the dominant approach to the medium, generally called the 'snapshot.' This book therefore explores the photographic image by focusing on practices which refuse this conventional approach, namely staged, blurred, under- and overexposed, and archival photography.
Creativity has been hailed as the driving force and most important skill of the 21st century? a power to be taught, understood, and deployed on all levels of society. In the humanities, however, truly understanding creativity has all but disappeared. Instead, insights into creativity emerge from fields such as neurology and theoretical physics, psychology and educational sciences. Using other perspectives has allowed us to deepen our understanding of the concept of creativity. This volume brings together the ideas of Spinoza, Goethe, Emerson, Benjamin, Deleuze, Baudrillard, Wittgenstein, and many others to open up new perspectives on enforcing creativity in society today.
Conceptual Art in a Curatorial Perspective: Between Dematerialization and Documentation' focuses on the curatorial practice of exhibiting conceptual art. The fact that conceptual works are not object-based, creates challenges in exhibiting or re-exhibiting them. This book offers various perspectives on how to handle conceptual art in the context of the museum, based on three detailed case studies and an extensive introduction in which the paradox of conceptual art is analyzed. It also elaborates on the history of exhibiting conceptual artworks, and on the influence of curators in their canonization.
Since the 1960s, art and architecture have experienced a series of radical and reciprocal trades. Just as artists have simulated ?architectural? means like plans and models, built structures and pavilions, or intervened in urban and public spaces, architects have employed ?artistic? strategies in art institutions, exhibitions, and more. Likewise, art galleries and museums have combined both activities, playing with the conditional differences between inside and outside the institutions. This book focuses on specific case studies of these two-way, interdisciplinary transactions. Included are texts and visual essays by Mark Dorrian, Rosemary Willink, Sarah Oppenheimer, and many others.
"The lure of the biographical zooms in on the supposed relationship between the art and the personal image of artists. The book explores how visual artists use their personal history and image to make a name for themselves, and how they try to control how their artistic output is interpreted. At the same time, it investigates how other parties such as art critics, biographers, photographers, filmmakers, art historians and art dealers link artists’ lives to their work. The framework for studying the (self-)representation of artists focuses on the textual and visual means used by artists as well as others. Through three detailed case studies of the image and work of French sculptor Auguste Rodin, American painter Georgia O’Keeffe, and British painter Francis Bacon, the book demonstrates what mechanisms and strategies are at play in creating the artist’s image, from the nineteenth to the late-twentieth century, and, in addition, proposes a model for future research into questions of (self-)representation"--Back cover.
Art is a form of thinking and dialoguing, and an usual source of knowledge. This publication introduces art-based learning, a method that enables the spectator to explore these dialogues and ?converse? with works of art. Art and culture analyst and educational designer Jeroen Lutters uses three triptychs to demonstrate how relevant questions can produce a different perception and understanding. The book is intended for students and educators of art, art history, drama and cinema, literature, anthropology, theology, philosophy, and interdisciplinary studies. The developed method is also highly suited to artistic research at academies of art, music, film, and dance.
This concise book introduces the notion of 'experience' as a key concept in a methodology of artistic research. The author traces a genealogy of 'experience' from William James, John Dewey and Alfred North Whitehead to Brian Massumi, placing this concept in a framework of research in visual art. The argument is founded in the practice of artistic research and in the reflection on the interweaving of thinking and making. This publication is a slightly extended version of Wesseling's inaugural lecture at Leiden University in September 2016.
In the 21st century we have witnessed a significant expansion in the field of transhistorical exhibition practice. A range of curatorial efforts have emerged in which objects and artefacts from various periods and art historical and cultural contexts are combined in display, in an effort to question and expand traditional museological notions such as chronology, context, and category. Such experiments in transcending art historical boundaries can result in fresh insights into the workings of entrenched historical presumptions, providing a space to reassess interpretations of individual objects. With contributions by Mieke Bal, Hendrik Folkerts, Nicola Setari, Maria Iñigo Clavo, and others.