¶ … Arts
In "The Berlin Key," Latour discusses the way in which simple objects can acquire suddenly "the dignity of a mediator, a social actor, an agent, an active being" through use. This is a version of aesthetics which imagines the artwork as automatically playing a role as a sort of symbolic token whose exchange value exists in transfer between artist and viewer, or between one viewer and another. Locks and keys, in Latour's view, are a construction of a social relationship rather than an expression of one. It is worth asking whether or not this new view of aesthetics -- in which what is emphasized is not so much the lone creative authority of the artist as the sociable presence of that artist, and how the art work is completed (rather than judged, apprehended, or "appreciated") by the viewer.
We can relate Latour's insight to the critique of pedagogy offered by Ranciere. In the fable Ranciere tells in An Intellectual Adventure, the schoolmaster Jacotot is obliged to teach a roomful of students most of whom speak no French, when he speaks no Flemish. By placing a bilingual edition of Fenelon's "Telemaque" lucky-Pierre-style between master and pupil, Jacotot discovers that "in short, the essential act of the master was to explicate: to disengage from the simple elements of learning, and to reconcile their simplicity in principle with the factual simplicity that characterizes young and ignorant minds." (3) Yet the basic functional procedure of Jacotot's teaching is one in which he is teaching something he does not actually know. To some degree, the philosophical and aesthetic conundrum described by both Ranciere and Latour is something that derives originally from Plato -- unsurprisingly, for the intellectual climate they inhabit was to a certain extent determined by Jacques Derrida, who began his critique of Western philosophy with Plato, and an inquiry into why Plato chose the dialectical form of his dialogues rather than a simple expository form like Aristotle. The "logocentric" Platonism that, in Derrida's view, rejects written communication for its susceptibility to misinterpretation or deconstruction is, of course, hinged upon a theory of "forms," in which any existing object actually...
Art History And Contemporary Art The world is a complex place and the old, outmoded, Eurocentric way we look at politics, economics and culture (art) may not be the right way to conceive the new order. Globalism describes, in fact, the increasing unification of the world through economic means (reduction of trade barriers, support of international trade, and mitigation of export and import quotas). They goal for globalization is to increase
Modern art in the Asia-Pacific region reflects the rapidly changing geo-political landscapes, as well as becoming increasingly integrated into architecture and urban planning. In the Asia-Pacific region, the art of the 21st century can be large scale and includes ambitious installation projects as well as graphic art, graffiti, and urban art. Although influenced by European trends like abstraction and surrealism, the art of the Asia-Pacific region is dedicated to communicating
PS1 When Gertrude Stein mused that it is not possible to be both modern and a museum, she foresaw some of the most pressing challenges facing institutions like PS1. Being modern means presenting, and possibly also marketing, contemporary art that has yet to stand the test of time. Curators are prone to the vicissitudes of passing fads, personal biases, and the politics of their interpersonal connections. Because of these challenges, it
Modern Art Contemporary and modern art has been characterized by increased focus on significant aesthetic and political work of artists across the globe. As a result, contemporary art is largely different from conventional work because of the shift in focus on elements of art. Actually, art has undergone significant changes throughout its history as a result of different influences across different time periods. Some of the major influences of contemporary
Guggenheim Museum Frank Lloyd Wright remarked that he had seen a building that was of monumental dignity and beautiful. He cited in the letter addressed to Solomon R. Guggenheim that the building was appropriate for their purpose of constructing a museum. Wright went on to design the museum which he named after Guggenheim. The structure is now widely seen as a masterpiece (Guggenheim.org, n.d.). The interior space of the Guggenheim Museum sports
Arts The American poet and art critic John Ashbery, in what is perhaps his most famous poem ("Soonest Mended"), sketches what he has described as an "everybody's autobiography," in which his characteristically postmodern approach to narrative style (leaping from comic strip to novel to abstraction in this passage) seems to question the value of the very concept of "information": And then there always came a time when Happy Hooligan in his rusted
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