Contemporaneity (E-Journal)
Not a member yet
141 research outputs found
Sort by
Kinetic Systems: Jack Burnham and Hans Haacke
Full text linkThe following paper argues that Jack Burnham’s antipathy for kineticism in “Systems Esthetics” and Beyond Modern Sculpture has contributed to an assumption that kineticism is an obsolete practice “rooted in another age.” Contrary to Burnham, I argue that a focus on the kinetic movement in Hans Haacke’s sculptures is productive for establishing key understandings of systems theory in art. My interpretation of Haacke’s art emphasizes that movement in time is a key aspect of the artist’s approach to sytems theory, and is useful for making viewers conscious of the systems of perception at play when confronted with ontologically unstable works of art.
Culture v. Capital: The Rebecca Belmore Case
Full text linkThis paper considers a civil suit between an artist and her former gallery dealer. In the case of Nadimi v. Belmore, the plaintiff and the defendant exemplify two opposing ideologies, which in turn reflect two possibilities for understanding art. This paper considers the case, and Belmore’s artworks as representative of both systems. Through a strategic defense of her art and her practice, Belmore upholds a complex understanding of the value of art. The current legal system, however, only ascribes art value as commodity product. This paper demonstrates how Belmore’s actions and artworks related to the case supersede simple categorization. Her works cannot be corralled into any one classification; they are not only fine art, nor simply First Nations art. The article exposes how her works deploy multiple socio-cultural systems simultaneously: from an Anishnabe worldview, to European-Canadian art history, from the public museum, to the commercial gallery, to the Toronto bound freeway. I contend that this strategic employment of multiple systems is recognized in newly established international law, and articulated in the United Nations Declaration of Indigenous Peoples as traditional knowledge. The Belmore case illustrates the immediate need for governmental systems to acknowledge and employ such international law to redress systemic misconceptions of Indigenous arts practices.
Review: From Ornament to Object: Genealogies of Architectural Modernism by Alina Payne
Full text linkA review of Alina Payne’s From Ornament to Object: Genealogies of Architectural Modernism, published in 2012 by Yale University Press
Vision and Desire in Postcolonial Australia: A Conversation with Alison Ravenscroft
Full text linkAlison Ravenscroft, author of The Postcolonial Eye: White Australian Desire and the Visual Field of Race, discusses her book with Kira Randolph
Art\u27s Global Stage: Revisiting Display Today
No full textKeynote address from the symposium Exhibition Complex: Displaying People, Identity, and Culture, held October 18-20, 2012 at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Counter-Memory, Heterochronia, and “History Painting” (After Géricault): Dierk Schmidt’s SIEV-X—On a Case of Intensified Refugee Politics
Full text linkThis essay examines the disruption of linear time in experimental forms of “history painting” as represented by Dierk Schmidt’s SIEV-X—On a Case of Intensified Refugee Politics (2001-2005). It analyses how the aesthetics of heterochronoia—multiple temporalities—play a crucial role in the development of a new understanding of the politics of “history painting.” As Schmidt’s work reveals, a radical conception of history exists outside the “singular moment,” and in dialogue with heterogenous visual cultures (news media, art history, advertising). In attempting to understand the import of Schmidt’s work, this essay considers his methodologies for creating a heterochronous mode of history painting, particularly his anachronistic engagement with the work of Theodore Géricault and the iconic history painting, The Raft of the Medusa. Unlike previous critical responses to Schmidt’s work, this paper argues that (after Géricault) the artist’s use of investigative “journalistic” methodologies for SIEV-X—On a Case of Intensified Refugee Politics do not generate an aesthetics of exposé but rather an aesthetics of “fictionalization.” This aesthetic is defined by the recalibration of documentary and speculative data as a means to reconceive the landscape of the perceptual. The findings of this research demonstrate that the use of disparate fragments—or data—to visualize otherwise diminishing historical events underpins contemporary history painting’s capacity for advancing a distinct economy of affect that circumvents the limitations of the news media and its “monopoly on reality.
rial and tERROR
No full textFor more information on this video, see the artist\u27s statement in this issue of Contemporaneity
Creating National Narrative: The Red Guard Art Exhibitions and the National Exhibitions in the Chinese Cultural Revolution 1966 - 1976
Full text linkThe artistic development in China experienced drastic changes during the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976. Traditional Chinese art was denounced, whereas propaganda art became predominant in shaping the public’s loyalty towards the Communist Party and the country. Two major groups of art exhibitions emerged during the Revolution—the unofficial Red Guard art exhibitions organized by student activists in collaboration with local communes and art schools between 1966 and 1968, and the state-run national exhibitions from 1972 to 1975. These exhibitions were significant to this period because they were held frequently in the capital city Beijing and occasionally elsewhere, and through art they presented unique revolutionary beliefs to the Chinese people in a public setting. While the Red Guard art exhibitions and the national exhibitions certainly created different national narratives, I argue that the national exhibitions were in fact an attempt to revise the national narrative created by the Red Guard art exhibitions in order to re-establish a more utopian, consistent, and official national narrative. This paper unravels the intricate relationship between the two groups of exhibitions by comparing their exhibition venues, ideological focuses, work selection and quality editing.
Editorial Notes: Exhibition Complex: Displaying People, Identity, and Culture
Full text linkEditorial Notes on section relating to submissions from the symposium Exhibition Complex: Displaying People, Identity, and Culture held October 18-20, 2012 at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Likewise, as Technical Experts, But Not (At All) by Way of Culture (2012-2013).
No full textFor more information on this video, see Gabrielle Gopinath\u27s "Skin Deep: Surfacing with Leigh-Ann Pahapill," included in this edition of Contemporaneity