Collisions: drawing in the digital age

This research outlines the reconfiguration of the creative act of drawing through physical practice as a response to mass culture. This practice takes place in the context of developing digital technologies, culminating in metadrawing. Metadrawing is defined as the integration of the post-digital collapse of media specificity in the visual arts. This research posits metadrawing as a descriptor for the paradigm shift between the physical act of drawing in pre-digital mass culture and the principles of drawing incorporated into digital technologies. Through this shift, drawing has become an artistic act that is no longer working to collapse media divisions, and now operates within and without these divisions, destabilised by digital technologies. This research examines drawing as a history of innovations and responses to shifts in technologies and their applications. Questions of genre, form and medium are subsequently downplayed for an interdisciplinary approach. High and low are no longer distinct, as the internet search engine is adopted into the artist's toolbox, alongside the digital camera and animation software. The many accessible and disposable images are integrated as raw matter, to fossick and sift through. Accompanying studio research operates within the interdisciplinary freedoms of the metadrawing. Approaches to quotation, appropriation, pastiche, irony, detachment and sincerity are explored through a rigorous drawing practice, resulting in a vast, multilayered body of work. This self-reflexive and intuitive practice incorporates numerous ciphers into its many suspended, but interrelated narratives. Beyond the physical level, the work operates on an intertextual level, moving between the metaphysics of genre and previously separated art forms to create a reconfigured history, unhampered by previous distinctions and boundaries of media and form. This research posits the act of drawing as a reaction to, or divergence from, the dominant techno-capitalist status quo, treating the tactile experiences of studio practice as subversive, transgressive, and erotic. This research explores the subjectivity and the subjective agency of the artist. Drawing is therefore defined as a process of unrepeatability, a process that, while no longer necessary for picture making, still forms a crucial and engaging tier of the visual arts. Drawing’s divergence from the commercialised intangibility of the digital has revitalized its practitioners, demanding a reconsideration of what is means to draw today. This tension is explored through the different methods of studio practice, on the level of the personal-biological, the erotic, and in terms of collision and materiality. Specific images are selected through criteria directly linked with the subjective agency of the artist, and reconfigured through artistic practice, creating a new imbrication of the raw image matter

Anti-Grand: Contemporary Perspectives on Landscape

Anti-Grand: Contemporary Perspectives on Landscape Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art University of Richmond Museums, VA January 15 to March 6, 2015 Anti-Grand: Contemporary Perspectives on Landscape features 24 contemporary, international artists, artists’ collectives and game developers who examine, challenge, and re-define the concept of landscape while simultaneously drawing attention to humanity’s hubristic attempts to relate to, preserve, and manage the natural environment. Anti-Grand includes 33 works of art, with video, installation, video games, and traditional two- and three-dimensional work. All of the works in the exhibition were created since 2000 to focus on art made well after the initial developments of the modern and popular discourse on environmentalism and sustainability. The exhibition’s title Anti-Grand suggests an approach to the topic that is opposite one of awe and reverie of the past, approaches that are now difficult to consider without an implicit sense of irony. Contemporary Perspectives of Landscape emphasizes the role of the artist’s and/or viewer’s choice of framing device as applied to both the represented scenery and the genre at large. Engaging humor, tenderness, ambivalence, and respect, the artists look at many facets of this subject. Unifying the exhibition are issues of representation that are inherent to the genre and the various ways in which artists have self-reflexively considered their relationship to the artistic subject.Images from the Exhibitionhttps://scholarship.richmond.edu/exhibition-catalogs/1002/thumbnail.jp

Understanding the Syrian Revolution Through Nontraditional Art

In my thesis, I will explore the Syrian Revolution through the nontraditional arts that are being produced. I will be focusing on several different modes of creation, including street art, digital art, comics and cartoons, and installation. Social media is the primary tool for artists working in Syria to distribute their work, so I will also be discussing the importance of social media, both as a means to publish their work and also spread their message. I will answer the following questions: what role does street art and other nontraditional mediums play in the revolution? What are the artists’ purposes and intents when creating such pieces? How is social media relevant to the revolution? The answers to these questions and more will help to legitimize nontraditional arts, not only as examples of art themselves, but also as a means of communication. I hope to shed some light on the Syrian Revolution by looking at the war through the lens of an artist

Picturing South Africa : an exploration of ekphrasis in post-apartheid fiction

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2015.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: South Africa's period of transition has given rise to new forms of cultural and artistic production, which both speak to and reflect the nation's changing social, political and ethical climate. This dissertation explores a narrative form which remains relatively uncharted in current critical conversations about post-apartheid fiction, namely ekphrasis, or the textual re-presentation of visual art. Although ekphrastic narration can be traced to the Classical antiquity, it has also emerged in seminal post-1994 texts, including Zakes Mda's The Madonna of Excelsior (2002), Patricia Schonstein's Skyline (2000) and Ivan Vladislavić's The Exploded View (2004). Consequently, this study considers how the authors have used ekphrasis to represent the 'new' South Africa, as it undergoes the precarious process of transformation. Beginning with an analysis of Mda's novel, I survey how the author employs pre-existing artworks created by the Flemish Expressionist painter-priest, Frans Claerhout, as a means of performatively rewriting the nation's troubled past, and engaging with the contemporary context of national reinvention. Specifically, I consider how the transliteration of these images serves to re-imagine the identities of black women publicly shamed and privately violated under apartheid's hegemonic ideologies. In so doing, I foreground how Claerhout's mystical protest paintings become central to the author's own narrative project of recovery, restoration and remembrance. Building on this, the chapter thereafter explores how the artworks also provide rich imaginative templates which enable Mda's narrative to challenge the social fractures and dissonances of the post-1994 transitional period. Focusing on the artist's hybridised formal aesthetic, I suggest that the ekphrasised paintings model the conditions for psychic and social transformation; consequently, their presence signals a need for malleability, improvisation and renewal, in order to rework the available categories of South African identity, and the broader socio-cultural landscape. Schonstein's Skyline, in turn, incorporates notional ekphrasis, or imaginary visual artwork, to represent South Africa's new social order based on the principles of Ubuntu. Chapter Three therefore considers how the ekphrastic pieces unsettle homogeneous paradigms of nationality, and serve to envision an inclusive, hospitable and multicultural public home-space. Diverging from Mda's and Schonstein's use of ekphrasis as a positive imperative toward transformation, however, Vladislavić's text offers a despairing portrayal of contemporary South African life. Accordingly, my final chapter explores how the fictional artworks accentuate the shortcomings of our democracy, and reinvigorate an awareness of the marginalised lives rendered invisible within the country's increasingly globalised and culturally opaque urban spaces. These ekphrastic readings illustrate, in various ways, how South African authors have specifically drawn on the visual arts to represent the post-apartheid condition in their own works, as the nation attempts to reinvent itself in the wake of a traumatic past. Thus, the study foregrounds how this synthesis of literary and visual art lends itself to opening new or alternative dialogues, critical frameworks and self-reflective spaces in contemporary transitional narratives, and indeed, within the present historical moment.AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In Suid-Afrika se oorgangstyd het nuwe vorme van kulturele en artistieke produksie ontspring wat die nasie se veranderende sosiale, politieke en etiese klimaat aanspreek en reflekteer. Hierdie proefskrif ondersoek ‘n verhalende vorm wat grootliks onontdek bly in die huidige kritiese gesprek oor postapartheidfiksie, naamlik ekfrasis, of die teksturele/verhalende aanbieding van visuele kuns. Al kan ekfrasiese vertelling teruggevoer word na die Klassieke tydperk, kom dit ook voor gekom in seminale post-1994-tekste, insluitende Zakes Mda se The Madonna of Excelsior (2002), Patricia Schonstein se Skyline (2000) en Ivan Vladislavić se The Exploded View (2004). Gevolglik oorweeg hierdie studie hoe die skrywers ekfrasis gebruik het om die ‘nuwe’ Suid-Afrika voor te stel terwyl dit sy onsekere transformasieproses ondergaan. Aan die hand van ‘n ontleding van Mda se roman ondersoek ek hoe die skrywer bestaande kunswerke van die Vlaamse Ekspressionistiese skilder-priester Frans Claerhout gebruik as ‘n middel om die nasie se troebel verlede performatief te herskryf, en in gesprek tree met die kontemporêre konteks van nasionale herontdekking. Ek oorweeg spesifiek hoe die transliterasie van hierdie beelde dien om die identiteit te herskryf van swart vroue wat in die openbaar beskaam en privaat geskend is onder apartheid se hegemoniese ideologieë. Op die wyse toon ek aan hoe Claerhout se mistieke protesskilderye sentraal word tot die skrywer se eie verhalende projek van herstel, restourasie en herinnering. Om daarop voort te bou ondersoek die volgende hoofstuk hoe die kunswerke ook verbeeldingryke patrone verskaf wat dit vir Mda se vertelling moontlik maak om die sosiale gebrokenheid en dissonansies van die post-1994-oorgangstydperk aan te spreek. Met die fokus op die kunstenaar se hibriede formele estetika, stel ek voor dat die ekfrasiese skilderye ‘n model is van die omstandighede vir psigiese en sosiale transformasie; gevolglik kondig hul teenwoordigheid die behoefte aan aanpasbaarheid, improvisasie en hernuwing aan om die beskikbare kategorieë van Suid-Afrikaanse identiteit en die breëre sosiokulturele landskap te kan her-vorm. Op sy beurt inkorporeer Schonstein se Skyline veronderstelde eksfrase, of denkbeeldige visuele kunswerk, om Suid-Afrika se nuwe sosiale orde, gebaseer op die beginsels van Ubuntu, voor te stel. Hoofstuk drie oorweeg dus hoe die ekfrasiese dele homogene paradigmas van nasionaliteit ontwrig, en dien om ‘n eksklusiewe, gasvrye en multikulturele openbare tuisspasie voor te stel. Vladislavić se ekfrasiese teks wyk egter af van die positiewe imperatiewe van Mda en Schonstein se werk, en verskaf ‘n wanhopige uitbeelding van kontemporêre Suid-Afrikaanse lewe. My finale hoofstuk ondersoek derhalwe hoe die fiktiewe kunswerke die tekortkominge van ons demokrasie beklemtoon, en versterk 'n bewustheid van die gemarginaliseerde lewens wat onsigbaar voorkom binne die toenemend geglobaliseerde en kultureelondeursigtige stedelike ruimtes in die land. Hierdie ekfrasiese geskrifte illustreer op verskeie wyses hoe Suid-Afrikaanse skrywers spesifiek na die visuele kunste verwys om die postapartheid-ingesteldheid in hul eie werk te verteenwoordig soos wat die nasie poog om homself te herontdek in die naloop van ‘n traumatiese verlede. Die studie hou dus op die voorgrond hoe hierdie sintese van literêre en visuele kuns sigself leen tot die aanknoop van nuwe of alternatiewe dialoë, kritiese raamwerke en self-weerspieëlende ruimtes in kontemporêre oorgangsvertellinge en, inderdaad, binne die huidige historiese moment

Seeing Laure: Race and Modernity from Manet's Olympia to Matisse, Bearden and Beyond

During the 1860s in Paris, Edouard Manet and his circle transformed the style and content of art to reflect an emerging modernity in the social, political and economic life of the city. Manet's Olympia (1863) was foundational to the new manner of painting that captured the changing realities of modern life in Paris. One readily observable development of the period was the emergence of a small but highly visible population of free blacks in the city, just fifteen years after the second and final French abolition of territorial slavery in 1848. The discourse around Olympia has centered almost exclusively on one of the two figures depicted: the eponymous prostitute whose portrayal constitutes a radical revision of conventional images of the courtesan. This dissertation will attempt to provide a sustained art-historical treatment of the second figure, the prostitute's black maid, posed by a model whose name, as recorded by Manet, was Laure. It will first seek to establish that the maid figure of Olympia, in the context of precedent and Manet's other images of Laure, can be seen as a focal point of interest, and as a representation of the complex racial dimension of modern life in post-abolition Paris. It will then examine the continuing resonance and influence of Manet's Laure across successive generations of artists from Manet's own time to the present moment. The dissertation thereby suggests a continuing iconographic lineage for Manet's Laure, as manifested in iteratively modernizing depictions of the black female figure from 1870 to the present. Artworks discussed include a clarifying homage to Manet by his acolyte Frédéric Bazille; the countertypical portrayal by early modernist Henri Matisse of two principal black models as personifications of cosmopolitan modernity; the presentation by collagist Romare Bearden of a black odalisque defined by cultural, rather than sexual, attributes metaphoric of the cultural hybridity of African American culture; and direct engagement with Manet's depiction of Laure by selected contemporary artists, including Maud Sulter and Mickalene Thomas, often with imagery, materials and processes also influenced by Matisse or Bearden. In each case, the fitfully evolving modernity of the black female figure will be seen to emerge from each artist's fidelity to his or her transformative creative vision regardless of the representational norms of the day. The question of what, if anything, is represented by Manet's idiosyncratic depiction of the prostitute's black maid has seldom been comprehensively addressed by the histories of modern art. The small body of published commentary about Manet's Laure, with a few notable exceptions, generally dismisses the figure as meaning, essentially, nothing -- except as an ancillary intensifier of the connotations of immorality attributed to the prostitute. Manet's earlier portrait of Laure, rich in significations relevant to her portrayal in Olympia, is even more rarely discussed, and typically seen as a study for Olympia, rather than as a stand-alone portrait as this analysis suggests. The image of Laure as Olympia's maid is frequently oversimplified as a racist stereotype, a perspective that belies the metonymic implications of a figure that is simultaneously centered and obscured. It is in the extensive body of response to Laure's Olympia pose by artists, more than by historians, that the full complexity and enduring influence of the figure's problematic nuance can be seen. This dissertation, like the artists, takes its cues from the formal qualities of Manet's images of Laure, in the context of precedent images and the fraught racial interface within Manet's social and artistic milieu, to suggest new and revisionary narratives. It suggests that Manet's Laure can be seen as an early depiction of an evolving cultural hybridity among black Parisians- visible in Laure's placement, affect and attire--that took shape during the early years of the newly built northern areas of Paris that are today home to some of the largest black populations in central Paris. Within this context, an iconographic legacy of ambivalent yet innovative modernity can be asserted for the Laure figure -extending from Delacroix to Matisse, Bearden and beyond. This lineage can be seen as parallel to the long-established pictorial lineage for Manet's figuring of the prostitute Olympia. What is at stake is an art-historical discourse posed as an intervention with the prevailing historical silence about the representation and legacy of Manet's Laure, and by derivation about the significance of the black female muse to the formation of modernism. This analysis suggests that the black female figure is foundational to the evolving aesthetics of modern art. It suggests that Olympia's standing as a progenitor of modern painting can only be enhanced by breaking through the marginalization of Laure's representational legacy. It asserts that it is only when the bi-figural significance of Manet's Olympia is recognized that the extent and influence of Manet's radical modernity can be most fully understood

A Search for a New Paradigm in Korean Contemporary Art A Proposal for an Exhibition 'Beyond Surface Culture: The New Grammar of Korean Contemporary Art'

This thesis examines the character of Korean contemporary art. I argue that an intense time-space compression produced by communication technology and the information revolution of the late 20th century has meant that Korean society has experienced the symptom of 'schizophrenia', as theorized by Fredric Jameson, which understands the modern capitalist world as being a perpetual present and characteristically depthless. Facilitated by this flourishing media culture and the rapid diffusion of digital technologies, I claim that a new 'surface culture' emerged in Korean society as Korean society became accustomed to identifying information through images and adopting the concomitant superficiality that this engenders. The Korean art world has also been heavily affected by Western artistic and cultural content through various media and exchanges with the international world, largely as a consequence of the nation's 'globalization policy'. I assert that Korean artists have experienced a new type of visual sensation and stimulation amid the torrent of information and started to understand the world as raw material by registering the received content based on its surface and turning it into modules. However, instead of looking at the current situation in a negative way, I argue for a positive evaluation based on Mario Perniola's 'philosophy of the present', as the basis to propose a new paradigm in Korean contemporary art. According to Pernio la, contemporary society is a full world where everything is available, and what is important is to manage the data and use it appropriately. I argue that one-way communication and the actuality of mass media influence in Korea has reached its peak, and that Korean artists have begun to develop a new paradigm of accumulating data and have begun alTanging it according to their own criteria throughout the last decade. In conclusion, I propose an exhibition featuring the art practices which embrace this new paradigm, and which explore innovative ways of making inventories and classifying history and culture

Telling stories: a critical examination of the works of Tracy Emin (b. 1963) and Claudette Schreuders (b. 1973).

Abstract This research paper examines the ways in which the autobiographical impulse is constructed in selected artworks of Tracey Emin (b1963-) and Claudette Schreuders (b1973-). It is situated within contemporary discourses around notions of the self, namely postmodernist, feminist and post colonialist frameworks. This critical discussion of notions of the self, as evidenced in these selected artworks, leads into discourses of Authenticity, of Histories, personal and collective and of the role Identity formation plays in the performing self. In conducting this research I have drawn on a wide range of theoretical frameworks including philosophy, psychoanalysis and literary theory, including magical realism. The first part of my study presents the theoretical frameworks of Authenticity, History and Identity regarding the autobiographical impulse. The second section of this paper examines the selected works of Emin and Schreuders. I chose these two artists because of their different strategies in performing themselves rather than their similarities, which allows for an interrogation of a broader framework of contemporary artistic practices. The concluding chapter examines my practical artwork during the period of my Masters degree. My work comes from an autobiographical base and I create a ‘self-portrait’ through my accumulation, production and display of objects. My exhibition took the form of an installation whereby I created an uncomfortable atmosphere through various methods including stimulating the olfactory sense in a predominant way

Image-making and contemporary social myth

In our Post-Modern milieu there has been a renewed attempt in art to communicate with the viewer. My hypothesis is that particular images provoke empathic responses in the viewer. Iconographical and formal characteristics in images which provoke empathy are discussed and Lipps' ( 1905) and Worringer's (1908) theories of empathy are examined. The psychological profile of a viewer is considered in the light of Freud's familial model of the human psyche with its emphasis on sexual instincts. The theoretical framework within which my hypothesis operates is based upon Bryson, Holly and Moxey's ( 1991) interventionist response to visual interpretation. They foreground the viewer's historicity in the viewing of an image and their approach is contrasted with that of the perceptualists (Wollheim, Gombrich and others) who maintain that the historicity of the viewer is unimportant. Finally it is argued that art can have a transforming potential if the artist provokes empathy in the viewer.Art History, Visual Arts and MusicologyM.A. (Fine Arts