Arts | February 2024 - Browse Articles

6 pages, 187 KiB

Open AccessEditorial

Arts and Refugees: Multidisciplinary Perspectives (Vol. 2)

by Marco Martiniello and Elsa Mescoli

Arts 2024, 13(1), 40; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010040 - 19 Feb 2024

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Published in 2019, the Special Issue entitled “Arts and Refugees: Multidisciplinary Perspectives” gathered together a set of articles exploring the role of art created and performed by refugees settled in urban European contexts [...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Arts and Refugees: Multidisciplinary Perspectives (Vol. 2))

6 pages, 186 KiB

Open AccessEditorial

Im/Materiality in Renaissance Arts

by Kate van Orden and Lisa Pon

Arts 2024, 13(1), 39; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010039 - 19 Feb 2024

Viewed by 1101

Abstract

The inspiration for this Special Issue on Im/Materiality in Renaissance Arts arose from two convictions: (1) that sensual experiences and the physicality of creation must be a part of our accounts of the past, and (2) that crosstalk among scholars of music, literature, [...] Read more.

The inspiration for this Special Issue on Im/Materiality in Renaissance Arts arose from two convictions: (1) that sensual experiences and the physicality of creation must be a part of our accounts of the past, and (2) that crosstalk among scholars of music, literature, art, and architecture can reveal both the historiographical gaps endemic to specific disciplines and the critical tools each specialty brings to the project of incorporating living, breathing artists, builders, poets, singers, players, worshippers, scientists, and others into histories of the Renaissance arts [...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Im/Materiality in Renaissance Arts)

53 pages, 39209 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Discursive Power of Digital Popular Art during the Russo-Ukrainian War: Re/Shaping Visual Narratives

by Svitlana Kot, Alina Mozolevska, Olha Polishchuk and Yuliya Stodolinska

Arts 2024, 13(1), 38; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010038 - 18 Feb 2024

Viewed by 1405

Abstract

Twenty-first century digital technologies and popular visual art have transformed the ways military conflicts are experienced, narrated, and shared. It demonstrates that digital platforms have become arenas for constructing visual narratives that influence public perception and engagement with the conflict. Through a multimodal [...] Read more.

Twenty-first century digital technologies and popular visual art have transformed the ways military conflicts are experienced, narrated, and shared. It demonstrates that digital platforms have become arenas for constructing visual narratives that influence public perception and engagement with the conflict. Through a multimodal and visual analysis of over 950 digital artworks shared on Instagram during the first three months of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, this study investigates how these artworks form specific visual narratives which contribute to portraying the new wartime reality while also constructing images of the self and the other through heroization, victimization, dehumanization, and other strategies. All these visual narratives jointly represent the complexity of the war reality and form an epistemic understanding of the conflict. This study highlights the important function that popular visual art on digital platforms such as Instagram plays in shaping perceptions of the Russo-Ukrainian War, particularly in expressing emotions, conveying traumas, and influencing public opinions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ukraine Under Fire: The Visual Arts in Ukraine and Abroad Since 2014)

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20 pages, 3727 KiB

Open AccessProject Report

Viewpoints/Points of View: Building a Transdisciplinary Data Theatre Collaboration in Six Scenes

by Dani Snyder-Young, Michael Arnold Mages, Rahul Bhargava, Jonathan Carr, Laura Perovich, Victor Talmadge, Oliver Wason, Moira Zellner, Angelique C-Dina, Ren Birnholz, Halle Brockett, Ezekiel D’Ascoli, Donovan Holt, Sydney Love and George Belliveau

Arts 2024, 13(1), 37; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010037 - 18 Feb 2024

Viewed by 1337

Abstract

Data now plays a central role in civic life and community practices. This has created a pressing need for new forms of translation and sense-making that can engage diverse publics. Research-based Theatre (RbT) has proven to be an effective approach to delivering qualitative [...] Read more.

Data now plays a central role in civic life and community practices. This has created a pressing need for new forms of translation and sense-making that can engage diverse publics. Research-based Theatre (RbT) has proven to be an effective approach to delivering qualitative data to community stakeholders. We extend this tradition by proposing “community-engaged data theatre”. This approach translates quantitative data into theatrical language to engage communities in deliberative conversations on relevant issues. Community-engaged data theatre requires bridging multiple disciplines and involves creating new definitions and shared vocabularies in discourses that formerly have had little overlap in meaning. In this article, we share key insights from our initial experiments in which we adapted quantitative and qualitative data to devise a pilot piece in collaboration with a local community partner. In this essay, we communicate our collaborative process in polyvocal, artistic form. We edit and adapt materials from our conversations and creative practices into scenes illustrating how we taught and learned from each other about data science, participatory modeling, material deliberation and Composition to pilot our lab’s first community-engaged data theatre prototype. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exploring Research-Based Theatre within Contemporary Theatre Education)

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19 pages, 5988 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Distinct Form of Socio-Political and Economic Organization in the Pazyryk Culture

by Karen S. Rubinson and Katheryn M. Linduff

Arts 2024, 13(1), 36; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010036 - 17 Feb 2024

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Abstract

The Pazyryk Culture, situated in the Altai Mountains of Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and China, flourished for a relatively short period: 5th–3rd centuries BCE. A series of burial grounds from the later phase, 4th–mid-3rd centuries BCE, to be studied here reveal the remains of [...] Read more.

The Pazyryk Culture, situated in the Altai Mountains of Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and China, flourished for a relatively short period: 5th–3rd centuries BCE. A series of burial grounds from the later phase, 4th–mid-3rd centuries BCE, to be studied here reveal the remains of three groups of individuals of high, mid, and lower status. Within the limiting topographical and environmental confines of the local region, in contrast to the vast grasslands of the steppe and the deserts and oases of Central Asia, it is possible via the analysis of material culture and with reference to ethnographic studies to see nuances of interaction among these three groups and the regions immediately adjacent during this short period. Aided by modern scientific techniques, including DNA and isotopic analysis, together with analysis of excavated and often frozen remains, it is also possible to map out a heterarchical set of relationships within the hierarchical framework. The model developed in this unique landscape might be tested elsewhere in Eurasia as it extends the application of the notion of nonuniform socio-political organization among pastoralists noted for Bronze Age societies in the Eurasian steppe to the late Iron Age. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Situating Eurasia in Antiquity: Nomadic Material Culture in the First Millennium BCE)

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27 pages, 8284 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Jewelry, Accessories, and Decorative Elements of Women’s Funeral Costume of the First Half of the 6th Century BCE in the Territory of Forest-Steppe Scythia

by Iryna Shramko

Arts 2024, 13(1), 35; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010035 - 15 Feb 2024

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Abstract

Among the antiquities of the archaic period of Forest-Steppe Scythia, a group of elite burials of women, possibly endowed with priestly functions during their lifetime, stands out. Until recently, only two unrobbed burial complexes were known to contain the main burials of women [...] Read more.

Among the antiquities of the archaic period of Forest-Steppe Scythia, a group of elite burials of women, possibly endowed with priestly functions during their lifetime, stands out. Until recently, only two unrobbed burial complexes were known to contain the main burials of women of high social rank, in whose graves golden costume elements were found—primarily expressive details of headdresses. The barrows (kurgans) were discovered at the end of the 19th century when amateur excavations were actively carried out on the right bank of the Dnipro. As a result of research conducted by the author at the Skorobir necropolis (in the area of the Bilsk fortified settlement, on the left bank of the Dnipro), two similar graves were recently discovered, which provided new material that significantly expanded the known geographical distribution of this phenomenon. The materials are closely analogous to the previously discovered elite female burials of the Middle Dnipro (barrow 100 near the village of Syniavka, barrow 35 near the village of Bobrytsa) and allow us to highlight a number of stable elements of the funeral costume of noble women and the sets of objects that complemented them. In this article, we consider the social and cultural significance of female attire in elite burials and delimit the chronological framework of this previously understudied phenomenon within the first half of the 6th century BCE. The new finds offer unprecedented insight into the form and meaning of one type of female headdress which researchers have tried to reconstruct for over a century. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Situating Eurasia in Antiquity: Nomadic Material Culture in the First Millennium BCE)

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10 pages, 220 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Analytical Listening and Aesthetic Experience in Music Criticism

by Srđan Teparić

Arts 2024, 13(1), 34; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010034 - 14 Feb 2024

Viewed by 1388

Abstract

In this article, I discuss the methodological and contextual aspects of writing music criticism, drawing cues from applied musicology and autoethnography. The challenge for any music critic is the question of the relationship between objective and subjective approaches. I analyze the relationship between [...] Read more.

In this article, I discuss the methodological and contextual aspects of writing music criticism, drawing cues from applied musicology and autoethnography. The challenge for any music critic is the question of the relationship between objective and subjective approaches. I analyze the relationship between analytical listening and aesthetic experience, using the examples of two music reviews of Ivo Pogorelić’s piano recitals that I wrote. The interpretations of this pianist are suitable for the analysis precisely because he is commonly seen as an unconventional, even controversial pianist, and his interpretations of romantic music are often regarded as examples of anti-academicism and even deconstruction of pianistic canons accumulated during the 20th century. Against that term, I will talk about liberation, which is perhaps a more suitable label for Pogorelić’s modernist approach to performance. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applied Musicology and Ethnomusicology)

2 pages, 135 KiB

Open AccessCorrection

Correction: Charitonidou (2021). Exhibitions in France as Symbolic Domination: Images of Postmodernism and the Cultural Field in the 1980s. Arts 10: 14

by Marianna Charitonidou

Arts 2024, 13(1), 33; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010033 - 09 Feb 2024

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Abstract

In the original publication (Charitonidou 2021), there was a mistake in the title [...] Full article

11 pages, 4784 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Affect and Commemoration Atop the Pedestal

by Noah Randolph

Arts 2024, 13(1), 32; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010032 - 09 Feb 2024

Viewed by 1125

Abstract

At the entrance to City Park in New Orleans, Louisiana, a monument to Confederate general P.G.T. Beauregard rose twenty-seven feet over the citizens of New Orleans until 2017, when the sculpture was removed from its pedestal. Following the removal, Mayor Mitch Landrieu asked: [...] Read more.

At the entrance to City Park in New Orleans, Louisiana, a monument to Confederate general P.G.T. Beauregard rose twenty-seven feet over the citizens of New Orleans until 2017, when the sculpture was removed from its pedestal. Following the removal, Mayor Mitch Landrieu asked: “why there are no slave ship monuments, no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings or the slave blocks; nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives; the pain, the sacrifice, the shame… all of it happening on the soil of New Orleans.” This landscape of empty pedestals was confronted by Paula Wilson that fall. Rather than erect a material monument that would directly replace the fallen General Beauregard, Wilson turned to her own body. Before the sun rose early one morning, she climbed atop the empty pedestal and began dancing in a performance titled “Living Monument.” This paper analyzes Wilson’s performance and its documentation as radical acts of refusing the logics of monumentality. In examining this work, I consider how performance as a mode of memorialization completely destabilizes the monumental presentation of a static history, thus offering a new grammar by which to think through modes of revolution and redress in the symbolic landscape. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Affective Art)

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14 pages, 250 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Speech Melody Research as the Interdisciplinary Foundation of the Petrograd Institute of the Living Word

by Valeriy Zolotukhin

Arts 2024, 13(1), 31; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010031 - 07 Feb 2024

Viewed by 1059

Abstract

The assumption of similarity between artistic speech melody and music was deeply rooted in Russian Symbolism and based on the culturally established analogy between poetry/lyrical prosody and music. This connection was the basis for a wide range of performative practices focused on performed [...] Read more.

The assumption of similarity between artistic speech melody and music was deeply rooted in Russian Symbolism and based on the culturally established analogy between poetry/lyrical prosody and music. This connection was the basis for a wide range of performative practices focused on performed word such as the experiments of director Vsevolod Meyerhold and composer Mikhail Gnesin in Petrograd theater studios in 1900–1910s, and the collective declamation of Vasilii Serezhnikov and Vsevolod Vsevolodskii-Gerngross. However, after the October revolution, this analogy not only inspired new artistic paths, but also new approaches in humanities. This article explores the correlation between a practice-based strategy and advanced theory that characterized the structure and curricula of the Petrograd Institute of the Living Word (Institut zhivogo slova; 1918–1924). Its specific institutional features affected the development of disciplines in the fields of linguistics, poetics, and literary studies. The earlier period of its work (1918–1921) was defined by the search for common ground, which could unite representatives of different disciplines. The study of the melody of speech, which this article is focused on, became one of the key joint research projects of the Institute’s team. It is the perspective of the Institute of the Living Word’s research projects and performance-related art practices that is used for analysis of the Russian Formalist approaches in the 1910s–20s, specifically articles and books of philologist Boris Eikhenbaum on the melody and composition of verse intonation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Music vis-à-vis Other Arts in Eastern and Central Europe: Performance, Literature, Theatre, Art/Architecture and Visuality)

8 pages, 2657 KiB

Open AccessCommunication

Kubism™: Picasso, Trademarks and Bouillon Cube

by Noam M. Elcott

Arts 2024, 13(1), 30; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010030 - 07 Feb 2024

Viewed by 1197

Abstract

Pablo Picasso’s Landscape with Billboards (1912) evinces a deep and complex relationship with emergent trademark and related intellectual property law in France. Among the three trademarked logos featured prominently in the work is that for Bouillon Kub. Critics, caricaturists, and the Cubists themselves [...] Read more.

Pablo Picasso’s Landscape with Billboards (1912) evinces a deep and complex relationship with emergent trademark and related intellectual property law in France. Among the three trademarked logos featured prominently in the work is that for Bouillon Kub. Critics, caricaturists, and the Cubists themselves toyed with the visual and textual rhymes between Cubism and Bouillon Kub. But only Picasso in his Landscape with Billboards engaged deeply with the nascent trademark and design protection laws exploited more forcefully by Bouillon Kub than nearly any other brand. This essay is a small part of a larger chapter on Picasso, Cubism, and the semiotics of trademark, which, in turn, is a part of the book project Art™: A History of Modern Art, Authenticity, and Trademarks. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Picasso Studies (50th Anniversary Edition))

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17 pages, 10586 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Complexity of Colour/Textile Interaction in Digital Printing as an Integral Part of Environmental Design

by Marijana Tkalec, Martina Glogar, Željko Penava, Petra Forte Tavčer, Danjela Kuščer and Izabela Stojanoska

Arts 2024, 13(1), 29; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010029 - 07 Feb 2024

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Abstract

Textile materials are an essential part of contemporary architecture, the environment, and urban spaces due to their unique appearance and qualities, as it is now possible to achieve both a structural function and an aesthetic quality with textiles. As colour is one of [...] Read more.

Textile materials are an essential part of contemporary architecture, the environment, and urban spaces due to their unique appearance and qualities, as it is now possible to achieve both a structural function and an aesthetic quality with textiles. As colour is one of the most important characteristics of textile material, it is also important to understand the relationships between colour and textile material with different surface qualities. In order to explain the complexity of different textile materials and the appearance of colours, which consequently affects the colour properties, this paper analyses this phenomenon. The presented research analyses the dependence of the reproduction quality and colour appearance on fabrics of different construction and structural characteristics, i.e., the texture of the textile material, printed using digital inkjet technology. The aim of this work is to investigate the influence of various structural features of textiles on the colour appearance of digitally printed textile substrates, to monitor the quality of colour reproduction, and to analyse the behaviour of a reactive dye droplet on textile substrates. Printing of a particular shape was performed using a Dimatix Materials Printer DMP-2831 piezoelectric inkjet device (provided by the J. Stefan Institute, Ljubjana, Slovenia; manufactured by Fujifilm Dimatix Inc., 2230 Martin Avenue, Santa Clara, CA, USA). The behaviour of the ink delivered by the needle of the tensiometer DSA20E, Kruess GmbH (provided by the J. Stefan Institute, Ljubjana, Slovenia; manufactured by Kruess Scientific Instruments (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. Futong Dong Dajie 10 Baoneng Center, Tower B, Room 605 Chaoyang District, Beijing 100102, China), on the surface of the fabric was analysed. The samples were digitally printed on a Mimaki digital printer Tx2-1600 (provided by University of Ljubljana Faculty of Natural Science and Engineering, Slovenia EU; manufactured by Mimaki, 2182-3 Shigeno-Otsu, Tomi-city, Nagano, Japan), with reactive dyes, which were first pretreated in a bath with a specific solution. The statistical method of image analysis and microscopic imaging were used to obtain the characteristics of the porosity, texture, and roughness parameters. All results are presented from colouristic analysis based on the objectification of colour and colour differences. The objective values of the parameters of lightness (L*), chroma (C*), and hue (h°) show the significant influence of the structure and properties of the substrate on colour reproduction, and significant changes were obtained, which were confirmed by the evaluation of the colour differences. The results confirm the influence of the substrate structure on colour properties. Furthermore, it is essential to consider this complexity in the context of environmental colour design when utilising (coloured) textile installations/materials in architecture and urban spaces, i.e., in the environment. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Colour: Art and Design in Urban Environments)

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10 pages, 176 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Choreographing Social Memories: Healing and Collective Imagining in Eiko Otake and Wen Hui’s Artistic Collaboration

by Jingqiu Guan

Arts 2024, 13(1), 28; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010028 - 06 Feb 2024

Viewed by 991

Abstract

This article explores the first-time choreographic collaboration between Eiko Otake, a renowned Japanese dance artist, and Wen Hui, a celebrated Chinese choreographer and filmmaker, which took place in mainland China in January of 2020. The outbreak of the coronavirus in Wuhan compelled Otake [...] Read more.

This article explores the first-time choreographic collaboration between Eiko Otake, a renowned Japanese dance artist, and Wen Hui, a celebrated Chinese choreographer and filmmaker, which took place in mainland China in January of 2020. The outbreak of the coronavirus in Wuhan compelled Otake to return to the US prematurely, and the subsequent global pandemic led the two artists to continue working together through the computer screen. Constructed from daily footage of Wen and Otake moving together, conversing about their personal histories and choreographic works, and visiting the Nanjing Massacre Memorial, the resulting documentary film No Rule Is Our Rule (2023, 74 min) offers a poignant portrayal of their creative process, which places utmost importance on honesty and openness. Through an in-depth analysis of their artistic exploration presented through the film, the article examines how their collaborative endeavor which prioritizes corporeal interaction and unfiltered dialogues can be conceived as a form of mediated social choreography. I argue that their embodied methodology, grounded in the interweaving of personal and social memories, points to the potential for collective healing from the tension and trauma in Sino-Japanese history and promotes collective imagining through intercultural dialogues. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Choreographing Society)

16 pages, 7718 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Sacralizing the Playful Secular: The Deity of Karuta-Gambling at the Nose Kannon Hall in Sannohe, Aomori

by Mew Lingjun Jiang

Arts 2024, 13(1), 27; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010027 - 04 Feb 2024

Viewed by 1944

Abstract

In a faraway apple orchard in Sannohe, a small town in Japan’s Aomori Prefecture, a zushi miniature wooden shrine at the Nose Kannon Hall caught the media’s attention with its unique adornment—the karuta playing cards with European-inspired abstract designs in bold red and [...] Read more.

In a faraway apple orchard in Sannohe, a small town in Japan’s Aomori Prefecture, a zushi miniature wooden shrine at the Nose Kannon Hall caught the media’s attention with its unique adornment—the karuta playing cards with European-inspired abstract designs in bold red and black colors that were used during the early modern period for pastime and gambling. Because of this decoration, the Nose Kannon Hall is known by locals as the Karuta Hall, and the zushi that enshrines the Buddhist deity Bodhisattva Shō-Kanzeon is also believed to be the home of bakuchi no kamisama “the kami deity of gambling”. Little is known about the nature of devotion to this bakuchi no kamisama or how the playing cards that were used for frivolous games came to be sacralized as items worthy to be used as decoration of a Buddhist shrine. This article considers the slippage between prayer and play in the regional Buddhist devotion by focusing on the Nose Kannon Hall, which presided at a key intersection along the northern trade route where the local community and outside visitors, such as pilgrims and traders, converged, especially during the Edo period (1603–1868). Marshaling historical records, televised interviews, and images provided by the town officials and guardian family of Nose Kannon Hall, I argue that the use of karuta playing cards on the miniature shrine at Nose Kannon Hall epitomizes a kind of localized early modern Shinto–Buddhist syncretism at the margins of the urban culture that is simultaneously devotional and tongue-in-cheek sacrilegious in a quintessentially Edo-esque way. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Japanese Buddhist Art of the 19th–21st Centuries)

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11 pages, 2749 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Reflecting Picasso in Glass

by Sandrine Welte

Arts 2024, 13(1), 26; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010026 - 04 Feb 2024

Viewed by 1122

Abstract

Whereas Picasso’s work in ceramics, wood and bronze is rather well known, the body of his sculptures in glass remains an object of little research. In fact, as a thorough analysis reveals, they rarely find mention in publications or catalogues on Picasso and [...] Read more.

Whereas Picasso’s work in ceramics, wood and bronze is rather well known, the body of his sculptures in glass remains an object of little research. In fact, as a thorough analysis reveals, they rarely find mention in publications or catalogues on Picasso and seldom are included in exhibitions or retrospectives on the great Spanish artist. This may on the one hand be attributed to a still prevailing perception of glass as a medium for industrial, functional or everyday purposes—hence discounting the material in terms of artistic output—while on the other to controversies of authorship, related to the question of ideation versus creation. Unlike ceramics or bronze, the realisation of blown glass sculpture hinges on the involvement of the maestro vetraio as the mediator between thought and form—thus resulting in a distancing between artwork and artist conditioned by the nature of the medium. Against this background, the paper aims at a better understanding of Picasso’s vision of sculpture through an examination of his creations in the vitreous medium. On these grounds, a closer look at Picasso’s works in glass is meant to highlight his unique ‘hand’ in terms of idiom, line and form. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Picasso Studies (50th Anniversary Edition))

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11 pages, 260 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Art, Affect, and Enslavement: The Song of the Oxcart in Colonial Dutch Brazil

by Angela Vanhaelen

Arts 2024, 13(1), 25; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010025 - 30 Jan 2024

Viewed by 1234

Abstract

Focusing on a single artwork, Frans Post’s painting called The Oxen Cart of 1638, this article explores what Édouard Glissant calls the emotional apartheid of the plantation system. It argues that the affective evasion of Post’s painting fosters anti-Black racism by denying the [...] Read more.

Focusing on a single artwork, Frans Post’s painting called The Oxen Cart of 1638, this article explores what Édouard Glissant calls the emotional apartheid of the plantation system. It argues that the affective evasion of Post’s painting fosters anti-Black racism by denying the full humanity of captive peoples. The painting is read together with Caspar Barlaeus’s contemporary apologia for the leadership of Maurits of Nassau, who was the governor-general of Dutch Brazil and Post’s patron. Focusing on classical and Neostoic understandings of governance and enslavement, the article turns to Paul Alpers’s analysis of the pastoral mode as an art of evasion that justifies the exploitation of rural labourers. It concludes by taking up Saidiya Hartman’s concept of critical fabulation to consider the oppositional views and counter-narratives expressed in the music-making traditions of enslaved people. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Affective Art)

8 pages, 189 KiB

Open AccessArticle

White Atmospheres: Choreographing Racial Materialities in Academic Space

by Ben Spatz

Arts 2024, 13(1), 24; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010024 - 30 Jan 2024

Viewed by 1891

Abstract

This essay offers a critical introduction to the circulation of racial materialities, and especially whiteness, in North American and European academic contexts. It proposes that we can escape from the dominant epistemology of identity as a fixed attribute of individuals without losing the [...] Read more.

This essay offers a critical introduction to the circulation of racial materialities, and especially whiteness, in North American and European academic contexts. It proposes that we can escape from the dominant epistemology of identity as a fixed attribute of individuals without losing the urgent and much-needed analytics of identity as social and material force. In the gap between “identity politics” and a richer critical politics of identity lies the difference between a discursive public sphere of agonistic conflict and one of potentially transformative relationality. Drawing on critical race theory and especially black radical thought, my analysis rejects the reduction of identity to discrete census categories and attempts to situate contemporary scholarly practices in the context of a planetary decolonial movement. If “identity” today is all too frequently dismissed by a methodological whiteness that strictly separates it from materiality, politics, and knowledge, then a dramaturgical or choreographic analytics of race might better address how racial materialities operate both above and below the level of individual bodies, subjects, and citizens. Synthesizing practical insights from artistic research and performing arts with critical theories of race and identity, this essay refers to some of the author’s recent personal experiences at academic events in order to describe and analyze whiteness as a form of social choreography. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Choreographing Society)

20 pages, 336 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Hungarian Representative Exhibitions and the Rhetoric of Display in the 1920s

by Samuel D. Albert

Arts 2024, 13(1), 23; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010023 - 26 Jan 2024

Viewed by 1204

Abstract

This article examines the series of art exhibitions organized by the Hungarian government in the 1920s. After examining the bureaucratic framework of the exhibition, the article then discusses the materials displayed at five different exhibitions, organized between 1920 and 1927. While much of [...] Read more.

This article examines the series of art exhibitions organized by the Hungarian government in the 1920s. After examining the bureaucratic framework of the exhibition, the article then discusses the materials displayed at five different exhibitions, organized between 1920 and 1927. While much of the material displayed remained the same, the rhetoric, particularly the catalog essays that accompanied the exhibition provided insight into the organizers’ goals and the governmental ideology underlying that rhetoric. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cultural Diplomacy and Informal Artistic Relations in East Central Europe in the 20th Century: A Global Perspective)

14 pages, 2941 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Introduction: The New Face of Trans Visual Culture

by Ace Lehner

Arts 2024, 13(1), 22; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010022 - 25 Jan 2024

Viewed by 1356

Abstract

Transness throws into question how many so-called Western cultures—i.e., those ideologically descended from the colonial project—have sutured “reality” to the “privileging of sight”. At the crux of trans-visual culture is a need to be understood outside current modes of visual apprehension. As a [...] Read more.

Transness throws into question how many so-called Western cultures—i.e., those ideologically descended from the colonial project—have sutured “reality” to the “privileging of sight”. At the crux of trans-visual culture is a need to be understood outside current modes of visual apprehension. As a methodology rooted in trans-embodied experiences, trans provides a mode for decolonizing the privileging of sight and moving toward a new understanding of bodies, identity, representation, and visual culture. It is imperative to explore such methods in today’s political climate, and it is advantageous to apply them to trans-visual culture, as exponential innovations can be discerned. In this article, I will deploy a trans visual studies methodology to the work of contemporary trans masculine artist and photographer Wynne Neilly to explore how his work engages a praxis of transing identity. I will discuss how his work shifts the understanding of identity and representation to one decoupled from optical ontology and how he works to unseat White masculinity as the center of Western art and visual culture. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Articulations of Identity in Contemporary Aesthetics)

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19 pages, 12397 KiB

Open AccessArticle

To Touch Time: U.S. Black Feminist Modernist Sculpture in the 1970s and 1980s

by Sarah Louise Cowan

Arts 2024, 13(1), 21; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010021 - 24 Jan 2024

Viewed by 1218

Abstract

Modernist propositions long have been understood as atemporal—somehow outside of time—or insistently hailing the future. This temporal framework suppresses the contributions of those excluded from modernist canons, particularly Black women. In this article, visual and material analysis of sculptural works produced in the [...] Read more.

Modernist propositions long have been understood as atemporal—somehow outside of time—or insistently hailing the future. This temporal framework suppresses the contributions of those excluded from modernist canons, particularly Black women. In this article, visual and material analysis of sculptural works produced in the 1970s and 1980s by U.S. Black women artists Beverly Buchanan, Senga Nengudi, and Betye Saar reveal how Black feminists have engaged with modernist protocols in order to redress cultural erasures of Black women. These practices exemplify Black feminist modernisms, or creative practices that unsettle the racist and sexist logics of dominant cultural institutions. Each of these artists utilizes haptic surfaces as a method for defying institutional modernism’s obfuscation of the past. The analysis focuses on Buchanan’s defiance of memorial erasures, Nengudi’s reenactment of labor, including in its historical forms, and Saar’s adaptation of generational memory-making processes. Ultimately, these artists’ rejection of a “timeless” modernism demands that viewers understand the present moment in relationship to a still-evolving past. In this way, Buchanan, Nengudi, and Saar position the present as an accumulation, rather than transcendence, of historical occurrences. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Modern and Contemporary Art: Topical Abstraction in Contemporary Sculpture)

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27 pages, 2922 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Potnia’s Participants: Considering the Gala, Assinnu, and Kurgarrû in an Aegean Context

by Marie N. Pareja

Arts 2024, 13(1), 20; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010020 - 24 Jan 2024

Viewed by 1675

Abstract

The wall paintings from the site of Akrotiri, Thera, are often considered to be instrumental to understanding elements of life in the Bronze Age. This is partially due to their high degree of preservation. The large-scale detail present in the scenes allows for [...] Read more.

The wall paintings from the site of Akrotiri, Thera, are often considered to be instrumental to understanding elements of life in the Bronze Age. This is partially due to their high degree of preservation. The large-scale detail present in the scenes allows for a more detailed and nuanced understanding of the imagery that survives in glyptic art that, considered together with the surviving wall paintings, helps to better inform one’s understanding of Aegean life. Many of the iconographic elements and themes, however, remain at least partially enigmatic. This is particularly the case for Xeste 3, a cultic building at Akortiri, where the wall paintings contribute to a larger, programmatic cultic narrative. The current investigation seeks to better understand the monkeys scene from Room 2 of the first floor by deconstructing and examining each visual element via comparative analyses. They are first contextualized within the Aegean, then considered in light of Mesopotamian comparanda. This method allows for possible parallels between the monkeys from Xeste 3 and at least three priestly classes known from contemporary Mesopotamian tradition: the gala, assinnu, and kurgarrû. Each of these priestly classes belonged to the adaptable and widespread cult of Inanna, one of the most powerful and popular deities in Mesopotamia. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Animals in Ancient Material Cultures (vol. 3))

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21 pages, 7715 KiB

Open AccessArticle

State Strategy of International Art Exhibitions in Interwar Lithuania 1918–1940

by Giedrė Jankevičiūtė

Arts 2024, 13(1), 19; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010019 - 23 Jan 2024

Viewed by 1191

Abstract

The Republic of Lithuania was one of several young nation-states that re-established or proclaimed their statehood in the aftermath of the First World War, following the dissolution of empires in Europe. The quest for cultural identity and attempts at its representation within the [...] Read more.

The Republic of Lithuania was one of several young nation-states that re-established or proclaimed their statehood in the aftermath of the First World War, following the dissolution of empires in Europe. The quest for cultural identity and attempts at its representation within the country, in the region, and on the international stage was the crucial element in the nation-building process, where cultural diplomacy played a pivotal role. For Lithuania, as for most European countries of that era, exhibitions, especially art exhibitions or art sections in the case of world shows (for instance, the Expo 1937 in Paris or the New York World’s Fair in 1939), served as a prominent means of expressing its identity. An overview of the Lithuanian state art exhibition strategy, the dynamics of its organizational process, the exhibition content, and their geographical reach are discussed in the article. To comprehensively grasp Lithuania’s cultural strategy and to reconstruct the network of its artistic connections, foreign art exhibitions organized at the state level and the acquisition of artifacts from these exhibitions for Lithuania’s national art collection, the M. K. Čiurlionis Art Gallery, are briefly reviewed as well. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cultural Diplomacy and Informal Artistic Relations in East Central Europe in the 20th Century: A Global Perspective)

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18 pages, 372 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Learning to Speak Chinese: Defining the Sino-American Film Paradigm

by Benjamin Ruilin Fong

Arts 2024, 13(1), 18; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010018 - 18 Jan 2024

Viewed by 1840

Abstract

This article proposes a new paradigm, Sino-American film, that is centered on Chinese language in American films. Sino-American films comprise two generations. The First Generation includes Pushing Hands (1993), Take Out (2004), and Saving Face (2004) and is characterized by independent production, limited [...] Read more.

This article proposes a new paradigm, Sino-American film, that is centered on Chinese language in American films. Sino-American films comprise two generations. The First Generation includes Pushing Hands (1993), Take Out (2004), and Saving Face (2004) and is characterized by independent production, limited distribution, and creation during a period when Asian Americans were rarely represented on film. The Second Generation includes The Farewell (2019), Tigertail (2019), Shang-Chi and the Legend of Ten Rings (2021), and Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) and is characterized by a Hollywood production model, widespread distribution across streaming services, and creation during a period of growing Asian American cultural representation. Sino-American films negotiate both Chinese-language film and Hollywood by focusing on overlooked characters— Chinese-language-speaking Americans. This article contributes to conversations in Chinese film studies and Asian American studies by bringing Asian American film into exchanges with three Chinese film studies paradigms: transnational cinema, Chinese-language film, and Sinophone film. This cross pollination uncovers new areas for further study. Sino-American film demonstrates the importance of Sino-American language, ethnicity, and culture within the subsuming category of Asian American film. Furthermore, pairing Sino-American films with Chinese film studies uncovers a new category of Chinese-language film outside assumed contexts and paradigms. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Chinese-Language and Hollywood Cinemas)

15 pages, 220 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Photography without Pictures

by Jean Baird

Arts 2024, 13(1), 17; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010017 - 18 Jan 2024

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Abstract

Magic, as an emanation of past presence in a picture, emerges as a theme in postmodern theories of photography. It is linked to various forms of actual and symbolic absence; an absence which creates a space that keeps us looking, ostensibly for something [...] Read more.

Magic, as an emanation of past presence in a picture, emerges as a theme in postmodern theories of photography. It is linked to various forms of actual and symbolic absence; an absence which creates a space that keeps us looking, ostensibly for something that is lost. Photography may not always have been digital, but it has always been magical. Photography Without Pictures explores the critical dialogue and disciplinary uncertainty around the terminology of an expanded photographic that derived from debates surrounding the proliferation of digital media and the previous, ontological question of the nature of photography as a technology and a pictorial medium. It is prompted by Andrew Dewdney’s conviction that in order to deal with the contemporary condition of the networked screen image, we need to “Forget Photography” (2021). Dewdney considers the paradox that while photography is now ubiquitous, it is also peculiarly and magically undead, a simulation at the behest of mutable electronic data. The article examines three instances of critical response to contemporary photography, including the interpretation and response to several photographic artworks and one simulated photograph, to distinguish characteristics of pictoriality, authorship and temporality in photographic pictures. In asking what it means to be a real photographer, we discover that the singular observer/artist has become a crowd in respect of the image sharing culture of post-internet art. Throughout his polemical argument to Forget Photography, Dewdney prefers to use the term image and imagery to refer to both the photographic and the networked image. The terms picture and image tend to be interchangeable in language and inhabit each other in practice, yet there are historical differences and continuities that make the distinction remarkable in considering questions of ontology and media continuity. Pictorial, temporal and illusory ‘magic’ are the themes through which these photographic uncertainties unfold. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue (Modern) Photography: The Magic of Lights and Shadows)

15 pages, 277 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The ‘Assetization’ of Art on an Institutional Level—Fractional Ownership Implemented in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp

by Syra Kalbermatten

Arts 2024, 13(1), 16; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010016 - 11 Jan 2024

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1518

Abstract

This article explores the innovative collaboration between the Rubey platform and the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp. Through the tokenization of the artwork Carnaval de Binche by James Ensor, this platform made it possible for interested investors to purchase blockchain-registered Art Security [...] Read more.

This article explores the innovative collaboration between the Rubey platform and the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp. Through the tokenization of the artwork Carnaval de Binche by James Ensor, this platform made it possible for interested investors to purchase blockchain-registered Art Security Tokens within this artwork and become co-owners of it—at least from an economic perspective. Although fractional ownership platforms for art have been established before, this is the first time an art investment opportunity like this has materialized itself in an explicit partnership with a museum. The tokenized artwork will be held on public display within the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, for a period of ten years—a significant departure from the usual practice of storing such pieces in a storage vault—before it will be sold again. This article contextualizes this practice within both the ‘assetization’ of art that has increased in recent decades and the financial challenges facing Belgian—more broadly speaking, European—public museums. Based on a limited number of interviews with the stakeholders and desk research, this article subsequently explores the more practical benefits and concerns of a collaboration like this and presents an analysis of this practice drawing upon publications within the field of economic sociology. Since we find ourselves only at the beginning of this partnership, some questions will be raised for further research. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue NFTs, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Metaverse: The Web3 Revolution That Has Transformed the Art Market)

20 pages, 4929 KiB

Open AccessArticle

How to Choreograph a Socialist Society?

by Filip Petkovski

Arts 2024, 13(1), 15; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010015 - 11 Jan 2024

Viewed by 1642

Abstract

During the existence of Yugoslavia (1945–1991), the leading political ideology of “brotherhood and unity” had to be manifested in all forms of cultural life. Promoting the physically capable body as part of a larger cultural movement, Yugoslavia witnessed the transformation of physical daily [...] Read more.

During the existence of Yugoslavia (1945–1991), the leading political ideology of “brotherhood and unity” had to be manifested in all forms of cultural life. Promoting the physically capable body as part of a larger cultural movement, Yugoslavia witnessed the transformation of physical daily regimens into mass bodily spectacles performed at stadiums, called sletovi, demonstrating the power of mass-choreographed discipline. Similarly, Yugoslav choreographers were encouraged to develop a distinct performance aesthetic based on stylization as a rhetoric for modernization, using folk dance as a medium to showcase and promote the collective body of the people through choreographed folklore spectacles. Focusing on these two case studies that exemplify how mass choreography was used as a strategy to choreograph the Yugoslav society, this paper analyzes how political ideologies and their constructions through physicality supported the Yugoslav state project, thereby pointing to the present-day remnants of these aesthetics in the post-Yugoslav republics, evident in mass protests. By utilizing archival and choreographic analysis, I demonstrate how movement and dance impacted the public understanding of unity and helped the creation of a Yugoslav socialist society, drawing from Andrew Hewitt’s thesis on “social choreography”. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Choreographing Society)

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10 pages, 194 KiB

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The Western Artist in Stalin’s Moscow: The Case of Albin Amelin

by Katarina Lopatkina

Arts 2024, 13(1), 14; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010014 - 10 Jan 2024

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Abstract

This article is a reconstruction of travel experiences of Swedish artist Albin Amelin in Moscow in 1937–1938, based on archival materials. It focuses on the exchange between the Soviet Union and Western artists in the interwar period and shows international Soviet art contacts [...] Read more.

This article is a reconstruction of travel experiences of Swedish artist Albin Amelin in Moscow in 1937–1938, based on archival materials. It focuses on the exchange between the Soviet Union and Western artists in the interwar period and shows international Soviet art contacts as part of the state’s diplomatic work. This case study enables a detailed observation of the elements of the Soviet hospitality industry, and a description of various practical aspects of the artist’s stay in Moscow. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cultural Diplomacy and Informal Artistic Relations in East Central Europe in the 20th Century: A Global Perspective)

27 pages, 18557 KiB

Open AccessEssay

Temple of Death! The Sight of You Chills Our Hearts—Ruminations on Affect in Architecture

by Eugene J. Johnson

Arts 2024, 13(1), 13; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010013 - 10 Jan 2024

Viewed by 1370

Abstract

This essay discusses the affect of a group of well-known buildings and one project from antiquity to the recent past: Pantheon, Rome; Hagia Sophia, Istanbul; Leon Battista Alberti’s Sant’Andrea, Mantua; Etienne-Louis Boullée’s Project for a Newton Cenotaph; Louis I. Kahn’s Salk Institute for [...] Read more.

This essay discusses the affect of a group of well-known buildings and one project from antiquity to the recent past: Pantheon, Rome; Hagia Sophia, Istanbul; Leon Battista Alberti’s Sant’Andrea, Mantua; Etienne-Louis Boullée’s Project for a Newton Cenotaph; Louis I. Kahn’s Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla and Frank O. Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao. Despite the disparities in time, at least two of the works considered have characteristics in common, while others have more. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Affective Art)

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12 pages, 287 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Revising the Noir Formula in the Chinese Context: Black Coal, Thin Ice and Beyond

by Dinghui Zhou

Arts 2024, 13(1), 12; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010012 - 08 Jan 2024

Viewed by 1377

Abstract

Noir can be seen as a formula with a set of distinguishable thematic, narrative, and aesthetic elements matured in postwar Hollywood and later recycled, refined, or resisted by filmmakers worldwide. In the past decade, a handful of noirish crime films produced in People’s [...] Read more.

Noir can be seen as a formula with a set of distinguishable thematic, narrative, and aesthetic elements matured in postwar Hollywood and later recycled, refined, or resisted by filmmakers worldwide. In the past decade, a handful of noirish crime films produced in People’s Republic of China particularly reworked this formula to articulate local concerns, one example being Black Coal, Thin Ice. By attempting a comparative analysis of this movie’s characterization with the noir formula’s conventional portrayal, this essay argues that Black Coal, Thin Ice revises the noir formula by drawing more attention to the noir killer’s plight as a demoralized state worker and deconstructing the formulaic presence of the femme fatale as a deadly and powerful seductress. Moving beyond the Black Coal, Thin Ice case, the essay also posits that the recent Chinese noirish crime films’ fusing of stylized chiaroscuro with color lighting to register various existential and psychological concerns enriches the chiaroscuro aesthetic of the noir formula. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Chinese-Language and Hollywood Cinemas)

17 pages, 5512 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Dialogue between the Concept of the Object in the Theater of Tadeusz Kantor and the Theatrical Praxis of the Periférico de Objetos

by Katarzyna Cytlak

Arts 2024, 13(1), 11; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010011 - 04 Jan 2024

Viewed by 1610

Abstract

Tadeusz Kantor was a Polish artist and theater director who directly influenced the conceptual understanding of theater, especially in Argentina following two visits to Buenos Aires with his troupe Cricot 2 in the 1980s. He exerted a particularly strong influence on the Periférico [...] Read more.

Tadeusz Kantor was a Polish artist and theater director who directly influenced the conceptual understanding of theater, especially in Argentina following two visits to Buenos Aires with his troupe Cricot 2 in the 1980s. He exerted a particularly strong influence on the Periférico de Objetos [The Periphery of Objects], a troupe founded in Buenos Aires in 1989 by Daniel Veronese, Ana Alvarado and Emilio García Wehbi, labelled by critics as “the Argentine theatre of the image”. Despite radically different socio-cultural contexts, elements arising from Kantor’s theater practices (especially his idea of the “poor object” and his concept of “reality of the lowest rank”) acquired distinctly different meanings in Latin America from those coined by Kantor. A nuanced examination of the Periférico de Objetos indicates that Kantor’s concepts, which in their original context resisted politicization, played an important role in the creation of a socially and politically engaged theatre. His concepts, adapted to local realities by the Periférico de Objetos, were reflected in debates surrounding the recent Argentinian past, most notably, the post-dictatorship period. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cultural Diplomacy and Informal Artistic Relations in East Central Europe in the 20th Century: A Global Perspective)

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