HIST06017 2019 Visual and Material Culture 4 (Art and Social Practice)

This module explores conditions, themes and issues in Visual / Material Culture from the 1990s to the present day through an examination of a variety of artwork, artefacts, systems and social activities. Changes and developments in economic, political, ideological and cultural forces in the creative industries and related disciplines underpin this examination.  As well as addressing aesthetic values and visual interpretation methods, the module considers the importance of everyday visual culture and its importance to the field of socially-engaged art today.

Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art after 1980 (Fourth Edition) is a unique introduction to eight important themes that have recurred in art over the past few decades-identity, the body, time, memory, place, language, science, and spirituality. Jean Robertson and Craig McDaniel provide anintriguing and accessible guide that will stimulate students, gallery goers, and other readers to think actively and critically about visual art from 1980 to the present. The opening chapter provides a concise overview of the period, analyzing how key changes (the rise of digital media, a growingawareness of globalization, the influence of theory, the use of the Internet, and interactions with everyday culture) have resulted in an art world with dramatically expanded boundaries. Each of the remaining eight chapters features an introduction to one theme; a brief look at historical precedentsand influences; a detailed analysis of how contemporary artists have responded to and embodied aspects of the theme in specific works; and two in-depth and fascinating profiles of artists who have extensively explored aspects of the theme in his or her work.Generously illustrated in full color, Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art after 1980 (Fourth Edition) covers an international array of artists working with an immense variety of materials, techniques, subjects, and forms. A timeline that situates contemporary art in the context of major events inworld history, art, and popular culture enhances the engaging, readable text.

The 21st‐Century Art Book is an A‐to‐Z guide of contemporary artists featuring established art‐world figures Maurizio Cattelan, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Wall alongside rising stars of the next generations. Global in scope, the book features work from 50 countries across a variety of mediums, from painting, drawing, and sculpture to digital art, video installation, and performance. Each of the 280 artists included has a dedicated page pairing a significant artwork from his or her oeuvre with lively and informative text. An international directory of major art events along with a helpful glossary round out the package, making this both a must‐have resource and a beautifully illustrated celebration of contemporary art.

In the mid-1980s the sprouting of new movements that had driven modern art since the nineteenth century finally went dormant, sputtering out with a last few half-hearted lels ('pattern painting', 'neo-geo', 'commodity art'). But this was not the end of art history -- far from it. In the years since, art's creative development has remained more vibrant than ever, resulting in a staggering diversity of new forms. Defining Contemporary Art responds to this unique landscape with an innovative approach to art history. Assembled and written by eight of the most prominent curators working today, all of whom have both witnessed and shaped this period, Defining Contemporary Art tells the story of the two hundred pivotal artworks of the past twenty-five years. These artworks include not only the most talked out pieces but also the quietly influential works, those which may have been overlooked at the time of their making but which went on to change the paradigm of their era. Arranged year by year, these two hundred works provide a true chronological depiction of creativity in our era, forming a mosaic in which readers may find their own patterns..

Provides a comprehensive survey of modern art, covering four hundred artists and their works from the last thirty years.

Art historical theory is a forum of intense, often passionate debate. This book provides an accessible introduction to the range of critical theories used in analyzing art. It covers a broad range of approaches, presenting individual arguments, controversies, and divergent perspectives. This second edition has been updated to reflect recent scholarship in contemporary art. Clearly written, this book is ideal for the undergraduate student or anyone interested in the world of ideas.

"This reader gathers together an international selection of artists' proposals, manifestos, theoretical texts and public declarations that focus on the question of political engagement and the possibility of social change"--back cover.

Texts and interviews with key contemporary artists

"For too long Social Practice has been the notoriously flimsy flipside of market-based contemporary art: a world of hand-wringing practitioners easily satisfied with the feeling of 'doing good' in a community, and unaware that their quasi-activist, anti-formalist positions in fact have a long artistic heritage and can be critically dissected using the tools of art and theatre history. Helguera's spunky primer promises to offer a much-needed critical compass for those adrift in the expanded social field." -Claire Bishop, Professor of Contemporary Art and Exhibition History, CUNY, and author of Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship "This is an extremely timely and thoughtful reference book. Drawn from empirical and extensive experience and research, it provides a curriculum and framework for thinking about the complexity of socially engaged practices. Locating the methodologies of this work in between disciplines, Helguera draws on histories of performance, pedagogy, sociology, ethnography, linguistics, community and public practices. Rather than propose a system he exposes the temporalities necessary to make these situations possible and resonant. This is a tool that will allow us to consider the difficulties of making socially engaged art and move closer to finding a language through which we can represent and discuss its impact." -Sally Tallant, Artistic Director, Liverpool Biennial "Helguera has produced a highly readable book that absolutely needs to be in the back pocket of anyone interested in teaching or learning about socially engaged art" -Tom Finkelpearl, Director of the Queens Museum, New York, and author of Dialogues in Public Art

DIVExamines questions of agency, artisanship, and identity in relation to collaborative art practice./div

Art is big business, with some artists able to command huge sums of money for their works, while the vast majority are ignored or dismissed by critics. This book shows that these marginalized artists, the "dark matter" of the art world, are essential to the survival of the mainstream and that they frequently organize in opposition to it. Gregory Sholette, a politically engaged artist, argues that imagination and creativity in the art world originate thrive in the non-commercial sector shut off from prestigious galleries and champagne receptions. This broader creative culture feeds the mainstream with new forms and styles that can be commodified and used to sustain the few artists admitted into the elite. This dependency, and the advent of inexpensive communication, audio and video technology, has allowed this "dark matter" of the alternative art world to increasingly subvert the mainstream and intervene politically as both new and old forms of non-capitalist, public art. This book is essential for anyone interested in interventionist art, collectivism, and the political economy of the art world.

'Living as Form' grew out of a major exhibition at Creative Time in New York City. Like the exhibition, the book is a landmark survey of more than 100 projects selected by a 30-person curatorial advisory team; each project is documented by a selection of colour images.

Exploring key issues for the anthropology of art and art theory, this fascinating text provides the first in-depth study of community art from an anthropological perspective. The book focuses on the forty year history of Free Form Arts Trust, an arts group that played a major part in the 1970s struggle to carve out a space for community arts in Britain. Turning their back on the world of gallery art, the fine-artist founders of Free Form were determined to use their visual expertise to connect, through collaborative art projects, with the working-class people excluded by the established art world. In seeking to give the residents of poor communities a greater role in shaping their built environment, the artists' aesthetic practice would be transformed. Community Art examines this process of aesthetic transformation and its rejection of the individualized practice of the gallery artist. The Free Form story calls into question common understandings of the categories of "art," "expertise," and "community," and makes this story relevant beyond late twentieth-century and early twenty-first-century Britain.

Doing the business : producing consumption in the Hong Kong art world -- New media art and cultural globalism in South Korea -- Globalizing Indian contemporary art : the biennial as rhetorical form -- Social production of contemporary art in the PRC : higher education and the branding of 'contemporary Chinese art' -- Contemporary art and post-national identities in the State of Palestine

A full-color book looks at the globalization of visual arts in recent years, including developments ranging from exhibition histories and the rise of new art spaces to art's branding in such emerging markets as Asia, the Middle East and the Gulf States. Original.

Costello, D & Vickery J., eds. (2007) Art: Key Contemporary Thinkers, Berg.

Foster, Hal, Krauss, R, Bois Y-A, Buchloh, B. (2004) Art Since 1900 Modernism, Antimodernism Postmodernism, Thames & Hudson.

Geczy, A. (2008) Art: Histories, Theories and Exceptions, Berg.

Gray, C. and Malins, J. (2004) Visualizing Research: A Guide to the Research Process in Art and Design. Aldershot, UK, and Burlington VT: Ashgate.

Hopkins, D. (2000) After Modern Art 1945-2000 Oxford Univ. Press.

Kocur. Z. & Leung, S., eds. (2005) Theory in Contemporary Art Since 1985,  Blackwell.

Perry G, & Wood P. (2004) Themes in Contemporary Art, OU & Yale Uni. Press. 

Rose, G. (2002) Visual Methodologies, Sage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Contemporary_art_magazines

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_contemporary_art_museums
http://www.artbook.com/

VLE Moodle

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