What is Art? part 2Themes and content, context, effect/affect

Last class• subjectivity in art

• art as a carrier of meaning

• meaning in art usually ambiguous, implicit

• different contributors to meaning

• Form, formalism, how form works with content to make meaning

• genres of art

• representational vs figurative vs abstract vs non-representational

• Styles in art, classical vs romantic

• media or mediums and process

Themes and content

• Iconography- symbols that are traditional, usually religious, that most people understand the meaning of

Michelangelo’s Pieta Pieta by Sam Taylor Wood

Iconoclasm• greek for “image-breaking”

• literally- destroying religious icons or symbols or outlawing their use

• figuratively- someone who goes against the grain, breaks convention

ancient Buddhist statue destroyed by Taliban

Religious or sacred

Tibetan Buddhist designThe Incredulity of St. Thomasby Caravaggio

Religious or sacred

Virgin Mary by Chris OffiliPiss Christ

by Andres Serrano

Political/social

Ai Weiwei

Political/social

Picasso’s Guernica

Banksy

Political/social

Political posters/ propaganda

Political/social

stories and history

Oath of the Horatii, by Jacque-Louis David

stories and history

Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze

stories and history

Trajan’s column

stories and history

Battle of Orgreave by Jeremy Deller

Nature

Monet’s Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge

Nature

Andy Goldsworthy

Nature

Jennifer Steinkamp

Identity

Rembrandt’sSelf-portraits

Identity

Frida Kahlo

IdentityCindy Sherman

Dreams and fantasy

Salvador Dali

Dreams and fantasyPop Surrealism

Mark Ryden

Dreams and fantasyPop Surrealism

Andrea Castro

Dreams and fantasyPop Surrealism

Lisa Falzon

Dreams and fantasy

Matthew Barney

Dreams and fantasy

Theo Mercier

Humor

Marcel Duchamp and the Dada art movement

Humor

Erwin Wurm

Humor

Olaf Breuning

Humor

Guerrilla Girls

Art as a theme“Art about Art”

Art as a theme“Art about Art”

Context•the historical or biographical

circumstance that surround the work

•the setting or placement of the art (a wall, a gallery, outdoors, on pedestal, etc)

•Site-Specific= typically made for a certain space, perhaps made onsite rather than in studio. Could be installation art, land art, ephemeral art, public art or monuments.

Context

Duchamp’sFountain

Michelangelo’s David

Site-specific art

Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty (Land art)

Christo’s & Jeanne Claude’sThe Gates (public art)

Site-specific art

Monica Gryzmala(installation art)Katharina Grosse

(installation art)

Moi

Effect / Affect• effect = visual or other sensory result of

a way of working with the media (ex. drybrush technique)

• affect= the bodily or emotional feeling of the experiencer

• artists use effects to try to create affects

Affect

Raft of the Medusa by Theodore Gericault

Affect

Olafur Eliasson, the

Weather Project at

Tate Modern museum

AffectMarina Abramovic