GLAMOR IN CONTEMPORARY ART CRITICISM DISCOURSE

Abstract

The article presents the study of glamor as a modern phenomenon, reveals its socio-cultural aspects, analyzes the features of the representation of this phenomenon in the visual arts, highlights the main directions of the study of glamor in art discourse. The purpose of the article is to explore and systematize the existing theories on the conceptualization of glamor in contemporary art discourse with objectivity and impartiality, abandoning the evaluative and emotional connotations (both positive and negative). The theoretical and methodological basis of the work is the principle of transdisciplinarity and such philosophical and general scientific methods and approaches as phenomenological, systemic, semiotic, historical, axiological, which allow to study the phenomenon of glamor in line with various research optics. The turn of the XX–XXI centuries is characterized by important socio-political, socio-economic and sociocultural transformations, the prospects of which are still difficult to fully understand and assess. Visual perception becomes a kind of scheme-core of the modern cultural and artistic paradigm, and the production and consumption of images is one of the characteristic features of today. In his essay The World as a Phantom and the Matrix, Günther Anders reflects on the consequences of the modern “stream of images” a stream that spreads common images in the form of photographs, leaflets, posters, magazines, movies, television, and the Internet. He believes that the modern world is characterized by “hypertrophy of visual products”, and the global flow of images declares the process of coupling human subjectivity with the productive forces of the industrial apparatus [24]. “Nowadays, the image of a thing prevails over the thing itself, the copy – over the original, the representation – over reality, visibility – over the essence…” [8]. Consumption of spectacle and illusions instead of or along with material goods is the reality of modern culture and art. It is no exaggeration to say that one of the most common and dominant visual (media) images of today can be considered glamorous, which is created, distributed, advertised and exists only through the media and communication, the world of fashion and entertainment. In this context, the study of such a phenomenon as glamor, which today is a global phenomenon, a product of man-made processes, the manifestations of which we observe in various national cultures becomes particularly relevant. Insufficient understanding of issues related to Ukrainian glamor, its difference from the foreign prototype “glamor”, is of considerable interest for research.