Contemporary Visual Art Research Articles

Meta-relativist agenda in contemporary visual arts theory and practice

The borders of visual art on the eve of the 20th-21st centuries are being extremely expanded both at the empirical and theoretical levels and so is the agenda of contemporary philosophy of art. Is the unprecedented polyphony of discourses a methodological drawback or is it a heuristic opportunity that can help to broaden our knowledge about the essence of art and the notion of a work of art? What is visual art and what is artwork speaking the 21st century language? The study examines the current trends and innovations in the visual arts field and how they can be interpreted. Authors come to conclusion that the times of normative or negativist approaches are over. The plethora of transformations is a value-in-itself and can be seen as a legitimate methodological situation, namely, as a meta-relativist turn. Examples that are presented in the paper deal with different sides of “a work of art formula”: span of discourse, artist, audience, art space, art market, new technologies, etc. Those cases demonstrate the ambivalence of current visual art practices that can be interpreted either as complete negation of the preceding standards or as new discourses that are equally legitimate with the older ones. Meta-relativist approach treats all existing discourses and practices as equally legitimate and thus provides the method to broaden our understanding of the essence of art and definition of an artwork. The study suggests that it is a contemporary tool for further intra- and inter-disciplinary dialogue.

PROCESS IN CONTEMPORARY VISUAL ART AS A PARADIGM SHIFT IN THE VISUAL ART EDUCATION: PERSPECTIVE OF CREATIVITY

The authors discuss contemporary visual art, its creation processes and their implementation in art education in primary and secondary/grammar school. Changing the paradigm of studying from “fine to visual arts” within art education is a process itself. Visual art, which involves a participatory and new media art, is also concerned with processes that establish unique relationships between subjects and their effect on the real life of the participants or audience. It is no longer enough to deal with aesthetic concepts, but it is necessary to use art forms to create everyday life, and deal with ethical concepts. Transferring these processes into education connects students’ creative activities and their everyday life context, so that they can learn how to create social and personal relationships by using images. Experimental research in grammar school affirms the importance of teaching topics as are socially and politically engaged art or artistic activism, mediated by new media. Action research in elementary school affirms proposed style of art education as an acceptable way of transferring the way of thinking from visual art, especially a participatory and new media art, to the process of education as a discovering problems in society and offering solutions represented by visual forms.

Artistic Freedom or Animal Cruelty? Contemporary Visual Art Practice That Involves Live and Deceased Animals.

Simple SummaryThis paper examines a selection of 21st-century international examples of exhibited visual artworks involving live or deceased animals. It seeks to reveal the risks and benefits of unique encounters with animals through art and to consider the ethical implications of artwork deploying animals. Australian and international animal protection laws are not explicit when it comes to the sourcing of animals for art nor for the direct inclusion of animals in artworks. This lack leads to a variety of artistic practices; some considered ethical while others are viewed as controversial, bordering on animal cruelty. Recommendations of how to better determine what is the acceptable use of animals in art with a view to informing legal guidelines and artistic best practice are presented.This paper examines a selection of 21st-century international examples of exhibited visual artworks involving live or deceased animals. It seeks to reveal the risks and benefits of unique encounters with animals through art and to consider the ethical implications of artwork deploying animals. Australian and international animal protection laws are not explicit when it comes to the sourcing of animals for art nor for the direct inclusion of animals in artworks. This lack leads to a variety of artistic practices, some considered ethical while others are viewed as controversial, bordering on animal cruelty. Artwork selection is determined by a focus on high-profile artists who intentionally use animals in their practice and whose reputation has been fostered by this intention. The study provides insight into how the intentional use of ethically sourced animals within art practice can be a method of addressing hierarchal human–animal imbalances. Further, this study identifies unethical practices that may be best avoided regardless of the pro-animal political statements the artists put forward. Recommendations of how to better determine what is an acceptable use of animals in art with a view to informing legal guidelines and artistic best practice are presented.

An emerging nation, its Arabic theatre heritage and the influence of English-language stage drama

The authors analyse and decode several unique features of theatrical culture and the teaching and performance of Shakespeare in the oil-rich Arabian Gulf nation of Qatar. What could be described as a traditional and conservative Bedouin society, Qataris have with little native tradition of the performing arts nevertheless uneasily allowed the development of both an Arabic-language and English-language theatre culture. Parallel to national theatre efforts has been an equally prominent English expatriate drama tradition stretching back to the 1950s in Doha. As part of economic diversification strategies (since almost all government revenues are derived from petroleum and natural gas production), the government of the State of Qatar has embarked on a number of cultural development projects, including new museums, heritage preservation, book publishing, music and theatre, and educational development (for example, the higher education hub called Education City). Some of this social and economic development focuses on local culture, while other initiatives encourage international engagement with well-known Western cultural icons such as Shakespeare, as well as contemporary visual artists including Damien Hirst, Richard Serra and Luc Tuymans, to signal Qatar's desire to brand itself as an emerging, sophisticated and cosmopolitan nation. This study examines the ambivalence in Qatar towards the Western artistic influence as a form of cultural imperialism and erosive of Muslim values, yet the local fondness for English culture in part due to Britain's protectorship over the Gulf states in the form of the maritime truces and Political Resident system. Tracing the history of the Doha Players troupe, as well as the state-sponsored Qatar National Theatre, provides the context for the difficulties in presenting The Tempest to a local audience in November 2015. The directors faced the challenges of censorship, logistical concerns and the tradition of gender segregation that permeates all layers of society and education. This study presents a complex and conflicting portrait of Qataris’ ambivalent attitudes not only towards Shakespeare, but also towards Qatar's colonial heritage, Western literature, modernity, the newly dominant Anglo-American paradigm of education (related to the rise of global Englishes) and the extraordinary transformation of Qatar from a traditional mixed beddu/hadar culture to a significant regional power broker within two generations.

Hoarding Memory: Covering the Wounds of the Algerian War by Amy L. Hubbell

Reviewed by: Hoarding Memory: Covering the Wounds of the Algerian War by Amy L. Hubbell Mary E. McCullough Hubbell, Amy L. Hoarding Memory: Covering the Wounds of the Algerian War. U of Nebraska P, 2020. Pp. vii- 165. ISBN 978-1-4962-1402-7. $50 (hardcover). This engaging and eminently readable book on historical, literary, artistic, and personal memory examines representations of the complex, ongoing, and multilayered relationship between Algeria, France, and the Algerian War (1954-1962). This six-chapter study (including chapters of introduction and conclusion) begins by explaining psychological approaches to hoarding objects and transfers these theories to the analysis of memories and post-memories, and concludes by the acknowledging the difficulties of honoring the dead, "codify[ing] loss" (132), and how the two are inextricably linked with issues of "excessive trauma or excessive loss" (132). Chapter One, "Too Much Memory and the Algerian War," explains that "French Algeria is a lost colony whose debris is still carted around by the many people displaced at the end of the Algerian War for Independence and during the Algerian Civil War of the 1990s" (25). This chapter frames the study in stating that it "looks across texts and tableaux to show how memory proliferates in both the individual and the collective histories of the Algerian War, and how memory might be obscured and forgotten under the layers of artefacts put on display" (26). In chapters One and Two, Hubbell uses theoretical concepts from Agnès Varda's film The Gleaners and I (2000) as a lens through which to examine literary texts. Through the metaphorical act of gleaning in the fields, the chapter titled "Marie Cardinal, Gleaning, Collecting, and Hoarding the Lost Homeland" investigates how pied-noir author Cardinal's "obsessive recreation of Algeria" (27) in her first two novels Écoutez la Mer (1962) and La Mule de corbillard (1963) contributes to literary memorial remains of Algeria that are heavy, obsessive, and impossible to sort through. Chapter Three, "Leïla Sebbar: Churning Memory Debris," considers Sebbar's "identity [as] one of negotiations that can only be summed up [End Page 180] by exile" (55), focusing on the multiple and almost excessive autobiographical weavings that are central to, and at the same time, surround Sebbar's works. Moving to chapter Four, "Benjamin Stora: Gangrene and the Memory of the Algerian War," Hubbell examines how Stora's massive corpus of works on the Algerian war started out as historic and historiographic yet has recently become more personal. "Despite his wishes, Stora is continually drawn back in to sift through piles of personal memory." In chapter Five, "Hoarding Visual Debris from the War," Hubbell transitions from studying fictional, autobiographical, and historical texts to examining works by three contemporary visual artists: Nicole Guiraud, Patrick Altes, and Zineb Sedira. All three artists retain "personal and collective memory trauma from the Algerian War," which is reflected in their art. Hubbell's meticulous, thoughtful, and mindful analysis of the layers that compose each work of art (whether it be installations, mixed-media paintings, works that use "borrowed and recycled images" (115) such as postcards and/or photographs, or video installations) analyzes the complicated transmission of memory, especially as the artists "explore new ways for France and Algeria to move beyond historical trauma and to understand each other today" (127). In investigating how different genres and media investigate the lasting and intertwined representation of memory, history, and trauma, Hubbell's intimate, careful, scholarly work creates a captivating, convincing, and multifaceted study of the ways in which the texts of individual authors and artists honor and contribute to the ever-evolving complexities of the relationship between Algeria and France, while acknowledging and emphasizing its traumatic past. This engrossing book opens nuanced questions about the haunting relationship between former colonized and colonizer, between personal recollections, memory, history, and collected narratives, and how intertwined they are when writers and artists engage in their production. Hoarding Memory is a must-read for scholars of Algeria; students and specialists of history, memory, literature, art, and postcolonial studies will find it of interest, and will no doubt want to explore further the works analyzed within. Mary E. McCullough Samford University Copyright © 2021 Women in...

Art, Religious Memory, and Mormon Polygamy

What happens when part of the religious history a person believes in turns out to be incorrect? A dissonance is created that must be addressed through new interpretations of past, present, and possibly the future. This article explores early indicators of a reinvented "chain of memory" unfolding in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—a faith that is itself grounded in a concept of historical restoration—due to a new public understanding of its history of polygamy. Specifically, it considers the example of contemporary visual art that interrogates and rearticulates memories of historical Mormon polygamy as one link in this new chain.

On the link – between an artisan, farmer, among others, Guaraní (Nhandéva) and a contemporary visual artist from Sao Paulo – that caused the emergency of artistic-cultural projects in co-authorship

The relationship between an artisan Guaraní-Nhandéva and a visual artist from Sao Paulo, in the Indigenous Reserve of Dourados, spontaneously gave rise to co-authored artistic-cultural projects. In order to reflect on the link that formed an interface, able to interact with both worldviews, an effort is made to apprehend what’s «cultural inherence» to Guaraní view. This exercise leads to assign «socio-political resistance» as a conductive element, perceived just as a symptom of an imposed historical conjunction. Even so, «discursive content» appears as a property more essential to Guaraní culture than «style» or «support», which allows identifying that the «backyard farm» theme is useful to represent Amerindians Kaiowá and Guaraní cultures in a non-stereotyped way in art projects.

Cultural Hero and Personage: Representation in Contemporary Visual Art of Ukraine

The article focuses on the research of the semantic links between the concepts of a cultural hero and a personage, on substantiation of their existence and representation in the context of social and artistic processes of the visual art of Ukraine. I shall argue that artistic conceptualization of non-hierarchical “personages” is an ongoing issue in contemporary art. Ukrainian artists in their projects continue experiments with the boundaries of contemporary personages. Nevertheless, cultural hero, his main roles and functions become situational and processual these days. It was discovered that representativity builds up and corrects the links between the author and the personage of a visual artwork, through approximation or, on the contrary, distancing the author from the personage, when a certain goal of the artist in this artistic communication is revealed. It was concluded that reconstruction—as a representative strategy—aims to recover the authentic foundations of national identity and form the advanced typology of Ukrainian cultural heroes; while deconstruction is aimed at ruining totalitarian senses of Ukrainian culture and demolishing the figure of the cultural hero of Soviet times. In the latter process, both the artist and the character of the visual artwork are anonymized, so that the new foundations of contemporary heroization could be discovered.

Contemporary visual art in the context of the international multicultural festival Porto Franko

The purpose of the article is to explore one of the branches of the cultural and artistic life of Ivano-Frankivsk today – the multicultural festival Porto Franko. Analyze the innovative features of the format of the event, as different types of art and different styles were combined and synthesized, with no genre or stylistic restrictions. Highlight the visual component among art performances. The methodology is to use analytical, cognitive, and informational methods. They allow us to reveal and analyze the visual component of a multicultural festival. The scientific novelty of the work is to get acquainted with new methods of synthesis of types and genres of art, openness, accessibility of art in different areas. Conclusion. The article explores the main purpose of the festival - the rapprochement of art with ordinary people, as well as highlights the theme of contemporary visual art. The chronological sequence of the series of urban "open-air" projects of Porto Franko is revealed and their main differences are described.

Autonomous management in contemporary art territory (Argentina 2001-2015). A methodological proposal from the possibilities of the ARS

The present work addresses the autonomous management in Argentine art between 2001 and 2015. The proposed analysis approach focuses on the concept of territory from a transdisciplinary perspective and in particular, in relation to the field of contemporary visual arts. In this sense, the question that shapes our work is whether these projects, which perceive themselves as autonomous, achieve real sovereignty based on their practices, or are they subject to geopolitical decisions that always end up conditioning them?. In this way, we work in the first instance with the data collected by the C.A.R.A., and later a methodological design is carried out that allows us to configure two cartographic proposals based on the ARS working synchronously with the networks and matrices obtained. From which it is sought to graph, through the UCINET software, the autonomous management in the territory and, in turn, to create a relational chromatic matrix based on behavioral registers that allow us to form a mapping of the symbolic territory towards the interior of the procedures. The results obtained give an account of a historical perspective of the autonomous management projects in the country, how the distribution of this type of proposals has been in relation to 6 regions that are governed by administration policies of the national cultural heritage, and finally, of the configuration of its own territory in which it is observed how the ways of operating the set of procedures surveyed have been in relation to the agenda of activities, the sources of financing and the communication channels used.

Giving the Art Greater weight in Art Psychology: RizbA, a Questionnaire for Formal Picture Analysis

Abstract In empirical art psychology and creativity research most studies focus on the psychological correlates of art. Only few go beyond treating artworks as categorical data (e.g. abstract vs. representational) and consider artworks in detail. In part this is due to the lack of reliable quantitative measurements. The rating instrument for two-dimensional pictorial works (RizbA) makes a difference to current research designs. The current study validates the questionnaire on a representative sample of contemporary visual art, consisting of 318 images depicting works by artists from different cultural areas dated to the 21st century. In a randomized test-retest design, the pictorial material was rated by 506 (T1) and 238 (T2) art experts using RizbA. Statistical quality criteria, such as item difficulty, capacity of differentiation, test-retest reliability, and intraclass correlation were calculated. Principal component analysis (PCA) and indices of factor similarity were computed. The overall test’s capacity for differentiation yields partial eta-squared of .31 (T1) and .40 (T2). Test-retest reliability is .86. PCA reveals an eight-factor solution, which is largely consistent across both measurement points. Tucker’s coefficient of congruence ranges between |.71| and |1.00|. Intraclass correlation coefficients are .86 (T1) and .73 (T2). This study indicates generalizability of the questionnaire to contemporary artworks. Although a conclusion on the factors’ structure cannot be drawn yet, results are very promising. As the first reliable quantitative tool for formal picture analysis, RizbA allows more detailedexamination of visual art and its psychological correlates. This broadens research methodology by giving art greater weight in art psychology and creativity research.

Visual Art: Facilitated Conflict Transformation. Approaches and Limitations of the Instrument

This article provides an analysis of the art approach towards transformation of conflict, suggests a possible application of the method at different stages of the peace-building process, and grounds a conclusion as for the need to review approaches towards the later problem in Ukraine in terms of inclusion of the artistic approaches in the day-to-day conflict transformation routine.The topicality of the mentioned problem has a special meaning nowadays, considering that the state of Ukraine is apt for new bouleversements. In the circumstances of internal and external turbulence, a conclusion of a new social contract is crucial, but at the same time the current conflict status prevents both individuals, groups, and government institutions from addressing current social problems rationally and in consolidation with the society.Visual art resonates with a private or collective experience allowing new means of acceptance as well as perceptual rectification and conceptualization of the experience associated with conflict. Central to the idea of conflict transformation is the need to challenge perceived identities and interests that are viewed as threats. In line with this, John Paul Lederach suggested that the framework of conflict transformation should include all levels of human interaction: the level of personality, the level of interpersonal relations, the structural level, and the cultural level. This article suggests the theoretical and methodological analysis of the conflict transformation through the prism of artistic expressions and characterizes their influence on each level of the conflict.Art does not have the potential to convert evil into good, therefore one may not shuffle off the burden for the existing social reality on to it. At the same time, art obviously assists a person in overcoming tragic feelings, teaches empathy, catharsizes and releases inner tensions. It is this the cathartic influence that we believe is a phenomenon which is one of the cornerstones of the peace-building potential of art in the post-conflict areas. The transformational approach is about looking and seeing, rather than resolving. And the visual art has a potential to set a creative platform that can both tackle issues that cause polarization and alter social structures and relationship patterns which resulted in the break-down.The forms of contemporary visual art do not solely reflect the reality. They preserve their role as a sort of particular intervention which provides additional dimensions to the social milestone. Thus an observer receives an impulse to determine his/her own position in the dilemma of the surrounding reality. And such self-awareness is the root of all change. As to the extent that our perception of externals is related to a deeper vision of our own natures, to this exact extent our own actions will be changed. And since peace means a change from unpeaceful to peaceful relations, it is the very source of peace.Manuscript received 17.03.2020

Çağdaş Görsel Sanatta Yeniden Üretim ve Sınırların Belirsizliğini Benjamin ve Adorno’nun İzinden Sürmek

İçinde bulunduğumuz çağın adını nasıl nitelendirirsek nitelendirelim, günümüzde her alanda bir parça yeniden üretim ve tekrarlama olduğunu inkâr etmemiz mümkün değildir. Çağdaş dönemin görsel rejimi, bir anlamda var olanı yeniden üretme ideolojisi üzerinden gerçekleşir. Bu bağlamda en önemli düşünürlerden Walter Benjamin ve Theodor Adorno’nun yeniden üretim yazıları başlangıç noktası olarak belirlenerek, aradan geçen yaklaşık seksen yılın ardından konunun günümüzde hangi noktaya geldiğine dair bir tartışma yapılmaktadır. İletişimi bir toplumsallaşma süreci olarak ele alırsak, bu sürecin alt sistemlerinden biri olan sanatın son dönemini tahlil etmek toplumsallaşmanın kendisini anlama adına önem kazanır. Dolayısıyla çalışmada çağdaş görsel sanat yapıtlarının son yüz yılından seçilen örnek çalışmalar, yeniden üretim bağlamında tartışılmaktadır. Çağdaş sanatın tekrarlama kapasitesinin yanı sıra, şok edicilik ve agresyon da önemli konvansiyonlardan biri olarak incelenmektedir. Bununla ilintili olarak gerek global düzeyde küreselleşme üzerinden gerekse sabit normların akışkanlaşması üzerinden düşünülerek, bunların çağdaş görsel sanatlardaki yansımaları bağlamında sınırların belirsizliği değerlendirilmeye çalışılmaktadır. Çalışma hem içerik hem de biçimsel olarak Benjamin’in ve Adorno’nun çalışmalarından ilham alarak yapılandırılmaya çalışılmaktadır. Görülebileceği gibi, çalışmanın bizatihi kendisi de self-refleksif bir şekilde yeniden üretim hakkında bir yeniden üretimdir. Arzulanan; nesnel ve genele dair betimleyici bir tasnifleme yapmak yerine, tıpkı Benjamin gibi numuneleri toplumsallıkları açısından analiz ederek, onların asıl bağlamlarına ulaşmaya çalışmaktır.

Drumming Up an Audience

Abstract FUNDING STREAMS DESIGNED TO ENABLE WIDER PARTICIPATION WITH CONTEMPORARY VISUAL ART OFTEN FAIL TO MEET THEIR OBJECTIVES. FACED WITH THE NEED TO SHOW INCREASED ENGAGEMENT IN RETURN FOR PUBLIC FUNDING, FEAR OF FAILURE HAS LED MANY ORGANISATIONS TO TURN TO WHAT WE DESCRIBE AS THE ‘ART-SPECTACLE’: PUBLIC ARTWORKS DEVELOPED AS A MEANS OF DEMONSTRATING PUBLIC PARTICIPATION. WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THE ENGAGEMENT WHEN LARGE CROWDS ENCOUNTER AN ART-SPECTACLE? WHEN ART-SPECTACLES APPROPRIATE AN EXISTING CULTURAL FORM AND REBRAND IT AS ‘ART’, BY WHAT CRITERIA CAN IT BE JUDGED A SUCCESS OR FAILURE? OUR DISCUSSION CENTRES ON THE HISTORY TRAIN, AN EVENT THAT FORMED PART OF BRITISH ART SHOW 8 IN NORWICH IN 2016. AS IT RECEIVED FUNDING TO ENGAGE NEW AUDIENCES, WE ASSESS THE HISTORY TRAIN AGAINST THE CRITERIA BY WHICH THE FUNDING WAS AWARDED. WE ALSO LOOK AT THE DEGREE TO WHICH IT MET DEBORD’S (1983) LOGIC OF SPECTACLE AND THE NECESSITY OF VISIBILITY OVER EXPERIENCE.

"When the Panting Stops": Breath and Breathing in Beckett and How It Is

The art of Irish writer Samuel Beckett (1906-89) remains a limit point for prose fiction and theatre, and exerts a strong attraction for contemporary visual art practices. In this essay I consider his work, and the novella How It Is in particular, in terms of a repeated internal motif and central element of performance, "breath."

The Work of Modern Art: In Search for the New Meanings

The article discusses the characteristics of contemporary art works and the specifics of its interaction with the audience. We demonstrate that contemporary art is not so much a way of reflecting on the world around us, but rather a way of learning about it, as well as a peculiar game (provocation) whose meanings are unknown and closed for discussion. Today it is impossible to provide unambiguous answers to the challenges faced by the art practice of the twenty-first century. Nevertheless, it is necessary to consider topical issues, outline ways to study them, structure groups of facts, and determine methods for their research and description. The priority during this process is to identify the qualitative components of the works of contemporary visual art. To do this, it is necessary to determine the features that distinguish contemporary works from those created at the previous stages of art development. Further research is required for this problem. Here we use as case examples the works of Krasnoyarsk artists Anna Osipova and Alexander Surikov, who combine both classical and actual characteristics.
 Keywords: contemporary art, communication, Anna Osipova, Alexander Surikov

Is there a theory of peripheral postmodernism?

After Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil performed at the 1967 MPB Festival, there was a change in Brazilian culture. From 1966 to 1968, Mário Pedrosa outlined in his Correio da Manhã columns what he understood by postmodernism by analyzing contemporary visual arts. Despite the contemporaneity between Tropicália and Pedrosa, his analysis is not used to understand the intervention of the two musicians in the Brazilian culture of the 1960s. Thus, we will reconstruct Pedrosa’s concept to investigate Tropicália as a manifestation of postmodernism in the periphery.

Una contribución al aprendizaje del futuro a través de la mediación artística

La práctica del arte contemporáneo puede ser un ejercicio para el pensamiento de lo visual y, al mismo tiempo, una herramienta para explorar lo inexplorado y establecer relaciones con el mundo. El presente trabajo presenta un prototipo de innovación educativa: Making Art Happen, que consiste en la creación de equipos de trabajo multidisciplinares, compuestos por un artista contemporáneo, un mediador cultural y un profesor universitario, que planifica situaciones experienciales en el aula, en las que practicar el proceso creativo, como posible material para fabular, reflexionar, y aprehender sobre la asignatura a tratar. Estas situaciones artísticas son diseñadas en función de la temática propia de una materia determinada perteneciente a un plan de estudios universitario. El objetivo de esta propuesta es evaluar el impacto de estas experiencias como medio para que el alumnado se exprese y aprenda de una manera crítica, única y personal en un mundo altamente visual, cambiante y dinámico. Para ello, se aplicaron una combinación de técnicas cuantitativas y cualitativas. Las experiencias recogidas en las asignaturas “Introducción a la Sociología” del primer curso del Grado de Criminología y Doble Grado de Criminología y Psicología; y “Nuevas Tecnologías y Sociedad de la Información” del primer curso del Grado de Comunicación Audiovisual, ambas pertenecientes a estudios de la Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, nos revelan una alta aceptación del método en todos los agentes implicados en el proceso: profesorado, estudiantes y artistas visuales. Sobre este punto de partida se persigue crear a largo plazo una batería de acciones artísticas en asignaturas transversales pertenecientes a diferentes disciplinas universitarias; y conseguir, de esta manera, incorporar las situaciones artísticas diseñadas, como una herramienta contemporánea para los actuales docentes.

From Classical Compositions to Contemporary Seriality

Classical compositions, such as those of Claude Lorrain (1600–1680), show balanced situations where the depicted objects seem to represent beauty – they appear to exist in an ideal order; they seem right, once and for all. They allow their viewers, who live in a contingent world, believe that unity and beauty are attainable. English landscape gardens in the eighteenth century offered viewers the experience of moving in real settings that seem to reproduce the canvasses of classical landscape painting. Contemporary visitors know this is an imitation; they appreciate that this is not everyday reality but a kind of realized utopia. Artworks such as the early ones by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606–1669) and those from the nineteenth century onwards (Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet), make us understand that a final rightness is not possible; that it is only possible to try again and again to attain the real – without ever arriving at the one right solution. In their endeavour to depict reality, these artists engage in a serial elaboration of the same subjects and objects of their art. These series of nearly the same subjects invoke the impossibility of getting it right once and for all. Piet Mondrian illustrates the development from seriality, as repeated attempts to depict the same with a difference, to the practice of seriality as an experiment in symmetry and balance that both goes back to Claude Lorrain and modernizes the concept of the ideal for application to abstract art. In contemporary art after the Second World War serial structures in single artworks were common, thus superseding compositions with their discredited promise of ideality. Series occurred not only in the contemporary visual arts, but also in literature, music and in the theatre. The repetitive structures of Minimal Art offer to the beholder the possibility of experiencing ‘reality’ in an age of media and fakes. My example will be the repetitive structures of Christian Boltanskiʼs oeuvre which provides an opportunity to reflect on the similarity and difference of people in contemporary democracies. My main argument is therefore that the change from composition to seriality corresponds to historical change.

Drawing at Visual Art’s teachers education: reflections from Designare

This work aims to present some reflections of my PHD research, with the title Designare: pontes artistico/educativas na formação docente em Artes Visuais. This research sought to build an interpretation about the Drawing and its teaching in the Visual Arts teachers education, questioning the "how to draw" and the "not knowing how to draw" in the view of the teachers who teach in this area at the university. At the methodological process, based the investigative ways in three research methodologies of Educational Research Based on Visual Arts (Viadel, 2005): Narrative, Autoetnography and A/r/tography and with research in specialized literature, problematization and justification in narrative memory and interviews making with professors who teach Drawing in graduation courses in the area of Visual Arts at the University of Porto - UPORTO and at the Federal University of the Valley of São Francisco – UNIVASF. Focused on the understanding of the influence of drawing discourses and from drawings as visual narratives on teaching/learning of teachers practices in Visual Arts as rethinking historical issues in curricula, I analyzed issues of pedagogical practices of university professors and their repercussions on contemporary Visual Arts Teachers Education in Brazil and Portugal.