Contemporary Visual Art Research Articles

Plagiat jako immanentna granica wolności twórczości artystycznej

The beginning of this publication gives a brief explanation of the problem of appropriating the works of others and legal implication connected with it. This part seeks to explain the importance of the tendency in the contemporary visual arts to copy and appropriate the result of someone’s else creativity, first and foremost famous and easily recognisable works. As a rule the person, who created a specific work, owns the copyright of it. The creator is often called the author of the work. As practice shows this situation is often not that simple, especially in case with the appropriation. The second part of this article characterises the legal institution of plagiarism and the conditions of the copyrights’ protection. This chapter gives an answer of what the plagiarism is. Plagiarism is regulated by the art. 115 of the polish copyright law. The main part of the publication provides basic information about copyrights and related rights in the context of this regulation. This part answers the following questions: (1.) which special rules of plagiarism are relevant in case with folk art?, (2.) what is the relation between plagiarism and several forms of legal use such as quotation, inspired work and derrivated work? This part deals in particular with the challenges concerning the protection of copyrighted works in contemporary art. Here the answer to the question ‘what are the reasons of work’s similarities?’ is given. The next section is dedicated to show how the authors can find and use works in the public domain as well as what the public domain is. Copyright laws try to find a balance between the rights they give to authors and the right of the public to access and use these works. The creators also benefit from having an access and a possibility to use the works of previous authors, which inspire them and help them learn techniques, which can be used to develop new works. The public domain and copyright limitations provide this balance between the rights of authors and the rights of the public. It is important that different authors to create new works often use the works in the public domain. When an original work is translated, adapted or changed in any other form, the new work is called a derivative work. Derivative works are also protected by copyrights, even if the original works from which they were derived are in the public domain. The person who created the derivative work is its author and owns its copyright. If someone wishes to use (reproduce, translate, adapt, etc.) a derivative work, which is protected by copyrights, must obtain permission from the author. One of the important question of this section is: what happens in case with an anonymous work of art? One should take into consideration, that in some cases authors wish to remain anonymous or use a pseudonym in order to hide their true identity from the public. In these cases, the author still owns the copyright to his works. The final part of the publication explains three common types of copyright infringement and how they can be avoided. Infringement takes place when a copyrighted work is used (reproduced, translated, adapted, exhibited or performed in public, distributed, broadcasted, or communicated to the public) without the permission of the right holders or under a limitation to copyright. The main copyrights infringement is plagiarism, which means the act of copying a work, wholly or partially, and then pretending to be its original author. In conclusion some additional information is given, which includes the most important questions about the use of copyrights in the practice.

The black female body: Representation of the erotic in contemporary visual art in Africa

Black sexual politics and its interaction with the eroticized female body in African art are still surprisingly underexplored topics in African academia (“African” not “Africanist”, to follow the distinction made by Jones in “African Scholarship, Eurocentricism and the Politics of Knowledge”). This gap is curious given the surge of contemporary African artists utilizing erotic imagery generated through 18th-century scientific racism, and its perpetuation in the imperialist epistemic structures of institutions — such as museums — in the centuries following. An icon such as Sara Baartman, the South African Khoikhoi woman exhibited at European freak shows in the early 1800s, is a poignant example of haunting images that represent the spectacular denigration of the black female body. Moreover, historically, the artistic canon has often given the perception of the black woman’s body as grotesque, animalistic, systematically subordinate, or fetishized. However, through artwork, the same body that was once unsightly has become a call to arms, suggesting that instead of continued victimization, black women wield the ‘erotic’ body as a resistance tool. African female artists are engaging with themes of eroticism and sexuality as inextricably entangled with historical violence and trauma through performance, live art, and painting. This article aims to interrogate the use of the erotic as a mechanism to navigate the complex terrain of post-colonial identities, power, and the abiding historical ‘weight’ of the colonial archive. To accomplish this, it will present several fundamental arguments that feed into black feminist interrogations of the body including a meditation on body politics and gender being rewritten into the colonial paradigm. Through the examination of the work of two prominent artists — Tracey Rose and Lady Skollie of South Africa — the author synthesizes various representations of the erotic, coupled with how it engages with issues of history and reappropriation of the black female form. Using Baartman as a guiding symbol, this article will argue that contrary to its previous confinements as an overly policed trope, the black female body is charged with an artistic power that explodes, leaks, and subverts the historical narrative, making it a constantly evolving archetype in contemporary visual art.

The main trends of Ukrainian art of 1990-2020: artistic language, forms and means of expression — the state of research of the problem

The main directions of Ukrainian art of the 1990–2020s, its means of expression through the prism of modern art history are analyzed. The problems of transformations of the artistic language, forms and means of expression of contemporary Ukrainian art are studied. It is proved that modern researchers comprehend the peculiarities of the development of Ukrainian art at the turn of the 20th — 21st centuries in the problem-chronological aspect, so the analysis of the development and renewal of contemporary visual arts, with the exception of some studies, is currently fragmentary and not very systematic. For the most part, the authors consider the creative search of individual artists in classical paradigms, transforming the methodology of analysis and interpretation of their works to the modern information context.

Changes in the themes, aesthetics and functions of public images in Kyiv due to the influence of socio-cultural processes in the society of 1990-2010

On the back of the rapid development in public art in recent decades, and in particular graffiti and muralism, interest in them has grown significantly among cultural studies scholars, art critics, architects, sociologists, and urban planners. Numerous works that have appeared in the West and in Ukraine are devoted to various aspects of the visual public art existence. This theme continues to be one of the most relevant for contemporary visual art. This article complements the bunch of acquired knowledge with a detailed study of the impact of socio-cultural processes in society on the changes that took place in monumental painting, graffiti and muralism in Kyiv during 1990–2010, i.e. during the most important changes in politics and society in recent decades. The peculiarities of each historical stage of this influence are analysed and outlined in the study, and the theoretical analysis is displayed by the description of the most characteristic works. Most of them are researched in detail. In addition, the process of decline of monumental painting in the late 1980s and early 1990s is analysed, the factors of graffiti flourishing in the 1990s are identified and highlighted, and the origins of the rapid development of muralism after 2004 and especially after 2014 are explored. At each stage, changes in the themes, aesthetics and functions of public images are traced. The definitions, such as muralism and graffiti, are updated in this paper, taking into account changes in art and the latest achievements in its analysis. The manifestations of the national-patriotic themes in the contemporary art of muralism are considered in detail, the classification of art work on this subject is given, the corresponding examples are given. Such concepts as public art, synthesis of arts, monumental painting, graffiti, muralism are attentively aligned. The study of the nature of the socio-cultural processes and visual arts correlations is promising for further scientific and theoretical developments and the practical aspect for better understanding of the specific works

O poder da videoarte e do cinema negros na arte contemporânea

This paper provides a critical framework to discuss the history of Black Film traditions in contemporary visual art. Since production of video art started in 1960, Black video and video performance artists had until now little visibility, were unrecognized and under-researched as they should have been. The paper aims to show the role of the Canadian video artists: Stan Douglas, Sylvia D. Hamilton, Michele Pearson Clarke; Brazilian artists: Ayrson Heraclito, Renata Felinto; and the South Africa Filmmaker and artist John Akomfrah; in redefining black identity. The works of these artists are very important to addressing black aesthetics in contemporary art films and video art in the present times of social change, black activism and Post-blackness philosophical movement. These artists discuss blackness, diversity, diaspora, and deconstruct a white Eurocentrism narrative and explores the complexity of the contemporary art scenes of Africa and video art of the Americas. This is of paramount importance to the role of black Films in the arts, as well as to decolonize artistic institutions, in addition to showing the importance of black video art and film. I will present a discourse on the works of the above mentioned artists, as they are engaged with political culture, and they make references in their oeuvre to African roots, race, gender, politics, society, and culture. These artists raise the social practice and contemporary issues for black people. It is important to emphasize their black video art contributes to this rise in the reshaping of black identity in art and in Film studies.

Zwischen logos und icon

In his contribution "Zwischen logos und icon. Gegenwartskunst als Anders-Ort der Theologie" (Between logos and icon. Contemporary art as other-place of theology) Ulrich Engel OP examines, starting from the iconic turn, the question what theology (which is primarily committed to the biblical WORD) can learn from IMAGES. Following Foucault's theory of heterotopias (other-places), the study focuses on works of contemporary visual art, which as other-places can expose and make visible hidden, overlooked, misunderstood mechanisms of exclusion. Four artistic positions (Pavel Büchler, Boris Mikhailov, Chris Martin, and Paloma Varga Weisz) are used to show how they cite Christian iconographic traditions and revisit them in a contemporary way. In the omissions and gaps that become apparent in these and structurally similar adaptations, de-emphasizations, and continuations, something appears that is already theologically inherent in the biblical prohibition of images. The Jewish prohibition of images is not an absolute one. For it reminds us that all positively painted images of God always need the theological negative sign, the aesthetic "empty space" in the image itself.

In Defence of Moderate Actual Intentionalism

The extent to which the artist’s intentions are a relevant consideration in the interpretation of art has long been the subject of critical debate. Initially, I outline the various interpretive positions which have been established, specifically focusing on the debate between hypothetical intentionalism and moderate actual intentionalism. Then I look at some previous test cases which have, as yet, failed to demonstrate a decisive victory for either side. Finally, I offer two new test cases, one from the field of contemporary visual art and the other from literary theory. I argue that the former serves to debunk hypothetical intentionalism and the latter lends support to the moderate actual intentionalist position.

A Little Give and Take: What Garneau’s Paintings Give When They Take, and Other Stories From Future Past

This article examines the possibilities related to conciliation that are closed, and those that might be opened, through Métis contemporary visual artist David Garneau’s paintings, Aboriginal Curatorial Collective Meeting and Aboriginal Advisory Circle Meeting. I argue that Garneau’s explicit and manifest exclusion of settlers and the colonial gaze on his paintings is also, at the same time and in actuality, a form of invitation into something else. To do this, I first briefly explore how thinkers have problematized settlers’ recognition of Indigenous knowledge, ways of knowing, and art. I then pose the question of what ought to be the normative limits around settlers’ access to Indigenous knowledge and spaces, using Garneau’s own written work about his paintings. I then bring several scholars into conversation around why certain spaces should remain exclusive, some or all of the time, to Indigenous peoples. Finally, I conclude by explaining how the existence of these spaces—and the communication of their existence—is a necessary and otherwise impossible step in the conciliation process. Indeed, I propose in this paper that to experience and confront our own limits to comprehension, as settlers, is a gift; that by creating and sharing his paintings with settlers, Garneau simultaneously reveals settlers’ exclusion from Indigenous spaces to ourselves and invites us into new imaginary spaces of conciliation—ones that are actually possible, because not predicated on an ongoing colonial system of power distribution, but instead on uncertainty, a condition of continued and active relatedness.

Understanding the Meaning and Symbols of Animals in Visual Artwork: A Case Study of Five Selected Works in the SI + SA 2020 Exhibition

Visual artwork is a platform to convey the meaning of the theme chosen in producing the work. However, it is difficult to understand the meaning through the symbols highlighted by the artist. Based on that situation the objective of this study is to collect information on visual artworks that apply animal symbols in the SI + SA 2020 exhibition. Five artists have been identified using animal symbols in the production of their artwork. This study is based on qualitative research approach using four types of data; namely the study of literature that explains the meaning and symbol of animals from the point of view of previous scientific writing. The second method is based on information obtained from the artist statement in the SI + SA 2020 Exhibition catalogue. The third method, the researcher interviewed (partially structured) five artists who have been selected using animal symbols in their artwork. The fourth method is to use the theory of Edmund Burke Feldman (1994) which has four stages in the theory, namely description, analysis, interpretation and evaluation. Triangulation (qualitative) studies are conducted to obtain more data and the validity of the findings obtained. The result shows an understanding of the meaning and symbol varies according to the needs of the individual or society. Some artists associate symbols in the context of personal experiences or observations of an event. Symbols can also carry meaning in the context of social sciences. In the production of their artworks, the use of symbols is a method to convey a message and an easier way to communicate. Conclusion clearly shows that the meaning of these animal symbols depends on different personal perceptions - different from the references studied. It can reveal to the general public that the use of animal symbols applied in the work can carry various meanings. Researchers suggest for future studies to conduct comprehensive research on the use of symbols in contemporary visual arts Malaysia.

‘The sacred gang’. The discourse of the ‘metaphysical macho guy culture (<i>patsanstvo</i>)’ in Russian song lyrics

The article considers one of the methods of identity creation in a song used by lyricists in the early 21st c.: it involves a combination of profane language typical of an urban outcast (patsan, gopnik) and metaphysical, i. e. sacred, themes. Enjoying numerous representations in contemporary Russian visual arts, the discourse of the ‘metaphysical macho guy culture (patsanstvo)’ is also inseparable from the country’s literary tradition, which, however, is trying to marginalise it yet again and confine it to a song format. Analysing the poetic output of several Russian-speaking musicians (E. Limonov, P. Korolenko, Branimir, M. Elizarov, etc.), the author identifies the key features of the discourse: its faux-playfulness, emblematic quality, and adherence to low culture. The article also proposes a genre typology of the discourse in question, noting its critical, humoristic and paradoxographical varieties. In the end, the author discovers that the image of a macho guy / urban outcast (patsan) confronted with a supernatural experience is heavily influenced by the sacral archetype, which absorbs the most extreme — the lowest and the loftiest — aspects of human experience.

Contemporary Art and Virtual Reality: New Conditions of Viewership

The article aims to respond to the lack of studies on the relationships between contemporary visual arts and VR, focusing on the role of “storytelling” and identifying what distinguishes VR art projects from other contemporary VR uses, namely their criticism of the VR medium itself. VR has developed a new language in the last five years, based on specific visual grammar and allowing new narration forms. Visual artists have been attracted to VR in search of new modes of production and expose the negative impact of technology in our perception of reality, or else the new mediated ways of seeing and distanced interaction with the world around us. The first part is dedicated to the discussion of Canadian artist Jon Rafman’s View of Pariser Platz (2016) and American artist Jordan Wolfson’s Real Violence (2017), two of the first Oculus Rift-based art installations to develop a metalinguistic commentary on how VR, although promising immersion, produces, in fact, alienation, homogenization, brutalization and the loss of empathy. The article continues with a discussion on the recent rise of tech companies aimed at the production of contemporary artworks based on VR technology: Acute Art (London), Khora Contemporary (Copenhagen), and VIVE Arts (Taiwan). This is a new expanding field that is changing the ontology of artmaking and redefining the artist's role, mainly in light of the cooperation with technicians and programmers.

Parallels in Development of Modern Painting and Enameling in China

This paper highlights trends in the development of contemporary visual art in China through a parallel analysis of two of its components: painting and enamel art. The focus of the research is on the work of artists whose works combine a ‘western’ style with ‘eastern’ tradition. It was found that in the 21st century, the layer of Chinese cultural heritage was successfully transformed into new forms of expression, such as art objects, enamel sculptures, brightly colored paintings and more. At the same time, it has preserved the symbolism of color, plasticity of lines, narrative and figurative components, which is typical of the centuries-old traditions of the Celestial Empire. Artistic analysis was carried out on specific pictorial and enamel examples, distinguishing common and distinctive features in the concepts of the artists and their embodiment in the material. The way in which contemporary art enters the urban space of megacities and the interior of public institutions was analyzed. In conclusion, it is emphasized that the combination of ‘traditional’ and ‘recent’ trends in one work help to rethink the role of classical images in today’s art, as well as to identify Chinese artists in the globalized intercultural space.

The Emergence of Creative Leaders Within Social Networks: The Case of Andy Warhol in the Art World of New York.

The creative leadership literature has identified personality traits, skills, states, and behaviours which are effective within creative contexts and organisations, but it is yet to address how creative leaders emerge from social networks. This conceptual paper delineates the processes of creative leader emergence within the context of contemporary visual arts. Using a relational view of creative leader emergence, this paper incorporates the leader emergence processes of achievement and ascription, and then adjusts them to the context of the art world. We argue that both competence and identity contribute to the status construction of creative leaders by enabling their emergence within social networks. In addition to the processes of leader prototypicality through which leaders emerge within groups, we also identify processes of leader atypicality through which creative leaders emerge within network structures. Finally, our conceptual analysis is illustrated by the case of Pop artist Andy Warhol, focusing on his emergence as a creative leader within the art world of New York and his art studio, the factory.

Digitalisation of Commercial Serigraphy in Ghana

The paper researched into the pattern of technological development in digital serigraphy in Ghana and factors that contributed to the development. Qualitative research approaches such as field study, purposive sampling, unstructured interview, observation, thematic and descriptive analysis were employed for the study. After data analysis, the findings revealed that, the art of screen printing was introduced to Gold Coast in the 1930s by Britain through formal art education and experimentation by local sign writers. The craft started as manual technology in the Gold Coast until Information Communication Technology was introduced in the 1980s which ushered in industrial and digital screen-printing technology in Ghana. The findings also revealed that, factors such as colonisation, globalisation, trans-continental trade, formal art education, pragmatism, competition in multi-party elections and good government policies contributed to the development of screen-printing technology in Ghana. Based on the findings, the paper inferred that screen printing is one of the contemporary Visual Arts introduced to Ghana by Britain in the 19th Century. It also concluded that the craft has gone through stages of technological developments from the Gold Coast to its present electronic status. Also, implementation of prudent economic policies by PNDC government between 1983 and 1992, globalisation, trans-continental trade, pragmatism and introduction of ICT in Ghana in the 1980s set the pace for development of the local industry to its current status.

AN URBAN WALKABOUT WITH CINDY SHERMAN'S PHOTOGRAPH, "UNTITLED #466, 2008”

In this article, the narrator of the story immerses herself in the interiority of a character depicted in a Cindy Sherman portrait on an art gallery wall. The narrator invites the character out of the photograph and immerses her in the pandemic-stricken city outside. In this way, the author engages with contemporary visual art while composing fictional text as literary art. Her encounter with the photograph becomes an aesthetic visual and literary investigation of art, text, and characterization set against the backdrop of the global COVID-19 crisis.

The artist as entrepreneur

We develop a theory of the supply side of art markets building on Kirzner’s understanding of entrepreneurship as alertness to profit opportunities. Whereas Kirzner’s entrepreneur is alert to the existence of resource misallocation, the artistic genius is alert to the opportunity of producing aesthetic value out of mundane objects and resources with no such value of their own. Our theory produces an important empirical implication: when market conditions are such that most art is “high art,” the artist will perform both functions, alertness to artistic value and alertness to profit opportunities. Instead, when most art is “low art,” the two functions will belong to distinct individuals. To substantiate our theoretical arguments, we discuss their relevance to the markets for paintings in Renaissance Italy and contemporary visual art.

Scented Scenographics and Olfactory Art: Making Sense of Scent in the Museum

In this article, I look at the meaning of scent as art, as exhibited artefact, and as an experience-heightening scenographic agent to create a multisensory whole in the museum. I discuss olfactory art, perfume exhibitions, and scented scenographics using fragrance as communication tools and highlighting the sense of smell as a key factor in the sensory and bodily communication of scented events. In the exhibition Art of Scent 1889–2012 (New York 2013), perfume was exhibited as artwork, stylistically compared to art history. The exhibition Perfume (London 2017) visualized the fragrances in scented scenographies where the stories conveyed by the perfumes where conceptualized. Belle Haleine. The Scent of Art (Basel 2015) exhibited olfactory artworks, among them the smell of fear. This is compared to scented scenographics at play in contemporary visual art at the Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art (GIBCA) 2019. Scent as a bearer of meaning in the museum is fundamentally about communicating through multiple senses – and creating interesting exhibitions. It also conveys, however, new aspects of culture and transforms our understanding of the meaning of scent.

Implementing new digital options in education/ occupational/ play/ art therapy as tools for self-knowledge, self-managements, self-esteem

IntroductionThe purpose of art in art-therfic version of the “Regu the already acquired knowledge upon the artistic material, but a discovery of the yet unknown. “Multimedia technology, which has evolved into meaningful visual representations, incorporates the science behind human perception and knowledge…Contemporary visual arts bring together, in different degrees of relationship and fusion, fields of art that until now were understood and practiced more individually. The most suitable territory for this partnership is that of the physical and metaphysical environment, provided by the installationist and shareholder arts.” [1].ObjectivesArt-based therapies, as nondirective methods, attempt to visualize past traumatic experiences and harmonize the individual with himself and with others.MethodsIn the preventive activities we include all activities involving nonverbal communication and holistic engagement. ”Beneficiaries can create their own images with which they want to interact, to arrange their environment…We experiment with art-specific ways to make interdisciplinary exchanges and cultural interferences using the universal language of visual arts along with intercultural elements and religious ecumenism … Sometimes, common themes with schools and higher education are addressed as an extra-curricular complement. Benefits are multiple, diverse and complex, appear on the paths that offer inter/pluri/transcultural learning opportunities and exchange of knowledge, making space and time connections between different cultures. [2]ResultsThe creative process and the interaction increases self esteem, courage, taking of risks, the learning of new skills.ConclusionsNew ideas, conceptions and ways of expression emerge, enriching the patient’s life according with the therapeutic purposes. [3].DisclosureREFERENCES [1]. Drăgan-Chirilă, Diana.(24-26.05 2018), Associate Professor Ph.D., University of Art and Design, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, visual artist, Coordinator of the multimedia installation “Diagnostique” new media and

Art therapy with children surviving cancer used to relieve symptoms associated with death, loss and pain

IntroductionSince dying is inevitable, it is part of life, children need to be able to deal with the feelings and emotions associated withs death, loss and pain. When the grieven child move among the art modalities, he or she is able to deepen understaning of his or her lived experiences.ObjectivesOur aim is to uncover these new perspectives and sources of inspiration in order to advance in defining the importance of resilience in personal development.MethodsWe made use of the following techniques: ceramic, drawing, modeling, painting, assemblage of unconventional materials, multimedia techniques, animation. Performing artworks, artefacts, or using craft arts are test activities for art therapy and occupational therapy. „…Contemporary visual arts bring together, in different degrees of relationship and fusion, fields of art that until now were understood and practiced more individually. The most suitable territory for this partnership is that of the physical and metaphysical environment, provided by the installationist and shareholder arts.” [2] A medical project was transformed into an artistic project [4]ResultsGiven the diversity of non-verbal communication of the child, art therapy is not a simple accessory method in the therapeutic process of emotional disorders caused by grief of children, but a mandatory condition of it.ConclusionsGiven the diversity of non-verbal communication of the child, art therapy is not a simple accessory method in the therapeutic process of emotional disorders caused by grief of children, but a mandatory condition of it.DisclosureREFERENCES [1] Drăgan-Chirilă, Diana.(24-26.05 2018), Associate Professor Ph.D., University of Art and Design Cluj-Napoca, Romania, visual artist, Coordinator of the multimedia installation “Diagnostique” new media and multimedia performance instal

Implementing new digital options in education/ occupational/ play/ art therapy as tools for self-knowledge, self-managements, self-esteem

IntroductionThe purpose of art in art-therapy, in this context, is not an exercise of the already acquired knowledge upon the artistic material, but a discovery of the yet unknown. “Multimedia technology, which has evolved into meaningful visual representations, incorporates the science behind human perception and knowledge…Contemporary visual arts bring together, in different degrees of relationship and fusion, fields of art that until now were understood and practiced more individually. The most suitable territory for this partnership is that of the physical and metaphysical environment, provided by the installationist and shareholder arts.” [1].ObjectivesArt-based therapies, as nondirective methods, attempt to visualize past traumatic experiences and harmonize the individual with himself and with others.MethodsIn the preventive activities we include all activities involving nonverbal communication and holistic engagement. ”Beneficiaries can create their own images with which they want to interact, to arrange their environment…We experiment with art-specific ways to make interdisciplinary exchanges and cultural interferences using the universal language of visual arts along with intercultural elements and religious ecumenism … Sometimes, common themes with schools and higher education are addressed as an extra-curricular complement. Benefits are multiple, diverse and complex, appear on the paths that offer inter/pluri/transcultural learning opportunities and exchange of knowledge, making space and time connections between different cultures. [2]ResultsThe creative process and the interaction increases self esteem, courage, taking of risks, the learning of new skills.ConclusionsNew ideas, conceptions and ways of expression emerge, enriching the patient’s life according with the therapeutic purposes. [3].DisclosureREFERENCES [1] Chirila, Emilia (2011), PhD Thesis, Educaţie artistică şi art-terapie cu mijloace specifice ceramicii [Artistic Education and Art-therapy within the Specific Means of Ceramics], University of Art and Design, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, p. 390