Conceptual Artwork Research Articles

How deep is your art: An experimental study on the limits of artistic understanding in a single-task, single-modality neural network.

Computational modeling of artwork meaning is complex and difficult. This is because art interpretation is multidimensional and highly subjective. This paper experimentally investigated the degree to which a state-of-the-art Deep Convolutional Neural Network (DCNN), a popular Machine Learning approach, can correctly distinguish modern conceptual art work into the galleries devised by art curators. Two hypotheses were proposed to state that the DCNN model uses Exhibited Properties for classification, like shape and color, but not Non-Exhibited Properties, such as historical context and artist intention. The two hypotheses were experimentally validated using a methodology designed for this purpose. VGG-11 DCNN pre-trained on ImageNet dataset and discriminatively fine-tuned was trained on handcrafted datasets designed from real-world conceptual photography galleries. Experimental results supported the two hypotheses showing that the DCNN model ignores Non-Exhibited Properties and uses only Exhibited Properties for artwork classification. This work points to current DCNN limitations, which should be addressed by future DNN models.

Blind Game: An Interactive Installation About How We Can Exorcise Memories of a Visual Disability

In this paper, we recover an interactive artwork developed by one of the authors to provide possible ways of inserting the playful and artistic perspective into augmented human studies. In this way, a perspective based on play and interactive digital fiction can inspire us to look at other ways of using digital technologies that focus on improving human capabilities. The interactive installation Blind Game brings us a personal, visual, and playful perspective of a person who, at the age of three years, was diagnosed with amblyopia, revealing the subjective world of the character P.. Created in 2001, this installation was an interactive conceptual artwork developed by a young artist who wanted to exorcise the memories of her diagnosis of amblyopia and the tensions caused by the political instability in her home country. Through interaction and playful strategies, the artist sought to abstract herself from the reality around her, reorganizing her subjective relationship with visual impairment and the political tensions of a transition period between a dictatorial government and a democratic one.

Nonprofit Poetry: Lewis MacAdams and the Art of Environmental Bureaucracy

Abstract Poet Lewis MacAdams is widely regarded as a founder of the movement to restore the Los Angeles River, a 51-mile concrete drainage channel that once served as the region’s primary water source. His nonprofit organization Friends of the Los Angeles River (FoLAR) began as a one-off performance art piece in 1985. Scholars in urban planning and geography have addressed FoLAR as a case study for grassroots environmentalism, but little attention has been paid to the interplay between poetry and politics in MacAdams’s work. Given that MacAdams described FoLAR as a “forty-year artwork to bring the Los Angeles River back to life,” it is worth entertaining the quixotic premise that a nonprofit could double as a conceptual artwork or performance poem. If we consider his literary efforts in conversation with his activism, the premise seems less far-fetched. In this essay, I trace MacAdams’s path from the New York School to the poets’ enclave of Bolinas, California, in the 1970s to the concrete banks of the Los Angeles River. I argue that he devised political-poetic strategies to intervene in planning bureaucracies and that FoLAR should be understood as a durational utopian experiment, pursuing transformative possibilities from within dispiriting everyday conditions.

The Comparison of the Effectiveness and Efficiency of Fine-Tuning Models on Stable Diffusion in Creating Concept Art

This research aims to overcome the limitations of the Stable Diffusion model in creating conceptual works of art, focusing on problem identification, research objectives, methodology and research results. Even though Stable Diffusion has been recognized as the best model, especially in the context of creating conceptual artwork, there is still a need to simplify the process of creating concept art and find the most suitable generative model. This research used three methods: Latent Diffusion Model, Dreambooth: fine-tuning Model, and Stable Diffusion. The research results show that the Dreambooth model produces a more real and realistic painting style, while Textual Inversion tends towards a fantasy and cartoonist style. Although the effectiveness of both is relatively high, with minimal differences, the Dreambooth model is proven to be more effective based on the consistency of FID, PSNR, and visual perception scores. The Dreambooth model is more efficient in training time, even though it requires more memory, while the inference time for both is relatively similar. This research makes a significant contribution to the development of artificial intelligence in the creative industries, opens up opportunities to improve the use of generative models in creating conceptual works of art, and can potentially drive positive change in the use of artificial intelligence in the creative industries more broadly.

The impact of technology development upon art essence intricacy on arts: The perspective of art practitioners in Malaysia

This paper presents and discusses the relative issues of the development of modern technology that directly impact the creation of artwork. The artistic value has always been argued and discussed as the era changes occasionally. The artistic world has again learned the value of integrating and applying technology to artists' artworks. The technology enforcement, in alignment with the demands of the new generations, kept contextual and conceptual artworks secondary. This paper will elaborate on the relationship between technological applications and artworks' impact. As the digital era shifted rapidly, more advanced technological applications were valued more than conceptual value. Art appreciation has become more tangible rather than elaborate. Thus, it is important to simulate a conceptual framework to understand the phenomenon properly. Multiple understandings of the theory of the development of technological implications support the conceptual framework. This study conducted exploratory research by collecting primary data through a focus group interview with Fine Artists, Graphic Artists, and Hybrid Artists in an open session and discussing by elaborating on the topics mentioned. An underlying understanding of the conceptual framework has been achieved, and a new conceptual framework has been developed. This paper is limited to the technological implications of the value of artworks and the artist's experience. The advanced conceptual framework of the Art Intricacy Performance Model will define artwork to recognise the proper understanding of its value and direction.

Melting the Archive: The Irreconcilable Cover Song and Rock’s Recorded History

Abstract In this article, I consider a set of curious cases from the world of rock music: putative “cover versions” that differ from their corresponding canonical tracks to such an extent that it seems doubtful whether they even count as performances of the same songs. Though I address the ontological question of how or whether these tracks could be classified as actual cover songs, in this paper I am more concerned with the evaluative question of how we should attempt to appreciate them as such (as we are invited to do, I argue, according to the recordings’ metatextual cues). I will argue that these irreconcilable covers, as I call them, are best appreciated as conceptual artworks that function in a manner somewhat analogous to how Arthur Danto argues that Andy Warhol’s famed Brillo Box sculptures function; prompting us to reflect on the nature of art (and non-art). Through adopting a strategy that is, in some respects, the inverse of Warhol’s, these covers make a similar invitation to listeners to consider the nature of rock covers and covering practices, and to reflect on the stances that we—listeners and artists alike—might take in relation to rock’s past and its ever-available recorded archive.

In Defence of the Acquaintance Principle in Aesthetics

AbstractMaking an adequate aesthetic judgment about an object or an aesthetic property requires first-hand experience of that object or property. Many have suggested that this principle is a valid epistemic norm in the epistemology of the aesthetic. However, some recent philosophers have argued that certain works of conceptual art and other counterexamples disprove the principle in question, even suitably modified. In this paper, I argue that these philosophers are mistaken and that, when properly qualified, the acquaintance principle (in some of its versions) is not threatened by their examples and arguments.

Judging Abstract Expressionist and Conceptual Artworks under Different Information Conditions

Abstract Verbal information presented alongside artworks affects how they are judged and experienced, with diverse effects depending on aspects like information type and artistic style. The aim of the present studies was to explore the effect of different types of information (image only, short label, descriptive text, and interpretive text) on a range of responses to abstract expressionist and conceptual artworks, including aesthetic and epistemic emotions, judgments of understanding, and artistic value. Interpretive texts had positive effects on appraised ability to understand, epistemic emotions, and artistic value judgments, while descriptive texts affected aesthetic emotions. Artistic style was only relevant for the effect on epistemic emotions. Additionally, viewing times were shorter for images presented after texts. Overall, results suggest that different types of information might relate to different facets of the aesthetic experience.

The Neglected Place of “Totems” in Contemporary Art

The religious nature of Joseph Beuys’ works was ignored or intentionally avoided by mainstream criticism since his artistic practice was ridiculed for its potential spirituality. It is argued that Beuys’ works are work meditations on the issues of potential ego in totemic art, which are frequent topics of theological concern. For example, what is the nature of our consciousness after death, and how does it relate to the consciousness of others? Beuys’ conceptual artworks reveal his engagement with the “witchcraft etiquette” of totemic art and his exploration of theological questions such as the relation between human consciousness and divinity, the role of sacrifice and resurrection, and the meaning of self-awareness. In other words, we can draw inspiration from the theological theories of Alfred North Whitehead and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel to examine Beuys’ choice of conceptual art through the lens of his deep self-consciousness of totem worship. In general, Beuys’ works pose an important question: how can we awaken our chaotic consciousness to new or forgotten sprouts which may rejuvenate our existence in the world?

Metaphor and the Material Object in Moscow Conceptualism

Discussions of conceptual art both East and West have focused on the notion of “dematerialization” of the artwork and the substitution of “art as idea” for concrete works of art. Yet such an approach oversimplifies the role of materiality in works of conceptual art generally and underestimates the transformative role of the concrete object in early Moscow conceptualism in particular. An examination of the Nest, an influential group of artists active from 1974 to 1979, as well as other analytical conceptualists who highlighted materiality in their unofficial art practice suggests that their use of concrete objects and realized metaphors revolutionized late-Soviet unofficial art, moving it from an outdated modernist model of artistic autonomy to a more dynamic and engaged postmodernism. Their previously underappreciated contribution to the evolution of global conceptualism expands our picture of the movement as a whole and provides needed context for late-Soviet art and the post-Soviet period that followed.

Performing reparative history in the Andes: Travesti methods and Ch’ixi subjectivities

This article explores the Travesti Museum of Peru, a portable and conceptual artwork created by Giuseppe Campuzano that presents Peruvian history through queer, trans, and Indigenous perspectives. It argues that this project is reparative by way of bringing Andean genders and sexualities back into history as a form of anti-colonial and queer politics. This research uses Andean modes of analysis to describe the Travesti Museum as a trans-temporal archive and practice of travestismo in both its form and content. In this text, travesti performance is defined as a mnemonic strategy while situating the Travesti Museum within the contexts of Andean performance repertoires, discussions of class and race, as well as within the history of colonial refusal – arguing that Campuzano’s methods interrupt Western assumptions about the archive. It brings together the ideas of Campuzano and Bolivian sociologist Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui in an effort to highlight critical concepts from the Andes that are informed though embodied methods of thinking through history and resistance, resulting in a reading of radical Andean intimacy. The article concludes that the Travesti Museum can be used to analyze how the body relates to ideas of history, and as a tool to learn how we could write history starting with an embodiment of collective memory.

Our Cherished Moments of Involuntary Realism: Charles Harrison, Modernism, and Art Writing

In May 1969, Charles Harrison reviewed Morris Louis’ exhibition at the Waddington Galleries in London. Months later, he helped to install the exhibition When Attitudes Become Form at the Institute of Contemporary Arts. Harrison also wrote the catalogue text, published in Studio International. Those two texts marked a significant point in Harrison’s career. They were indicative of his disillusionment with modernist criticism, and of his burgeoning interest in the work of post-minimal and conceptual art. In this respect, the two essays mark a transition from modernism to post-modernism in the space between a formalist analysis of the art object and a more dispersed field of artistic practice, where a changed relationship between art practice, criticism, and curating was taking place. However, in the 2000s, Harrison came to reflect upon this cardinal moment. Harrison referred to his recollected experiences of the late 1960s as a ‘cherished moment of involuntary realism’, opening up issues around art writing which remain pertinent to the practice of art history.

The Contemporary Art of the Nature Morte in the Age of Artificial Life Forms: The Metafictional Illusion of Life in Installation Art and Jeanette Winterson’s Frankissstein

Observing the artistic response to the illusional nature of artificial life forms in the field of installation art, contemporary writers often allude to conceptual artworks through ekphrastic means to “grasp the texture of the contemporary real” (Virilio 4) in a technologically “transformative moment” (Boxall 4). A “reality hunger” for the contemporary brings together a “burgeoning group of interrelated […] artists in a multitude of forms of media” (Shields 3) to experiment new forms across disciplines through ekphrasis, which “strikes to explode” the “stuffed package” of a culture “containable with its shaped word” (Krieger 233). In her essay “Art Objects” (1995), Jeanette Winterson shows her interest in contemporary conceptual art as she writes that “the true artist is interested in the art object as an art process” and establishing a connection to the future instead of being interested in the final product (12). Her definition of art coincides with that of conceptual art as it seeks to analyse “the ideas underlying the creation and reception of art” (Shanken 433), and thus takes on the framework of the meta-critical process from conceptual art with “the use of scientific concepts and technological media both to question their prescribed applications and to create new aesthetic models” (Shanken 434). Deriving from the artistic landscape of conceptual installation art and its interactions with science, Winterson borrows the subject of the nature morte and the metafictional framework to address the clashes between artificial life forms and the human civilisation by alluding to artworks such as those of Damien Hirst in her novel Frankissstein (2019) when writing about cryonic bodies: “It’s a little like an art installation in here isn’t it? Have you seen Damien Hirst’s pickled shark in a tank?” (106). Based on the interdisciplinary interrelations between installation art and contemporary literature, this paper will read the dialogue between Winterson’s ekphrastic subject of the nature morte in Frankissstein and contemporary installation art, including works of Hirst, Cai Guo-Qiang, and Guillaume Paris, as a response to the rise of artificial life forms with respect to their metafictional and illusional nature as AI will become “fully self-designing” (Winterson 73).

The Great Gatsby: A Graphic Novel AdaptationNick: A NovelEl gran GatsbyStepping Out with Scott and Zelda: Touring the Fitzgeralds’ Montgomery

The Great Gatsby: A Graphic Novel AdaptationNick: A NovelEl gran GatsbyStepping Out with Scott and Zelda: Touring the Fitzgeralds’ Montgomery

MODERN UKRAINIAN PHOTO BOOK AS AN OBJECT OF CONCEPTUAL ART OF POSTMODERNISM

Purpose. The purpose of the study is to identify the features of modern Ukrainian photo books, which have become a striking example of following the trends of postmodern art. Methodology. The study is based on the integrated use of historical, comparative methods, systems analysis, synthesis, generalization. Results. The modern Ukrainian photo book is considered as a work of conceptual art of postmodernism. Certain artistic and compositional features and design techniques of Ukranian photobooks are identified; originality of form; author's presentation of textual, content and visual components of the indoor unit: inclusion of ready-made images (ready-made) and photo manipulation, use of collages, photos of utilitarian objects, etc. Scientific novelty. On the example of art history analysis of a number of well-known Ukrainian photobooks, the characteristic features of the photobook as an object of modern conceptual art is determined, the features of figurative, stylistic, artistic and compositional design solutions are systematized. Practical significance. The artistic and compositional features and design techniques used by photographers in the implementation of creative ideas have been identified, the theoretical basis of modern conceptual art have been expanded that can be useful in future creative projects of photobooks that will have both artistic and commercial value.

On tags and conceptual street art

The starting point of this paper is two views. On the one hand, two general claims about street art: first, that all works of street art are subversive (see, e.g., Bacharach 2015; 2018; Chackal 2016; Baldini 2015; 2016; 2017; 2018; Willard 2016), second, that works of street art are the result of acts of self-expression (Riggle 2016). On the other hand, a much more specific view about certain contemporary tags produced, roughly, over the past twenty years: those tags are artworks, even though they are not presented, mainly, for appreciation of aesthetic properties grounded in their perceptual properties, because they are works of conceptual street art (see Lewisohn 2010; JAK 2012). The key question of the paper concerns “very early tags” (VETs) – the extremely simple, unadorned tags that first appeared in the late 1960s and that some scholars consider as the historical predecessors of the various practices that today we group under the category “street art” (see, e.g., Young 2014; Gastman et al. 2015): should we regard VETs as artworks? On the one hand, VETs writers tend to answer this question in the negative. On the other hand, already in the early 1970s, artists and intellectuals such as Norman Mailer and Gordon Matta-Clark seemed to believe that it was appropriate to regard both VETs and later tags as art, although they didn’t defend this claim with argument. The view that some contemporary tags that are not presented, mainly, for appreciation of their aesthetic properties might be candidates for appreciation as works of conceptual art suggests a strategy for assessing the issue of whether VETs are candidates for art appreciation: can we defend the claim that the extremely simple, unadorned VETs were presented for appreciation as works of conceptual street art? I argue that we have good reasons to hold this view.

Extension of Avant-Garde Practices towards New Media: Possible Theoretical Readings of Documentary Art Film Segunda Vez

The subject of this analysis is the 94-minute documentary art film Segunda Vez (Second Time Around, 2018) by contemporary Spanish artist Dora Garcia, whose script consists of six separate sections arranged in an authentic narrative whole. The content of the film material is constructed on the basis of a complex theoretical and practical exploration of archival material and the original writings of the Argentine avant-garde theorist Oscar Masotta who devoted significant work questioning the societal and artistic context of the Happening in the 1960s, as a marginal counterpoint to the avant-garde developments that deviated from the cultural norms of Western civilization. Garcia's work represents a complex intertextual network of historical, literary, and philosophical data that encompasses the sensory aspect of the viewer's perception, creating a coherent film unit in which the author uses the mechanisms of narration to create a conceptual artwork. The main goal of this research is to provide a theoretical basis for analysis through narratology, editing as a conceptual tool, and final reading according to semiotics, in order to interpret artistic language as a possible domain for absorbing the experiences of art in extension. Article received: April 21, 2020; Article accepted: July 1, 2020; Published online: April 15, 2021; Original scholarly paper

4′33″, Ideas, and Medium in Appreciating Conceptual Art

How does John Cage’s conceptual work <em>4′33"</em> communicate its meaning and how can we appreciate it? In this paper, I develop two competing interpretations to tackle these questions. First, drawing on Peter Goldie and Elisabeth Schellekens’s account of conceptual art (‘conceptualism’) and on Cage’s commentary on <em>4′33"</em>, I elaborate an overlooked idea that the work creates a new art form of conceptual music, which can be appreciated exclusively through the ideas it conveys. However, I argue that the conceptualist interpretation of <em>4′33"</em> does not help us understand the work’s point, because it reveals a set of inconsistent claims about music and listening. The second interpretation draws on Julian Dodd’s view that the physical medium is irreducible in appreciating conceptual artworks (‘experientialism’). I develop this view by introducing a notion of a gesture to expand on how the performance of <em>4′33"</em> contributes to its aesthetic appreciation and propose an alternative interpretation of the work’s meaning.

Искусство второй половины XX — начала XXI веков как визуальная философия

Introduction. The article is focused on studying the area of intersection of contemporary art and philosophy, it is a continuation of the research project on conceptual art and its intersection with philosophy, which we started earlier. By conceptual art, we mean art aimed at intellectual comprehen- sion of what has been seen, art that appeals to thinking and generates philosophical meanings. But if earlier we explored conceptual cinema and mainly visual art of the early 20 th century, then in this article we want to turn to the visual art of the second half of the 20 th century — the beginning of the 21 st century, which is also called contemporary art by art critics. The empirical material of the study was the works of such contemporary artists as E. Warhol, D. Koons, D. Hirst, J. Ono, F. Bacon, I. Kabakov, D. Kos- suth, the movement of “new realists” and photo- realists, the movement of Moscow conceptualists and etc. Contemporary art is one of the ways of understanding the world, visual philosophy, which is of interest for philosophical understanding. The purpose of the article is to conduct a philo- sophical analysis of visual art of the second half of the 20 th — early 21 st I centuries in order to identify its philosophical sources and content. Methods. The author uses the following gen- eral scientific methods: analysis and synthesis, induction, deduction, abstraction. When analyzing works of conceptual art, we use hermeneutic and phenomenological methods, a semiotic approach. We also use the symbolic-contextual method of analyzing exhibition concepts, which is based on identifying the philosophical meanings and ideas of exhibitions of contemporary art. Scientific novelty of the study. We regard con- temporary art as a visual philosophy. Philosophiz- ing, in our opinion, can exist in various forms and forms from everyday practical (the so-called naive philosophizing) to artistic-figurative, that is, visual. Philosophical ideas or concepts are born not only from professional thinkers, but also from artists. The artistic concepts of contemporary artists are similar to the concepts of philosophers, since the goal of both is to cognize the world and grasp be- ing. We find and describe the area of intersection of modern philosophy and contemporary art, each of which is in a situation of crisis separately and continuous dialogue together. Results. In the course of our research, we identify and describe the philosophical origins of visual art in the second half of the twentieth century - early twenty-first century: postmodern philosophical consciousness, conceptualism, the idea of “death of the author” and “death of art”, simulacrum, kitsch and camp, the method of deconstruction and its application in modern art. Conclusions. Visual art of the second half of the 20 th century — early 21 st century is a visual form of philosophical questioning about the essence of art itself, about the existence of a person and be- ing in general. The works of contemporary artists are based on philosophical problems: meaning, speech and meaning, the ratio of the rational and the irrational, the problem of abandonment and loneliness of a person, the problem of the “death of the author” and the alienation of the creator from his work, the idea of the impossibility of objective knowledge of reality.

„Времето“ като аспект в творбата (избрани примери от полско концептуално изкуство, собствени и студентски творби)

Attempting to visualize concept of “time” has a great tradition in contemporary art, in particular in conceptual art in the 20th century. The starting point for that consideration are conceptual activities in Polish contemporary art and their influence on the didactic program of teaching photography – the topics and selections taken for the visual structure of the work. Discussion on the example of selected works of Polish conceptual art of the 20th century, including the effects of the didactic process of the Photography and Multimedia Activities Studio that I run at the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź. As a part of research and didactic observations, for many years students have been given the task of creating a visual work that shows the passage of time. The selection of photographic pictures and the method of working should be treated as an attempt to create a personal commentary on the surrounding reality. Students are choosing a theme, planning and recording over for a long period of time, for example a few weeks or months, the natural variability of the motif with particular emphasis on the type of light resulting from the time of day and the environment. The collections are presented in the form of a slide show, and the rhythm of the appearing photographs can be variable, consciously used as an additional artistic element. In the initial phase, the students discuss the selected issue and chosen artistic convention, while the technique and artistic form are free. In my own artistic work, too, the aspect of the “time” is an important factor. In many art works and art projects it is an important semantic element. Years later, I return to the same themes or places to reinterpret them and relate to the past. It concerns both the topic, issues and the composition of the visual implementation. Examples of artistic projects implemented over many years are cycles regarding the identity of the home city, for example “Postcards from Łódź”, “genius_lodzi” or “The Origin”.