Work Of Other Artists Research Articles

Vladan Radovanovic's "syntheѕic art"

In the course of his artistic career, which has lasted for more than fifty years now, Vladan Radovanovic (b. Belgrade, 1932) has created works in the domains of electroacoustic music, mixed electronics, metamusic, visual arts artifugal projects, tactile art, literature, drawings of dreams, polymedial and vocovisual projects, as well as art theory. Central to his poetics is the theme of synthesic art. Based on a synthesis of the arts and a fusion of media, the flow of his opus disturbs the limitations of art. His synthesis of media-lines is neither a product of rational decision, nor is it inspired by the works of other artists. Its initial form appears in the mind of the artist as a sensation or a representation that emerges from sleep and dream or from his exploration of the mysteries of his inner being. In an attempt to create a classification of the arts that would suit his understanding of the nature of art, Radovanovic has suggested a basic division into single-media and multi-media arts. Single-media arts include music, poetry and painting, whereas the remaining arts belong to the multi-media group. The latter contains works created by an expansion of mixed forms such as theatre, opera and ballet, but in which the media involved accomplish greater integrity - mixedmedia (for example: happening, fluxus etc) multimedia (opera, film, environment) and intermedia (a term which possesses two meanings: a new media that is in-between media, or a new media in which all the elements are equal and integrated). Radovanovic prefers the second meaning, but he uses the term polymedia for such works. This term is analogous to polyphony, because Radovanovic has aimed to create a polymedia form in which separate media lines would be treated in counterpoint, in order to remain complementary and mutually dependant. In 1957, Radovanovic began to sketch his theoretical thesis, initiated by his concrete artistic output. Although he had distinguished his diverse artistic output according to formal and designative characteristics, later he subordinated his work to the term synthesis art. Synthesic art is, according to Radovanovic, one of the models of multi-medial arts. We have analyzed the works of Vladan Radovanovic, which do indeed belong to the category of synthesic art, on many levels. First of all we tried to locate his opus in the context of Serbian and European art. Radovanovic's avant-garde poetics was born in the context of Serbian art in the second half of the 20th century, which was dominated by 'moderate modernism'. His works did not fit into the existing world of art, and therefore were marginalized and underestimated. Despite his innovative spirit, hunger for novelty, and aim to transcend the materiality of materials, which are all characteristics of high-modern avant-garde poetics, Radovanovic claims autonomy. His latest works do not fit into the current world of art either, because he does not want to place his poetics in the domain of contemporary post-modern poetics and theories. His intentional evasion of fashionable currents is a product of his conscience, which asks that he remain faithful to himself and his inner artistic vision. Another theoretical challenge when addressing the works of this artist was to locate his synthesic art within the larger historical and contemporary manifestations of the total world of art, especially where his works compare with Richard Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk. Radovanovic believes that his concept of synthesic art is similar to Gesamtkunstwerk, but in no way equal. Therefore, we have examined all the controversies about the usage of the term Gesamtkunstwerk, as well as different theoretical approaches to this concept and its evolution; then, we have analyzed it in terms of the theoretical and practical realization of synthesic art. By formulating in detail his theory of synthesic art, Radovanovic has given us a key for the understanding and analysis of his works of art. For example, we have analyzed several of his earlier multi-media works (Dreams, vocovisual works Desert (Pustolina), Polyaedar, Ball, Change and Vocovisual omages, and polymedia projects Electrovideoaudio, Building of Rooms-Signs, The Great Sounding Tactyzone, Polim 2, Polim 3, video-work Variations for TV) as well as one of his latest synthesic works, Constellations, in order to describe the practical realization of his theory, and to demonstrate how his poetic model is equally precise and flexible. Radovanovic both realizes and recognizes his artistic output and theoretical thought as a united product as they were both created in his synthesic mind.

Critical Enquiry in Art in the Primary School

This article considers how primary teachers might introduce children to critical studies, in the light of an examination of recent developments in art theory, to show how these can inform our approach. It looks at the work of one teacher, Caron Ementon, to show how this relates to contemporary art theory. Thus, practice is contextualised within theory and vice versa. Some procedural principles are suggested which, in responding to developments in art theory, can provide an approach to critical enquiry that is educationally enriching. This approach can enable children to relate to the work of other artists in ways that are appropriate to their own level of development. It also lays the foundations for later learning, in terms of procedural knowledge both for interpreting art works, and, ultimately, for understanding that theory itself. Furthermore, the metacognitive dimension of critical enquiry, implicit both in the theory and the concomitant processes of learning described, opens up rich possibilities for developing critical thinking.

Opera, education and the role of arts organisations

This article describes three projects organised by the Royal Opera House Education Department between 1985 and 1997. Following the descriptions each project is analysed in terms of students, artists and teachers with a view to placing the work within an overall conceptual framework suggesting that arts education provides an interface between the professional work of artists and educational settings. It proposes that arts education can be most effective when students are encouraged to see themselves ‘as artists’ and by creating their own work they can then engage with the work of other artists, both living and from other generations.

"Change the Joke[r] and Slip the Yoke": Boal's "Joker" System in Ntozake Shange's for colored girls ... and spell #7

This paper examines the reinvention of Augusto Baal's “‘Joker' system," in which a central character acts as a master of ceremonies by inviting the audience to join in the action, in Ntozake Shange's for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf and spell #7. In these two plays and others, Shange creates unique dramatic forms that convey her activism and creative vision — a vision which receives much of its vigor from her reclamation of African-American and other indigenous ritual traditions. She brings to these traditions a New World sense of hybridity as she situates herself within the world that Africans and Native peoples in the Americas made. But for Shange, the hybridity, as reflected in her work, is not simply a careful sampling of the work of other artists of color in the Americas. When Shange "change[s] the joke[r] and slip[s] the yoke," to borrow Ralph Ellison's phrase, she speaks to her recognition of difference in the work of other artists of color, even as she posits a desire for community among them in the Americas. Shange's reinvention of Argentinian theorist Augusto Boal's "Joker" system, moreover, underscores the intertextuality inherent in any work by people of color.

Self-Similar Melodies

John Cage insinuates Nature, understood broadly, into music. Unlike late nineteenth-century composers, for example, Cage never merely depicts Nature with his music, but rather unfolds music in many ways from nature. Cage's Nature extends far beyond the wild, the savage or the pristine, beyond any mere antithesis to the urban or civilized; it embraces the whole of contingent experience, the world as what happens. The multiple radios of Imaginary Landspaces make audible the complexity of our radio-wave environment, including the various human productions transmitted thereby; Child of Tree uses sounds made by amplified plant materials. In Cheap Imitation, Empty Words and elsewhere, Cage makes new works by processing the works of other artists much as he processes star charts to make the notes of Etudes Australes.

Animated Sculptures: Figuration and Movement

If one takes the term 'Kinetic Art' in its broadest sense, my artwork can be described as part of the Kinetic Art movement, which implies the use of motion in visual art. In France, where I live, following the vogue of the 1960s, the definition of Kinetic Art came to embrace the idea of abstraction, geometricality and technology, associated with the work of artists such as Agam, Vasarely, Sch6ffer, Soto, etc. From the start, I have taken a different approach in my work. My first mobile objects, influenced by my earlier paintings, were puppet caricatures reminiscent of the work of Georg Grosz. At the same time (1967-1969) a number of artists, of which I was one, formed the group 'Automat' [1], whose name recalled the figurative automata of the 18th century. But the allusion stopped there. Figuration was more than just a starting point; it was a challenge. We did not want to fall into the trap of imitating the way living things and objects move in reality [2]. Today, I prefer to describe my works as 'animated sculptures'. The word 'animated', in its accepted double sense of 'moving' and 'alive', corresponds well to the meaning of my work, and would fit other experiments and the works of other artists. Actually, I prefer to use the word to describe a type of artwork rather than a style or tendency. In 1968, while I was cutting out the pieces for making flat, silhouette puppets, the idea came to me of chopping up puppet bodies into a series of slices or lamellae, like slices of bread or sausage, and then making each lamella move so as to impart an undulating motion to the entire body. These lamellae are undoubtedly the most characteristic element of my work. They constitute the anatomy of my sculptures. They are made of wood, transparent acrylic, polyvinylchloride (PVC) or, preferably, Bakelite paper, a heat-resistant material that can be made very thin, produces very little friction between the lamellae and can be fashioned with great precision. The thin lamellae oscillate, some more than others, each one slightly out of phase with the next, and are driven by an electrical mechanism which is hidden from the viewer's sight. The whole animated sculpture is enclosed in a wooden supporting box. In my static sculptures, particularly the large ones, there is a more marked displacement of the lamellae, superimposed like geological strata. In this way distortions and effects of spatial anamorphosis are produced. In immobile works, these breaks of continuity have a dynamizing effect, in contrast to the continuous oscillation of the lamellae in my animated works which produce a sense of rest.

Authentication of paintings by Ralph A. Blakelock through neutron activation autoradiography

Following his mental collapse at the end of the nineteenth century the paintings of Ralph A. Blakelock suddenly began to bring exceptionally high prices. Not surprisingly, therefore, many forgeries attributed to him were produced in the early twentieth century. In fact, some experts consider him to have been the most widely forged American painter. At Brookhaven National Laboratory a group of paintings attributed to him have been studied by thermal neutron activation autoradiography combined with solid state high resolution gamma-ray spectroscopy. Most of the paintings studied were of unquestioned authenticity coming from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Collection of Fine Art of the Smithsonian Institution, the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Nebraska, and two private collectors with well established histories of acquisition. These included paintings produced by Blakelock both before and after his breakdown. In general a number of characteristic consistencies in the types of pigments and media used and how they were employed in these paintings were revealed by the activation study. Of course, major differences exist between his early and later work. However, a lack of these characteristics and hidden overpainted details which are not revealed in conventional X-ray radiographs have provided evidence that two of the paintings attributed to Ralph Blakelock are the work of other artists. Some paintings of Blakelock's contemporaries George Inness and Albert Ryder have also been investigated.

Vermeer's Use of the Camera Obscura — A Comparative Study

Aspects of Johannes Vermeer's paintings have continued to puzzle critics ever since his rediscovery over a century ago because certain formal elements of his paintings are seldom if ever seen in the work of other artists. To some these elements appeared to be painted optical phenomena which suggested that Vermeer might have employed a camera obscura. P. T. A. Swillens, Vermeer's thorough biographer, learned very little through a lifetime of investigation about Vermeer's use of the instrument. In The Art Bulletin in 1964 Charles Seymour gave the results of experimentation he had performed which centered on characteristics of two small panels in the National Gallery in Washington, Girl with a Flute, and Girl with a Red Hat.1 After studying images formed by a camera obscura Mr. Seymour concluded that Vermeer had indeed used the instrument, “the dark chamber trained on the light-filled room.”2 Mr. Seymour termed his work “preliminary” and suggested that more research would be profitable. Subsequently, Heinric...