Modern and Contemporary Art

Anche in Storia della civiltà europea. Vol. 16 - il Novecento. Arti visive, pp. 104-108.

Dal mondo antico allʼinizio del terzo millennio: migliaia di saggi e oltre 10.000 immagini, un imponente corpus testuale e iconografico organizzato in periodi cronologici e in aree tematiche: storia, filosofia, arti visive, scienza e tecnologia, musica, letteratura e teatro, comunicazione. Unʼopera curata da Umberto Eco, che propone nuove modalità di esplorazione della storia e del sapere e che offre potenti strumenti capaci di intrecciare e collegare, grazie a percorsi dinamici, i personaggi, le idee e gli eventi che hanno formato la nostra cultura. Lʼidea di partenza di Umberto Eco è quella di realizzare unʼopera a carattere enciclopedico che aiuti ad avere il senso delle distanze storiche, a stabilire rapporti di contemporaneità tra eventi di natura diversa e che consenta di ricostruire fenomeni di lunga durata, dinamiche sociali e culturali, comportamenti della vita quotidiana. Il progetto della Storia della Civiltà Europea, nato nel 1993, antesignano di unʼeditoria multimediale di qualità, raggiunge solo il suo compimento editoriale e la sua maturità tecnologica, organizzando i propri contenuti in ogni formato disponibile per ogni tipo di pubblico.

Nel Novecento gli intrecci fra arte, politica, società hanno prodotto ribaltamenti, cancellazioni e rinascite di modelli artistici oscillanti fra la ricerca di un ordine nuovo e la fascinazione per l’irrazionale, fra l’assunzione dell’arte come strumento politico e il rigetto di ogni ideologia, fra la tensione a un’arte individuale e aristocratica o al contrario anonima e collettiva. Nella collisione di fine Ottocento fra tradizione e novità dirompenti cola a picco l’idea di continuità nella storia: il secolo si apre all’insegna della rottura e delle sperimentazioni più ardite in termini di linguaggio e di contenuti. Le avanguardie, tra cui si contano cubismo, espressionismo, futurismo, neoplasticismo e costruttivismo, alleate in un percorso di astrazione, tagliano traguardi che paiono senza ritorno: la cancellazione del soggetto, la forma come forma assoluta, la nuova preminenza del linguaggio, la negazione del racconto, l’esilio dei sentimenti, tutte conquiste che sanciscono il primato culturale dell’Europa. Finché nell’arco di alcuni decenni si verifica un capovolgimento di prospettiva col ritorno al figurativo e con lo spostamento del cuore culturale dall’Europa verso New York e Los Angeles, rimesso più tardi in discussione dall’emergere della nuova polarità dell’Asia. In questo ebook si possono trovare tutte le maggiori espressioni artistiche del Novecento, in cui l’ideale dell’arte subisce un progressivo spostamento verso il futuro, arrivando, nelle sue forme più estreme, a produrre un’arte internazionalista, senza radici e senza memoria, dotata di una lingua aniconica universale, che cancella i confini delle identità nazionali e si proietta nella realtà globalizzata.

La collection Arts & esthétique propose de remettre en circulation des textes courts - recueils d’articles, essais, entretiens, aphorismes ou fragments - qui éclairent des productions artistiques passées et présentes sans distinction de genre. Chacun des titres permet au lecteur de se situer au coeur d’un débat théorique dont l’enjeu est toujours une meilleure compréhension de l’art.

This study focuses on the artworks of artist-academic İlker Yardımcı. The perspective put forward in the study is built on the aesthetic status of the scientific and technological aspects of İlker Yardımcı's artwork. Based on this context, a research has been done on the relationships between art and science. Various examples have been given from the times when art and science were seen as a whole and did not dissociate, and the development and separation process of these two separate phenomena were approached from various angles. In this way, in the light of the information obtained from the research, an aesthetic understanding that is open to the effects of science and technology, combining technological possibilities with traditional structures has been tried to be determined. Through this way, the possibility of an aesthetic narration was opened on the situation in the sculptures of İlker Yardımcı. Thus, the traces of the aesthetics in these sculptures, including science, were deciphered.

Performance at Tate explores the history of performance art at Tate from the 1960s to 2016. Arising from a two-year AHRC-funded research project, this online publication offers a new appraisal of the place of performance art and performativity in the museum through essays and case studies on individual artworks and events. It also publishes for the first time audio, films and videos, photographs, museum documents and reviews drawn from Tate’s Archive.
**Link to full publication: http://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/performance-at-tate

This folio documents the exhibition RETURNS, curated by David Teh for the 12th Gwangju Biennale, 2018. The exhibition was conceived as a walk-in magazine, a lounge space in the Biennale Hall populated by a series of art historical vignettes mounted on large, moveable plywood displays. Each carried a story drawn from the first four editions of the biennale (1995-2002), informed by research in the Gwangju Biennale Foundation archives. The vignettes were also distributed for free as A3 cards, with designs by Ella Sutherland based on her analysis of printed matter from the early editions. This loose-leaf exhibition history has been bundled as a PDF folio for wider dissemination. Texts by David Teh, SooJin Lee & Grace Samboh. Design by Ella Sutherland. Special thanks to Han Jungsun and Cho Inho.

RESUMO: A iconologia do anjo, analisada à luz das reflexões de Walter Benjamin e de Jean-François Lyotard, leva-nos a investigar os efeitos de presença e a presentificação da ausência que essa figura gera nos diversos meios da criação artística.

ABSTRACT: The angel's iconology, in the light of Walter Benjamin and Jean-François Lyotard's reflections on this theme, leads us to analyse both the effects of presence and a presentification of the absence that this figure enables in various media of artistic creation.

This text investigates the intellectual legacy of "Hand and Eye Work", the first art-based curriculum officially introduced by the Gold Coast colonial government through the Educational Code of 1887. With a nod to Foucault's archaeological and genealogical methods, the text explores the Pestalozzian-Fröbelian diaspora of technical, manual and vocational training schemes including the German Gewerbeschule, the Scandinavian Slöjd system, the French metiers and the British Somerset House-South Kensington "manual training" system which inspired the Gold Coast "Hand and Eye" curriculum. The study finds parallels between the manual training curricula, pedagogical models and texts purveyed in America, India and pre-Union South Africa and other nodes of the Victorian Empire. The text argues that the "bread and butter" vocational focus of the Gold Coast colonial scheme displaced the more recondite and progressive features of the Pestalozzian-Fröbelian system which had inspired it. The programme became contrived, mechanistic, and embalmed in a frozen time-capsule. It remained firewalled against contemporaneous challenges cues and potentials extant in the heritage of African visual culture and Modern art alike until G. A. Stevens, a young graduate from the Slade School, and inspired by the Progressive Education movements in Europe became art master in the Government Training College and Achimota College respectively. Echoing his mentor Roger Fry's dictum to "get rid of all that South-Kensington nonsense", Stevens critiqued "Hand and Eye" training thus: "There was, and is, no provision for the training of taste, appreciation, criticism, or for the slightest perception of art history". This was the beginning of a revolution in Gold Coast art education.

English edition of the book on Emilio Tadini. The book revolves around the figure of the Italian artist and intellectual Emilio Tadini. A prolific painter and writer, Tadin still deserves to receive the broader recognition as a leading figure in Italian postwar and contemporary art and culture. The monograph especially focuses on a moment in Tadini's career, in which specific interests in reassessing the tenets of painting and investigating aspects of visuality through photography and painting emerged. In this respect, Tadini proves to be an outstanding figure in the expanded field of re-mediation, which was distinctive of the visual arts between the 1960s and 1970s.

Written for the Haystack Mountain School of Craft monograph series, this strategic meander sorts through various examples that affirm and defy the categories we use to organize art, craft, and design. Underlying concerns include the scope of referential histories, and the ability to shift our thinking in subtle ways.

Članak govori o Bijelom gradu, četvrti Tel Aviva s brojnim reprezentativnim primjerima građevina podignutih u stilu internacionalne moderne arhitekture u razdoblju između dva svjetska rata, a u povodu izložbe održane u Architekturzentrumu u Beču u prvoj polovini 2008.

Folding screens, known as byôbu in Japanese, are treasures within any museum’s collection and are beloved by the general public. This beautiful publication brings together the very finest screens from the world-renowned collections of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Saint Louis Art Museum. The featured works range from an extraordinary pair of landscapes by Sesson Shukei, a Zen-Buddhist monk-painter of the late 16th century, to daring contemporary works from the late 20th century.

The first half of the Edo period (1615–1868) is especially well represented, with a dozen screens from the 17th century by such masters as Kano Koi and Tosa Mitsuoki. The contemporary scene is also well covered, with ten examples from the 20th century—proving the longevity of this art form and its currency among modern-day artists. Enlightening essays by important scholars in the field cover topics like the emergence of screens as an art form and a novel discussion of the relationship of Japanese screens to those made in other countries.

Stanford University recently unveiled a new statue on its campus titled Hello by Xu Zhen's acclaimed artist. The bronze and stainless steel sculpture is a Greek column with a Corinthian cap, coiled like a snake. "The work fuses the classical Greek column shape and the snake's aggressive biological attitude to stimulate viewers' perception and experience of classic civilization," explains Stanford's official website. "The moment the viewer's eyes come across the Corinthian capital also represents a confrontation with the depth of history and culture. With the increasingly frequent blending and impacts among global civilizations, the work constitutes both a reality and a metaphor for encountering civilizations of different times and space." You can see the video for yourself. The link is https://youtu.be/npyk-G3-RSE

The third and fourth edition of eva-edition video art, dedicated to the THEORIES OF VIDEO ART is just issued: The comprehensive two volume-anthology provides an invaluable source for an interdisciplinary study of video, media- and contemporary art as well as the accompanying theories. It covers a generation of critical writing published between 1988-2018 and includes texts of 40 female authors, as well as 5 recent interviews.

Slavko Kacunko (Hg.)
THEORIEN DER VIDEOKUNST
Theoretikerinnen 1988–2003
eva - edition video art 3
(Hg. M. Odenbach, Y. Spielmann, S. Kacunko)
Logos Verlag Berlin 2018
ISBN 978-3-8325-4605-2
582 pages, German.
With 22 contributions from Edith Decker-Phillips, Inga Lemke, Karin Bruns, Claudia Richarz, Gerda Lampalzer, Christiane Fricke, Nicoletta Torcelli, Söke Dinkla, Annette Hünnekens, Claudia Rosiny, Ursula Frohne, Verena Kuni, Katharina Gsöllpointner, Yvonne Volkart, Barbara Engelbach, Barbara Büscher, Katja Albers, Lydia Haustein, Sabine Flach, Sabine Himmelsbach, Anja Osswald and Martina Dobbe.
The anthology includes an introduction by Slavko Kacunko and recent interviews with Gerda Lampalzer, Ursula Frohne and Lydia Haustein.

Slavko Kacunko (Hg.)
THEORIEN DER VIDEOKUNST
Theoretikerinnen 2004–2018
eva - edition video art 4
(Hg. M. Odenbach, Y. Spielmann, S. Kacunko)
Logos Verlag Berlin 2018
ISBN 978-3-8325-4606-9
406 pages, German.
With 19 contributions from Irene Schubiger, Änne Söll, Inke Arns, Katharina Gsöllpointner, Yvonne Spielmann, Katharina Ammann, Christiane Fricke, Sylvia Martin, Martina Dobbe, Sigrid Adorf, Stephanie Sarah Lauke, Kathrin Becker, Sabine Maria Schmidt, Katja Kwastek, Marion Thielebein, Anke Hervol, Tabea Lurk, Franziska Stöhr and Eva Wattolik.
The anthology includes recent interviews with Yvonne Spielmann and Kathrin Becker.

[German:]
Die dritte und vierte Ausgabe der eva-edition video art, herausgegeben von M. Odenbach, Y. Spielmann und S. Kacunko, versammeln Texte, die für die Theorie der Videokunst prägend sind und fortwährend inspirierend wirken. Die Anthologie enthält Beiträge von Autorinnen aus Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz, die seit Mitte der 1980er Jahre entstanden sind und den Begriff des Mediums Video bestimmen, erweitern, die spezifische Leistung der Videokunst deuten oder ihre Systematik und Historisierung versuchen. Es finden Texte Berücksichtigung, die den sich verändernden Gebrauch des Mediums reflektieren, seine (Un-)Spezifizität als Reflexionsmedium definieren und Video als Katalysator für die Theorie-bildung an den Schnittstellen zur Film-, Medien-, Internet-oder Performancekunst nutzen. Die beiden Sammelbände folgen entsprechend einem wissenschaftshistoriographischen In-teresse ebenso wie der Herausbildung von kunst-, medien-, performance-, geschlechts- und kulturtheoretischen Schwerpunkten der Videokunsttheorie.

Durante mucho tiempo el arte africano fue considerado como primitivo, resultado de lo instintivo, y sobre todo como refiriéndose a sí mismo con una magia y una fuerza interna. También lo podríamos llamar Art Brut próximo al arte de los 'primitivos', sean o no occidentales y sin formación artística. 'Art Brut, Jean Dubuffet's Revolution in art' también es el título de la exposición de las obras coleccionadas por Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985) en el Hermitage y Outsider Art Museum en Ámsterdam hasta el 25 de agosto. GRANDES CITAS S e puede una preguntar, ¿cómo se deben mirar las obras coleccionadas por Dubuffet justo después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial? No se trata aquí del arte de artistas africanos, aunque la exposición también muestra unas pinturas de un artista argelino y otras obras que tienen un 'aire africano', como el retrato de un soldado africano pintado por el artista francés Georges Roger. Las obras de estos artistas pertenecen al arte que desde los años setenta fue definido mundialmente como 'Outsider Art'. Esto quiere decir arte hecho fuera de los canales oficiales por autodidactas y también, muchas veces, por perturbados mentales. Dubuffet prefería el 'Art Brut' a las llamadas 'artes culturales', que según él se habían vuelto rutinarias. Se pregunta en el documental mostrado en la exposición si el oro en bruto sería más 'de mentira' Georges Roger. El chaouch (soldado argelino), c. 1945. Óleo s/cartón Art Brut. Primer poster Art Brut Galerie René Drouin

The extraterritorial space of the transit zone manages problems of human movement across international space by transforming the border from a two-dimensional doorway or hinge into an indeterminate volume in which effective state control and full territorial sovereignty can be subdivided. In this way, the
airport’s threshold compromises Westphalian territoriality in its strictest sense and yet the state, rather than relinquishing any of its power, actually enhances its ability to manage and survey the people traveling to and through its territory. The article draws on legal and social-scientific research into aviation, immigration, and criminal law; theoretical work on territoriality; and, most directly, the imaginative and speculative labor of British artist Mark Wallinger (b. 1959), whose video installation, Threshold to the Kingdom (1998), provides the article's titleand its major example.

Guglielmo Achille Cavellini (Brescia 1914 - 1990) costituì una delle più importanti collezioni italiane d'arte contemporanea; continuamente aggiornata ad iniziare dagli anni Cinquanta, dalle tendenze astratte europee fino  alla New York School (Kline, Tobey, Rauschenberg),  alla pop art italiana,  inglese e americana ( Warhol, Dine, Wesselmann) e agli esordi dell'Arte Povera italiana degli anni Settanta

Kotlomanov A.O. Twilight Biennale: Russian art life as if it mattered. Vestnik SPbSU. Arts, 2018, vol. 8, issue 2, pp. 320–324. (In Russian)
Котломанов А.О. Сумерки биеннале: российская художественная жизнь, как если бы она имела значение // Вестник СПбГУ. Искусствоведение. 2018. Т. 8. Вып. 2. С. 320–324.

SAVIO, S.M. Interseccions between Art and Archtechture- Study of Case - Olafur
Eliasson.2015. 183 f. Dissertação (Mestrado) - Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo,
Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2015.
The reflection about the experience of space and its folding about construction
and its physical spaces, on the limit between Art and Architecture, it was the purpose
of this research. The presentation of the Danish artist work, OlafurEliassoncreating an
overview of the study of space that the Artist has been carrying out since 1990.It is
installations of Art, which seeks a sensorial space, provocation of the visitor’s sense to
produce an experience of space. Because of the theoretical basis mentioned
frequently by the Artist and its artistic and architectural references, it is necessary one
chapter of understanding the theory of Eliasson’s masterpieces. Starting from the
contact with his artworks, narrowing the theme was defined around the aspects of
light and movement on the perception of space, where it highlights the references of
the Artist on History of Modern Art- The Kinetic Movement and the Group
Light&Space. The configured-triangle between the principle figures of these three
moments- Lászlo Moholy-Nagy, James Turrell and OlafurEliasson–serves as the access
to the repertory of the Danish Artist and it justifies the research not being focused on a
series of other notorious references of Eliasson. This thesis is divided, then, in three
chapters - the Presentation, the Understanding of the Theory and the Artworks of
Eliasson–in which the relationship is established on the examples of the artworks
commented. The tangle of theoretical references found on books of Eliasson has
consequences on the miscellaneous of Chapter 2. From the concepts clarified, terms
used by the Artist, on which artwork commented. On the analysis of two expositions
that occurred on the 2000 years, Take Your Time and Weather Project, it is better
understood his vocabulary and conceptual intentions applied on physical space. The
relevance of multiple researches of OlafurEliasson, which put him on the boarder of
Art and Science includes also the philosophical knowledge and its collaborators, such
as the curator Daniel Birnbaum, and culminates on the experiment of space on the
installations, on the participation of the public.
Keywords: Contemporary Art, Architecture, Art Exhibition.

My new book from Thames & Hudson. Published in early 2019. Currently translated into Korean, Chinese, Turkish, and Russian.....

'Seven Keys to Modern Art' is intended for anyone interested in modern and contemporary art. This means it is a resource for all who visit art galleries and museums and who want to dig a little deeper. It could also be useful for specialists – students of art history and fine art or even the professional artist, for example. I have discovered that it is enlightening to approach one’s own practice according to the Seven Keys presented here, because it can help achieve some  sceptical distance, without closing down creative options.

20 works are discussed according to the same 'seven keys'. These are the conventional modes of existence of each work, from the point of view of interpretation. Before each of these keys there is a short introductory overview outlining why a specific work is important, then the Seven Keys are presented in an order that seems appropriate for the work under discussion. Afterwards, there are two further categories, Further Viewing and Further Reading, to help exploration.  The seven keys converge on the same object – a single work of art – but they choose to see different things. On occasion, they are also clearly incompatible, in that the point of view promoted in one is ignored, contradicted or even denigrated in another. Inevitably, some of the keys will be more enlightening than others in relation to the specific character of the work they discuss, and this is reflected in the different running orders in which the keys are presented. But this order is fairly arbitrary, and the keys could be arranged in other ways.

The Gallery at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar is very pleased to present the work of Manar al-Muftah as part of the annual series Qatar Now. Curated by Donald Early, Halim Choueiry and Jochen Sokoly

The Qatar Now series features the work of emerging and established Qatari artists and designers. A graphic designer by profession, Manar al-Muftah is also a graduate of VCUQatar.

It is the first time that The Gallery is featuring the work of an alumna in a solo exhibition at The Gallery.

The posthuman summons up a complex of both tangible challenges for humanity and a potential shift to a larger, more comprehensive historical perspective on humankind. In this article we will first examine the posthuman in relation to the macro-historical framework of the Anthropocene. Adopting key notions from complexity theory, we argue that the earlier counter-figures of environmental catastrophe (Anthropocene entropy) and corporeal enhancement (transhuman negentropy) should be juxtaposed and blended. Furthermore, we argue for the relevance of a comprehensive aesthetical perspective in a discussion of posthuman challenges. Whereas popular visual culture and many novels illustrate posthuman dilemmas (e.g. the superhero’s oscillation between superhuman and human) in a respect for humanist naturalist norms, avant-garde art performs a posthuman alienation of the earlier negentropic centres of art, a problematization of the human body and mind, that is structurally equivalent to the en...

Kondor was an apostle of flying: a group of about hundred works in the oeuvre deals with a certain topic from the long history of flight and flying machines. From ornithopters, which imitated the flight of birds, and the figure of Louis Blériot, who was the first to cross the English Channel, to the landing on the Moon, he created a wide range of works that reflected on the beautiful and frightening idea of conquering gravity. The study argues that there were three substantially different approaches, and they can be mapped onto three roughly consequent periods of Kondor’s career: (1) Images of tradition: in the early period, flight was associated with mythological stories, the history of flight, and the history of art (for example, works related to Icarus, Leonardo, or Blériot). (2) Images of destruction: from around the mid-1960s, Kondor  began to depict horrifying accidents and frightening machines. In the second, middle phase of his art, destruction prevailed in flight-related themes. Not independently from his childhood experiences, these works are dominated by war catastrophes, flight accidents, and military aircraft. (3) Images of construction: in parallel with the rapid development of astronautics and airliner’s technology, the last phase of Kondor’s art became more constructive. He produced small airplane models, created photo series using these models, and illustrated science fiction. These artworks were influenced by the new, flight-related visual language found in contemporary popular media.

Devices promising to manage stress, sleep disorders and give relief from “exhausting” daily life are nothing new. Pinhole glasses with black perforated lenses, also known as stenopeic glasses, have been sold since the1950s with claims to improve eyesight and“relax tired eyes.” More advanced devices entered the market following the growing amount of data and digitalization. […] But tools like these don’t belong exclusively to the realm of gadgetry. There is, in fact,a parallel history of devices designed to“relieve” overactive minds, a history made less of products than dystopian design projects, sound compositions, and multimedia environments conceived since the 1960s by artists and designers speculating on the lysergicproperties of technology.

Many of the collections that form the core of the museums in the United States were assembled by women. While much literature looks at female collectors’ individual lives in-depth, few compare collectors through a steady narrative. To do so would enhance the historical understanding of women who built collections during the turn of the twentieth century, as their bonds with one another were vital to their collecting practices. In my paper, I explore women collector’s friendships during this period through two case studies: the relationship between Etta Cone and Gertrude Stein, and the friendship between Abby Aldrich Rockefeller and gallerist Edith Gregor Halpert. It is my aim to give a fuller and more accurate picture of the lives of these women, as well as the social forces that influenced them and the collections they left behind.
I base my studies on a close reading of letters and artwork exchanged between these four women. I compare these with the work of contemporary scholars in analyzing women art collectors, as well as changes in the social roles that women occupied in early 1900s America. These collectors can be looked at as byproducts of the society they lived in and the people they interacted with. Friendship is so integral to these women’s collecting practices that they cannot be thought of as individuals independently shaping American culture, but rather, as a network of women whose friendship and communication created a formidable force in the artistic holdings of the United States.

It is the body that allows us to be physically situated in the world, and to combine internal and external resources effortlessly and fluidly. 'Embodied' approaches in psychology, phenomenology and art emphasise the role of the body in constituting thought, even highly abstract thought. I review the  relevant literature and evaluate its importance for our understanding of modern and contemporary art.