Art for architecture's sake?

The Architecture, Disciplinarity and the Arts symposium was organised by the Architecture. Theory, Criticism and History (ATCH) research group at the University of Queensland, run by John Macarthur and Antony Moulis, together with Andrew Leach who joined them last year and organised much of the symposium. The symposium ran for three days in a small room at the Institute of Modern Art (IMA) in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane (generously donated by director Robert Leonard), with about 40 people in attendance. Together with a long question time of an hour after every three speakers, the size of the room and the small number of people made it very different from most architecture or design conferences. The intellectual level of the symposium was high, without the speed dating aspect that one often sees at the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand (SAHANZ) meetings, where endless parallel sessions of short papers create an occasionally disorientating cacophony of words. The symposium was deliberately, unapologetically academic and the intimate nature of the forum made the discussion rich and collaborative, with an active audience. The title of the symposium, 'Architecture, Disciplinarity and the Arts', reflects the connection that already exists between the art history and the architectural history community in Brisbane, with both groups regularly attending each other's functions.

Art, popular culture and cultural policy: variations on a theme of John Carey

The article presents a criticism of the accounts of John Carey in his book entitled "The Intellectuals and the Masses." The author focuses on Carey's argument that the art is not an eternal category but an invention of the late eighteenth century and it no longer has any intellectual legitimacy other than that of provoking feelings which are no more and no less valuable than those provoked by any other form of entertainment or physical activity

Rephrasing voice : art, practice-led research and the limits and sites of articulacy

While my PhD is practice-led research, it is my contention that such an inquiry cannot develop as long as it tries to emulate other models of research. I assert that practice-led research needs to account for an epistemological unknown or uncertainty central to the practice of art. By focusing on what I call the artist's 'voice,' I will show how this 'voice' is comprised of a dual motivation—'articulate' representation and 'inarticulate' affect—which do not even necessarily derive from the artist. Through an analysis of art-historical precedents, critical literature (the work of Jean-François Lyotard and Andrew Benjamin, the critical methods of philosophy, phenomenology and psychoanalysis) as well as of my own painting and digital arts practice, I aim to demonstrate how this unknown or uncertain aspect of artistic inquiry can be mapped. It is my contention that practice-led research needs to address and account for this dualistic 'voice' in order to more comprehensively articulate its unique contribution to research culture.

The story of the sixties...a pile-up on the freeway of advanced art

When does 1960s art begin and end? Certainly, aside from a few affinities, the decade’s artistic output does not exactly correspond to its popular conception as the ‘Swinging Sixties’. While it was rare that psychedelic art was truly challenging, the decade saw a number of perceptions change regarding the aims, boundaries and possibilities of experiencing art. Thus, this era has come to represent a watershed or crisis in modernist art. While in the Australian context many of these nascent trends were properly realised in the 1970s – with the full force and impact of post-object art – other challenges were first articulated in the 1950s. So, like any other demarcation of a decade, its limits and boundaries are porous.

Confronting consensus : the art and politics of Christopher Howlett

The article discusses the art career and works of Brisbane artist Christopher Howlett. Howlett has engaged with a number of political issues in a range of media. Issues include the artist as 'labourer', art in the age of tabloid media, art and celebrity culture in media such as performance, installation, sound works, and digital frameworks.

"What is contemporary art? A review of two books by Terry Smith'

What is contemporary art and what are the key components of contemporary culture? This review demonstrates where Terry Smith provides important answers to this question. The books thus help to improve understanding of how art has changed in recent decades and how a global culture now shapes its parameters. This review does not however concur that Smith provides a convincing case for a complete cultural paradigm transformation.

Worldly feelings made material : cosmopolitan aesthetics, affect and recent relational art

The openness and compassion implicit in the social transaction of recent philosophies of cosmopolitanism is reflected in the aims of the body of interpersonal, process-driven artworks commonly referred to as relational art. In attempting to bring art into life, specifically as a point of intervention in the lives of its spectators, the affective power required to realize the communal and participatory aims of many of these artworks is central. Relational art practices invite the individualising distinctiveness of the spectator yet ultimately seek the collective affect of the artwork’s formulated community. Like cosmopolitanism, this is a felt community where the obligatory affective investment is imagined as open and empathic built on mutual exchange and generosity. They suggest that it doesn’t matter so much what we feel about art but what and how we feel through art. The artworld’s public spheres have become increasingly affective worlds, where the artwork’s coerced and managed human relations are conceived as interstices for a more open exchange with art and each other. With reference to Sydney Biennale’s recent All My Relations exhibition, this paper will interrogate how worldly feelings are made material by the requisite emotional and aesthetic labour of feeling for and with others in relational art.

Activism, art and social practice : a case study using Jacques Ranciere’s framework for analysis

The question can no longer just be whether “art and social practice” or creative forms of activism are part of larger neo liberal agenda nor if they are potentially radical in their conception, delivery or consumption. The question also becomes: what are the effects of social practice art and design for the artists, institutions, and the publics they elicit in public and private spaces; that is, how can we consider such artworks differently? I argue the dilution of social practices’ potentially radical interventions into cultural processes and their absorption into larger neo liberal agendas limits how, as Jacques Rancière might argue, they can intervene in the “distribution of the sensible.” I will use a case study example from The Center for Tactical Magic, an artist group from the San Francisco Bay Area.

Art and science as creative catalysts

Science, Art and Science Art collaborations are generally presented and understood in terms of their products. We argue that the process of Science art can be a significant, even principal benefit of these collaborations, even though it may be largely invisible to anyone other than the collaborators. Hosting the Centenary of Canberra Science Art Commission at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has shown us that while Science and Art pursue orthogonal dimensions of creativity and innovation, collaborators can combine these directions to access new areas of imagination and ideas.

Art museums and the global tourist: Experience centres in experience-scapes

In the experience economy, the role of art museums has evolved so as to cater to global cultural tourists. These institutions were traditionally dedicated to didactic functions, and served cognoscenti with elite cultural tastes that were aligned with the avant-garde’s autonomous stance towards mass culture. In a post-avant-garde era however museums have focused on appealing to a broad clientele that often has little or no knowledge of historical or contemporary art. Many of these tourists want art to provide entertaining and novel experiences, rather than receiving pedagogical ‘training’. In response, art museums are turning into ‘experience venues’ and are being informed by ideas associated with new museology, as well as business approaches like Customer Experience Management. This has led to the provision of populist entertainment modes, such as blockbuster exhibitions, participatory art events, jazz nights, and wine tasting, and reveals that such museums recognize that today’s cultural tourist is part of an increasingly diverse and populous demographic, which shares many languages and value systems. As art museums have shifted attention to global tourists, they have come to play a greater role in gentrification projects and cultural precincts. The art museum now seems ideally suited to tourist-centric environments that offer a variety of immersive sensory experiences and combine museums (often designed by star-architects), international hotels, restaurants, high-end shopping zones, and other leisure forums. These include sites such as Port Maravilha urban waterfront development in Rio de Janiero, the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart, and the Chateau La Coste winery and hotel complex in Provence. It can be argued that in a global experience economy, art museums have become experience centres in experience-scapes. This paper will examine the nature of the tourist experience in relation to the new art museum, and the latter’s increasingly important role in attracting tourists to urban and regional cultural precincts.

Cosmopolitan tendencies in recent intersubjective art

This thesis uses cultural studies approaches to ask in what ways can intersubjective art act on the disparities brought about by late capitalism through the auspices of cosmopolitanism? How do the same processes that oppress others allow the artist to be mobile and self-reflexive while accruing and deploying a broad range of knowledges and competencies? The answer is paradoxical: those oppressed by the processes of late capitalism become the focus, theme, and content of the intersubjective artwork while the artists benefit from a system they seek to problematise and critique. Three case study chapters highlight these complex and disconcerting politics.

Art museums and the global tourist: Experience centers in experiencescapes

Art museums are playing an important role is attracting cultural tourists to global cities and regions. Traditionally, art museums were primarily known for their didactic role. In a post-avant-garde era however museums are more focused on appealing to a broader clientele that want art to be novel and entertaining. Art museums have also come to play a greater role in gentrification projects and cultural precincts. This is because they are ideally suited for tourist-centric environments that offer a variety of immersive sensory experiences, and combine museums (often designed by star-architects), international hotels, restaurants, high-end shopping zones, and other leisure platforms. These "experiencescapes" include Port Maravilha urban waterfront development in Rio de Janiero, the Shanghai Bund, and the Broad project in Los Angeles. The Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart Australia is a boutique player in the global market for experiencescapes. It is smaller than many of its competitors and is situated in a remote part of the world, yet it has made an important contribution to Tasmania’s tourism industry.

Critical reckonings : Global art and art history after the West and Eurocentrism

Review of Paul Wood (2013), Western Art and the Wider World. Wiley-Blackwell : Chichester, United Kingdom.