The Presence of Words in Visual Art from Surrealism to Conceptualism

Without a doubt, one of the biggest changes that affected XXth century art is the introduction of words into paintings and, in more recent years, in installations. For centuries, if words were part of a visual composition, they functioned as reference; strictly speaking, they were used as a guideline for a better perception of the subject represented. With the developments of the XXth century, words became a very important part of the visual composition, and sometimes embodied the composition itself. About this topic, American art critic and collector Russell Bowman wrote an interesting article called Words and images: A persistent paradox, in which he examines the American and the European art of the XXth century in almost its entirety, dividing it up in six “categories of intention”. The aforementioned categories are not based on the art history timeline, but on the role that language played for specific artists or movements. Taking inspiration from Bowman's article, this paper is structured in three chapters, respectively: words in juxtaposition and free association, words as means of exploration of language structures, and words as means for political and personal messages. The purpose of this paper is therefore to reflect on the role of language in contemporary art and on the way it has changed from artist to artist.

Creating Beautiful Art: Challenging Comfort

Creating Beautiful Art: Challenging Comfort investigates the notion of beauty and its relationship to art while asking what is and can be art. Throughout the work, research supports the concept of beauty elevating art even with the use of atypical, unconventional, or mundane materials. Direct attention is given to this idea by completion of a Creative Capstone Project. I incorporated aesthetics with unconventional materials in order to challenge viewing comfort, as well as added value to the existing body of knowledge concerning beauty in contemporary art. The reflective section summarizes the importance of unconventional materials creating beauty in art in order to progress itself linearly by creating and reinventing the new.

L'art chinois /

Includes bibliographical references.

The effects of Chinese painting appreciation education on the artistic achievement of junior high school students in Taiwan

For the Chinese, fine art is one of the most important items in human life. The goals of fine arts education enhance the student so that s/he can make reasonable judgments about work, gain knowledge of color and understand the process of designing environmental layouts. Related technique and creativity training are offered students in accordance with individual differences and social expectations.^ Traditionally, Taiwan's junior high school fine art program teaches mainly painting technique. The Ministry of Education in Taiwan determines the curriculum of junior high school fine art education. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of teaching Chinese painting appreciation on the artistic achievements of junior high school students in Taiwan. The subjects were seventh grade students who had never learned Chinese painting before. Two classes were randomly chosen from each target school and were designated as the experimental or control group. Instruction in all groups was delivered by the researcher himself. At the end of the study, data about subjects' related knowledge, creative technique, and feeling toward Chinese painting were systematically collected and analyzed.^ The result of the study was that students in the experimental group were more motivated to learn Chinese painting than were the students in the control group. Students in the experimental group made better progress in the development of creative skill, had better critical ability, and demonstrated better performance in Chinese painting form, set up, stroke and color of related knowledge than did students in the control group. It was therefore concluded that Chinese painting appreciation education can promote better artistic achievement and that this approach should be used in other areas of art education. ^

Pedem referens: art historical memory and the analogue in the work of Tacita Dean, Jeremy Millar and Lucy Skaer

This thesis explores the new art historical turn in contemporary art through close engagement with three British artworks. These are Tacita Dean’s, Section Cinema (Homage to Marcel Broodthaers), 2002, Jeremy Millar’s, The Man Who Looked Back, 2010, and Lucy Skaer’s, Leonora, 2006. Each of these artworks combines an art historical agenda with a celebration of the specificities of analogue film and photography in the context of our digital age. This thesis combines twentieth century photographic theory from Roland Barthes, André Bazin and Walter Benjamin, among others, with the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan in order to argue that the indexical qualities of analogue film and photography place the medium in close proximity to the Lacanian Real. In its obsolescence the analogue’s language of both touch and loss is heightened. Each chapter of this thesis explores a different aspect of the Real in relation to specific attributes of the analogue, such as its propensity for archiving cultural traumas, its receptiveness to chance, and its proximity to death.

Publics, visibilité et reconnaissance en art contemporain : étude du cas de Ai Weiwei

Pour respecter les droits d’auteur, la version électronique de ce mémoire a été dépouillée de certains documents visuels et audio-visuels. La version intégrale du mémoire a été déposée au Service de la gestion des documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Unsettling Histories: Representation and Indigenous Creative Art Praxis in Official Indian Residential School Redress

This dissertation offers an investigation of the role of visual strategies, art, and representation in reconciling Indian Residential School history in Canada. This research builds upon theories of biopolitics, settler colonialism, and race to examine the project of redress and reconciliation as nation and identity building strategies engaged in the ongoing structural invasion of settler colonialism. It considers the key policy moments and expressions of the federal government—from RCAP to the IRSSA and subsequent apology—as well as the visual discourse of reconciliation as it works through archival photography, institutional branding, and commissioned works. These articulations are read alongside the creative and critical work of Indigenous artists and knowledge producers working within and outside of hegemonic structures on the topics of Indian Residential School history and redress. In particular the works of Jeff Thomas, Adrian Stimson, Krista Belle Stewart, Christi Belcourt, Luke Marston, Peter Morin, and Carey Newman are discussed in this dissertation. These works must be understood in relationship to the normative discourse of reconciliation as a legitimizing mechanism of settler colonial hegemony. Beyond the binary of cooptation and autonomous resistance, these works demonstrate the complexity of representing Indigeneity: as an ongoing site of settler colonial encounter and simultaneously the forum for the willful refusal of contingency or containment.

AUTO-RUINS. Thinks about automobile into the contemporary landscape

The article analyses the evolution of the representation of the automobile inserted in the natural and urban environment in the Contemporary Art, from the appearance of the first cars in the beginning of the 20th century until the present day. The text compares the diverse attitudes and analysis of some representative artists who have used the image of the machine in general and the car in particular in their aesthetic discourse, using as a conductive thread the metaphor of the life cycle (birth, growth, feeding, reproduction and death). It deals with the discovery, the development and the coexistence between human and the automobile and its interpretation as a basic element of the artistic work. The text connects the image of the automobile located in the contemporary industrial landscape utilizing the artist references who have integrated the car in their work inside the natural or artificial environment characteristic of each moment. At the same time, the article goes deeply into the relationship of romantic ruin and natural landscape and the evolution of the industrial and architectural modern environment, through the work of the artists who has used the car as an inhabitant of the landscape.

A visual and contextual comparative study of the work of Picasso and Chanel towards an understanding of the overlaps between Modern Art and Fashion.

From the beginning of the twentieth century, ``Modernism`` impacted and transformed art and clothing. Pablo Picasso and Gabrielle ``Coco`` Chanel were two of the most central characters in Modernism working simultaneously in their disciplines. Picasso`s innovations, particularly in abstract art and Chanel`s fashion designs, that dramatically departed from the previous corseted and highly deco-rative styles, were so significant that they have left an influence on contemporary art and fashion. This study will compare their visual works and documented evidence of their motivations, within the context of their cultural backgrounds, to reveal meaning in the occurrences of overlaps. This approach has ex-amined the historical, cultural background of the artist and designer`s environment from different per-spectives, adding to previous research in this area. Through this research, outcomes of the analysis have shown similarities and divergences in the wider genres of art and fashion and the practice of the artist and fashion designer. The reference list to this text, used in the survey, gives a comprehensive overview of pertinent publications disseminating Picasso and Chanel`s visual works, oral perspectives and cultural impact.

Art-Map: concept of moving curatorial project and its practical realization in Aveiro

In this dissertation, I present the results of a project which aim was to find out and try an effective model of independent curatorial project executable in small and medium cities in Portugal. The concept of Moving Curatorial Project ARTMAP is a result of theoretical research and reflection about municipal exhibition spaces and possibility of presentation of the contemporary art in these spaces. To test if this curatorial project is realizable and if there are conditions to continue it, a first trial was implemented in Aveiro. A curated international exhibition, entitled “A Poética do Visual" occupied two municipal and two private gallery spaces and brought together 111 artists from 25 different countries. The art event was carried out in collaboration with the Municipality of Aveiro and the University of Aveiro, and involved several private cultural spaces in the city. This first experience showed that there are all conditions for the presentation of contemporary art in small and medium size locations in Portugal, and for this project to be replicated in other regions of the country.

Publics, visibilité et reconnaissance en art contemporain : étude du cas de Ai Weiwei

Pour respecter les droits d’auteur, la version électronique de ce mémoire a été dépouillée de certains documents visuels et audio-visuels. La version intégrale du mémoire a été déposée au Service de la gestion des documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Autour des nouvelles valorisations des collections permanentes au musée : le cas de l'exposition Encounters : New Art from Old

Dans le cadre de la célébration du nouveau millénaire, la National Gallery de Londres a organisé l'exposition Encounters: New Art from Old (14 juin - 17 septembre 2000). La formule consistait à inviter vingt-cinq artistes contemporains à choisir une œuvre de la collection permanente du musée et à s'en inspirer afin d'en créer une nouvelle. Certaines des œuvres produites pour l’occasion ont été exposées près de leurs sources dans les salles historiques de la collection du musée. Ce mémoire examine comment la formule de cette exposition et son accrochage anachronique agissent de façon directe sur la temporalité de la collection historique en invitant à sa réactualisation, et à la mise en valeur de la création. Il situe cette formule dans le cadre d’un regain d’intérêt pour les collections, décortique la sélection des artistes par le musée et la sélection des œuvres de la collection par les artistes. Il propose aussi une classification des modalités par lesquelles ceux-ci ré-interprètent la tradition. Enfin, en s’appuyant sur la théorie de la réception, ce mémoire considère les réponses générées par l’exposition : celles des artistes aux œuvres de leurs prédécesseurs, celles des critiques et celles du public.

Autour des nouvelles valorisations des collections permanentes au musée : le cas de l'exposition Encounters : New Art from Old

Dans le cadre de la célébration du nouveau millénaire, la National Gallery de Londres a organisé l'exposition Encounters: New Art from Old (14 juin - 17 septembre 2000). La formule consistait à inviter vingt-cinq artistes contemporains à choisir une œuvre de la collection permanente du musée et à s'en inspirer afin d'en créer une nouvelle. Certaines des œuvres produites pour l’occasion ont été exposées près de leurs sources dans les salles historiques de la collection du musée. Ce mémoire examine comment la formule de cette exposition et son accrochage anachronique agissent de façon directe sur la temporalité de la collection historique en invitant à sa réactualisation, et à la mise en valeur de la création. Il situe cette formule dans le cadre d’un regain d’intérêt pour les collections, décortique la sélection des artistes par le musée et la sélection des œuvres de la collection par les artistes. Il propose aussi une classification des modalités par lesquelles ceux-ci ré-interprètent la tradition. Enfin, en s’appuyant sur la théorie de la réception, ce mémoire considère les réponses générées par l’exposition : celles des artistes aux œuvres de leurs prédécesseurs, celles des critiques et celles du public.

Monomanias - auto-narrativas e auto-ficções: estudo sobre as manias do eu como sintoma civilizacional e seu reflexo nas artes plásticas : Monomanias - auto narratives and auto-fictions: study on the manias of the self as a civilizational symptom and their reflection in contemporay art

A palavra monomania provém do grego monos que se traduz por "um" e mania que significa "mania". O emprego do termo em psiquiatria deve-se a Esquirol e mais tarde a Pierre Janet. Contudo, o uso da palavra não se circunscreve ao campo da psiquiatria, o conceito de monomania é também usado para definir as denominadas "manias do eu". Nos dias de hoje, a subjectividade, a particularidade de cada indivíduo apartou-se da noção de Homem como um todo objectivo. A massificação gerou a sociedade do narcisismo. A World Wide Web permitiu ao sujeito dar a conhecer ao mundo a sua individualidade. O sujeito é livre de se mostrar, de se fazer ouvir, de contar as suas histórias e principalmente a sua própria. À semelhança do nosso quotidiano, podemos encontrar na arte contemporânea propostas artísticas que se prendem com o conceito de monomania, como o exemplo das mitologias individuais, auto-narrativas e auto-ficções de Sophie Calle: "de vivre sa vie pour faire ceuvre et de faire ceuvre pour vivre sa vie." ABSTRACT: Etymologically, "monomania" originates from the Greek words "monos" and "mania". The former refers to the notion of "one" and the latter to "mania". The term's introduction in the field of psychiatry is attributed first to Esquirol and later Pierre Janet. Usage of the word isn’t, however, exclusive to psychiatric jargon: the concept of monomania is also used to define so called "manias of the self’. Today, the subjectivity and specificity of each individual have distanced themselves from the notion of Man as an objective whole. Massification has led to a society of narcissism. The World Wide Web has allowed the subject to make her individuality known to the world at large. The subject is free to exhibit herself, make herself heard, tell her stories, and especially her own. ln a way similar to daily life, we find agendas in contemporary art that approach the concept of monomania, such as the personal mythologies, self-narratives and selffictions of Sophie Calle: "de vivre sa vie pour faire oeuvre et de faire oeuvre pour vivre sa vie."