Art Terminology

The Contemporary Framework

The Contemporary Framework Contemporary Framework The Contemporary Framework is used to examine an artwork, irrespective of when it was created, in the context of contemporary art ideas and issues. For the purpose of this study contemporary art ideas and issues are those originating in the late twentieth century onwards. With a focus on current ideas and issues, students should consider the following questions: •  How have contemporary art ideas and issues challenged traditional understandings of

artworks and their significance? •  How does the choice or presentation of subject matter or medium, materials and

techniques reflect or challenge artistic or social traditions? •  What is the impact of dynamic media applications and other emerging art forms on the

viewer such as video, digital, projection, installation, interactive, street art, sound and performance art?

•  How do these art forms differ from traditional ideas of viewing and experiencing object-based art in museums and galleries?

•  How might artworks of the past take on new or different meanings, in the context of contemporary ideas and issues?

The Contemporary Framework: ways to write about this Framework

When thinking about addressing the Contemporary Framework try the following: •  If the artwork is ‘traditional’ and not from a recent era: •  look for ways in which the artist’s work was radical in his/her own time . Look at the example of

Caspar David Friedrich in the following slides. •  look for ways in which we, in the early 21st Century, might ‘read’ the message of the artwork

differently compared to viewers of the artist’s own time. See the example of Tintoretto in the following slides.

•  If the artwork is contemporary in the sense that it was created after 1970: •  look at the media and materials that the artist has used and look for ways in which these media and

materials challenge traditional ideas about art. Compared to traditional painting or sculpture, how is the artwork non-traditional? For example, the use of recent technologies such as film, video, installation, performance, or computers. Or, look for non-traditional media, such as concrete in sculpture, or spray cans in painting.

•  look for non-traditional presentations of artworks (in terms of location), such as street art (see example of Banksy in the following slides) or other non-traditional sites, such as Rachel Whiteread’s sculpture in the following slides.

•  look for ways in which we are challenged to view the artwork in different ways. For example, much contemporary art demands that we walk around or through it, or that we view it over time, and demands that we think about it and give meaning to it by drawing on our own lives and experiences. Contemporary artworks often ask us to create our own meanings for them, rather than the artwork giving away its meaning easily.

The Contemporary Framework, examples: Banksy

Banksy, Let them Eat Crack, cnr. Broadway & Howard, SoHo, New York

The Contemporary Framework, examples, Banksy continued: •  How have contemporary art ideas and issues challenged

traditional understandings of artworks and their significance?

•  How does the choice or presentation of subject matter or medium, materials and techniques reflect or challenge artistic or social traditions?

•  How do these art forms differ from traditional ideas of viewing and experiencing object-based art in museums and galleries?

Banksy’s artwork challenges traditional understandings of artworks and traditional ideas about the viewing and presentation of artworks by: •  The artwork is placed on the wall of a building in a city street, thus it challenges the tradition of

displaying art in a gallery.: •  It challenges the perceived elitism of art as something that can only be seen in the refined

atmosphere of an art gallery. Banksy’s art is on the street and is available to everyone. This is part of its impact; that it has maximum exposure to a broad audience, so that its message is conveyed to as many people as possible.

•  It challenges the traditional power of the galley system that connects art with money. Banksy’s art is free.

•  It challenges the traditional power of the art gallery over the artist himself. Banksy works outside the gallery system and takes control of the production and display of his own work.

continued next slide …

•  The methods and processes used to create this artwork challenge traditional ideas about how an artwork is produced: •  Banksy did not produce this artwork himself, but employed an advertising company, Colossal

Media, to transfer his original design onto the wall of the building. This challenges the traditional idea of the artist as the sole creator of an artwork.

•  As well as hiring Colossal Media to execute the work, Banksy also hired the space on the side of the building on which it was painted, as would be the process for any advertising billboard. The methods and techniques used to produce it were ‘commercial’ rather than traditionally ‘artistic’.

•  The scale of the artwork is ‘industrial’; it fills the side of a three-storey building.

•  The style of the artwork is more that of a political cartoon than of traditional art. Its sole purpose is to comment on the World Financial Crisis of 2008. “Aesthetics” aren’t really important. For example, there is no ‘background’ and no frame in which to create a context or ‘composition’ for the subject; the artwork is ‘just’ a picture on a wall. Banksy also employs humour as a vital means of making this artwork accessible to a wide viewing public. This humour is also more a trait of a cartoon than an artwork. This artwork challenges ideas about what art is or what it should be. Is it art ,or cartoon, or political commentary? Is there a difference? Does it matter?

•  This artwork was transitory. It lasted about a month before it was painted over. This challenges the

traditional idea that should be permanent.

The Contemporary Framework, examples, Banksy continued:

The Contemporary Framework, examples: Rachel Whiteread

Rachel Whiteread, House, sculpture (cast concrete in the shape of a full size, three-storey terrace house), London, 1993. This artwork is a full sized cast, in concrete, of the interior of a London terrace house. The rest of the houses in the street had been demolished in readiness for a new building project. Whiteread cast her sculpture in situ, 193 Grove Road, East London. In describing the process of creating this sculpture, the artist said: ‘I was fascinated by the personal environment of the people who had previously lived in the house and documented it all before I destroyed it. It was like exploring the inside of a body, removing its vital organs...”. House remained in Gove Rd East London for about 4 months until the local council demolished it, against the artist’s wishes.

•  How have contemporary art ideas and issues challenged traditional understandings of artworks and their significance?

•  How does the choice or presentation of subject matter or medium, materials and techniques reflect or challenge artistic or social traditions?

•  How do these art forms differ from traditional ideas of viewing and experiencing object-based art in museums and galleries?

The Contemporary Framework, examples: Rachel Whiteread continued …

Whiteread’s artwork challenges traditional understandings of artworks and traditional ideas about the viewing and presentation of artworks by: •  The siting of he artwork, in a suburban street, challenges traditional ideas about where sculpture

should be displayed. It is not, for example, in gallery, park or public square. •  It is made from non-traditional materials, concrete not marble or bronze. •  The artwork seems to involve little ‘creative work’. To produce it, Whiteread has ‘merely’ cast the

interior of the house in concrete then removed the walls. This challenges traditional ideas about an artwork requiring a ‘significant act of creation’, such as sculpting a figure in stone or bronze.

•  House is more about an idea than ‘skill’ or ‘craft’ . This again challenges the idea that art should demonstrate technical mastery of a medium. Contemporary art is often more about the idea than demonstrating traditional technical skill. It is unlikely, for example, that Whiteread actually applied the concrete herself; this was probably done by assistants.

•  House demands more of the viewer than traditional art. Contemporary art often requires the viewer to engage with it; walk around it, think about it, make connections through one’s own experience. House does not give up its meaning in a traditional way; we are expected to think, make connections and , to an extent, make sense of it on our own terms.

The Contemporary Framework, examples: Caspar David Friedrich

Caspar David Friedrich, The Cross in the Mountains, 1808

How have contemporary art ideas and issues challenged traditional understandings of artworks and their significance? This aspect of the Contemporary Framework can also apply to artworks from the past. For example, Friedrich’s art challenged traditional ideas about religious art, and also challenged traditional ideas of his time about how an artwork, especially a landscape, should be composed:

•  Much of Friedrich’s art was landscape in which he “discerned a specifically Christian message in the revelations of nature”. (Vaughan, W., Romantic Art, p. 143.) In other words, Friedrich believed that: “God manifests himself in nature and man views the … landscape as an act of devotion”. (Oxford Art Online) . Friedrich himself said, “The divine [God] is everywhere, even in a grain of sand.” Perhaps surprisingly to us, the idea that landscape could be used to convey religious ideas through symbolism and metaphor was a radical idea for Friedrich’s time, as it challenged traditional beliefs about the conventions of religious art.

•  When Friedrich first exhibited The Cross in the Mountains, “the work met with controversy, … for the first time in Christian art, a pure landscape was the [subject for a religious artwork]. It depicts the crucified Christ in profile at the top of a mountain, alone, surrounded by nature. The cross rises highest in the composition, [but it is secondary to the landscape]. The mountain symbolizes an immovable faith, while the fir trees represent hope. The artist and critic Basilius von Ramdohr published a lengthy article rejecting Friedrich's use of landscape in such a context; he wrote that it would be "a veritable presumption, if landscape painting were to sneak into the church and creep onto the altar". Ramdohr was fundamentally asking whether a pure landscape painting could convey an explicit [religious] meaning.” (http://www.caspardavidfriedrich.org/biography.html)

The Contemporary Framework, examples: Caspar David Friedrich continued …

Caspar David Friedrich, Monk by the Sea, 1809

In a work such as Monk by the Sea Friedrich eliminates the foreground so that the viewer sees only the middle-ground and a limitless background. He also had a habit of eliminating the middle-ground in some of his paintings, as a means of creating a sense of there being two worlds in his pictures, the physical world in the foreground and the spiritual world in the background. Art viewers of his time were disconcerted by the liberties that Friedrich took with traditional ways of composing a landscape, which made his pictures look empty and alienating to them. Famously, a contemporary art critic, Heinrich von Kleist, wrote this about Monk by the Sea: "since in its monotony and boundlessness it has no foreground except the frame, when viewing it, it is as if one's eyelids had been cut away.“

Friedrich’s artworks also “challenged traditional understandings of artworks” of his time through the radical changes he made to traditional landscape composition:

The Contemporary Framework, examples: Tintoretto Jacopo Tintoretto, Susanna and the Elders c. 1555 -56

•  How might artworks of the past take on new or different meanings, in the context of contemporary ideas and issues?

Tintoretto’s picture may elicit a different response from a modern viewers compared to the viewers of the 16thC. For example, we may recognise an expression of clichéd gender roles, and may question the validity of the scene from the narrative that Tintoretto has chosen as his subject: •  The figure of Susanna may appear to us to be a stereotype of the ‘passive’ female, while the male

figures are ‘active’. •  We may also question the ‘feminine cliché’ in the presentation of Susanna as vain, concerned with

luxury and her own appearance (as suggested by the perfume and jewellery, and by her looking at herself in the mirror).

•  In Tintoretto’s choice to paint the scene of Susanna bathing, therefore nude, while the elders spy on her, we may see the representation of women as mere passive objects for the male gaze.

•  In the figure of Susanna’s nudity we may also discern a gender power imbalance, in that her nudity implies her vulnerability in contrast to the ’power’ of the clothed male figures

Tintoretto’s painting illustrates a story from the Book of Daniel in the Bible. For the artist and the viewers of his time, this painting faithfully depicted a recognisable scene from the narrative and, no doubt, called to mind the message of ‘right over might’ that is the moral of the story. In the context of contemporary ideas and issues, such as feminism and gender politics,