Volume 11, Issue 1-2, January–December 2024.

This study explores the reflective processes of Scottish artist, Norman Gilbert, as he created twenty-five drawings depicting his wife, Pat Gilbert, as she lay dying following an Alzheimer’s-related stroke. Norman, ninety-one, had drawn Pat regularly over their sixty-five-year marriage. One week after Pat died, Norman was interviewed by a family friend to chronicle his reflections on the drawings. The drawings along with the interview transcript are analyzed qualitatively as a case study. Norman’s Hospital Drawings of Pat transform what was (...) initially a private experience into a shared comprehension of end of life and bereavement. (shrink)

Plato’s theory of mimesis is expressed clearly and mainly in Plato’s Republic where he refers to his philosophy of Ideas in his definition of art, by arguing that all arts are imitative in nature. Reality according to him lies with the Idea, and the Form one confronts in this tangible world is a copy of that universal everlasting Idea. He poses that a carpenter’s chair is the result of the idea of chair in his mind, the created chair is once (...) removed from reality and since a painter’s chair is imitation of a carpenter’s chair, it is twice removed from reality. Thus, the artist deals in illusion. Plato thus rejected imitative art on the foundation that it is a copy or imitation of the unreal. We may ask; if the Carpenter makes a chair, what does he imitate? And if he imitates reality, can we call him an artist of a kind? This article therefore argues following Plato’s analogy that carpentry is an art of a kind and a carpenter is capable of knowing reality as against the notion that only philosophers are suitable for such a task. (shrink)

The article examines the phenomenon of conformism in the context of socialist realism, which for a long time was the main direction for the Soviet art sphere. Conformism is interpreted as an effective way for the artist to optimize relations with the authorities and society, giving the opportunity for social self-preservation. Conformism is a kind of strategy for artists, thanks to which they manage to achieve their creative goals and successfully exist within the established cultural framework. The author of (...) the article argues that conformism helped artists who put their creativity at the service of socialist realism to find some basis for their activities, because socialist realism did not initially have such a basis. The author comes to the conclusion that in the conditions of constant transformation of cultural requirements and the need to fully comply with them, conformism becomes for the artist not just a tactic in achieving creative goals, but also a kind of self-defense mechanism that allows to preserve mental and physical health. The most successful Soviet artists were able to realize their talent by creating many bright works of art due to the fact that they created precisely in the mainstream of socialist realism, and if it were not for it, perhaps the world would never have known about some outstanding Soviet artists, as well as not seen their works of art, since the realization of Soviet artists in another cultural environment might well not have taken place. (shrink)

Discourses in curatorial practice have seen several turns, the educational turn being a prominent one. While arts practices and curatorial practices interweave implicitly, intersections between curation and education are new on the horizon. In this guest post for Inlaks, Srajana Kaikini contemplates the possibilities of an evolving education system. Srajana Kaikini was the 2019 International Studio & Curatorial Program - Inlaks Grant recipient.

Artist Rod Dickinson’s work engages in a highly intelligent and provocative manner with the conditions of mediation and delusion that appear in the brain in a vat scenario. Over the last decade he has put together an impressive body of work about the apparatuses of social and informational control with which we are surrounded, involving an eclectic range of subject matter, including crop circles, Jim Jones and the suicides at the People’s Temple in Guyana, Stanley Milgram’s ‘Obedience to authority’ (...) experiments, and James Tilly Matthews’ imaginary ‘Air loom’, an eighteenth-century mind-influencing device. He is now involved in a number of projects, including a recreation of the Waco siege and a piece based on Joseph Conrad’s The secret agent. In this conversation with Charlie Gere he discusses questions of social control, brainwashing, truth, and knowledge in relation to his work. (shrink)

Visual representation of instruments and musical practice has long been integral to the study of the iconology and archaeology of early music. Critical to any assessment of such evidence is an understanding of the authority of the artist, and his/her knowledge and degree of participation in musical culture. Contemporary sources reveal that music played a variety of roles in the lives and public perception of the Renaissance artists. Its most tangible manifestation was that of the artist-musician, of whom (...) Leonardo da Vinci is one of the best-known examples. An association with courtliness was one of several markers of status conferred by musical practice. This chapter investigates the domestic setting of the artist, whether in a courtly environment or in a republic, to develop themes of the social elevation of the artist, entertainment and performance, as well as creativity. (shrink)

The paper concerns the science of colors (die Farbenlehre) on which among others J.W. Goethe and W. Ostwald were focused. The first part of this essay describes the science of colors in the period from antiquity to late Renaissance. In the pre-scientific phase it was intervened with philosophical speculations as well with symbolism of magic, religions and customs. Since Newton’s time there are distinguished the colors of light and the colors of objects. J.W. Goethe’s Farbenlehre, discussed in the second part, (...) connects empirical studies and metaphysical vision of the light and colors. W. Ostwald, a distinguished chemist and philosopher-energetist, attempted to construct measurable Farbenlehre. He is a creator of a strict colors’ taxonomy, but his soul of artist (he was also a painter) “crept into” his study of colors. The discussion of Ostwald’s deliberations is contained in the third part of the paper. (shrink)

The original Gallimard edition of Merleau-Ponty’s last-published essay, "Eye and Mind," which was printed as a slim, separate volume containing only this essay, includes a visual preface of seven artworks, chosen by Merleau-Ponty. This essay takes the key assertion of "Eye and Mind"—that rather than seeing depth as the “third dimension,” as seen traditionally, “if [depth] were a dimension, it would be the first one” (180)—and applies it to the reading of these artworks preceding the text. There is an analysis (...) of how and why depth is the first rank in not only rethinking art, but also in rethinking Being itself. The development of the idea of depth as the going together of incompossibles in time and in space is explored by turning to Merleau-Ponty’s texts, beginning with the Phenomenology of Perception through to his last works. The last section of the essay carefully analyses six of the seven visual works of art (omitting Cézanne about whom so much has been written) to see the ways in which they instantiate this new notion of depth as the motive force of art and the heart of the flesh of the world. (shrink)

A review of Edwidge Danticat, Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work. The Toni Morrison Lecture Series (Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2010).

As a young boy, Jacques Henri Lartigue set about passionately recording his life in photographs, first documenting his domestic circle and later capturing the auto races, air shows, and fashionable watering holes of the Belle époque. His images have so bewitched modern viewers that even scholars have failed to see them clearly. In Jacques Henri Lartigue: The Invention of an Artist, Kevin Moore puts to rest the long-held myth of Lartigue as a naïve boy genius whose creations were based (...) on instinct alone. Moore begins by exploring the milieu in which Lartigue became a photographer, examining his father's crucial role in teaching him the latest techniques as well as the larger context of the turn-of-the-century craze for amateur photography. Two events brought Lartigue before the public eye in America and created the Lartigue myth: In the summer of 1963, the first exhibition of Lartigue's work in the United States was held at the Museum of Modern Art, which hailed him as an important modernist photographer, a forerunner of the art-documentary style of the 1960s. That fall, Life magazine published a feature presenting his work as an optimistic and sentimental prologue to World War I. Both treatments portrayed him as a naïve genius and Lartigue happily participated in shaping this new persona. In Jacques Henri Lartigue: The Invention of an Artist, Moore successfully challenges the Lartigue myth using examples from popular magazines and the cinema. Illustrated with more than fifty of Lartigue's photographs and drawings as well as press imagery from the period, the book offers a radical reassessment of the photographer and his work. (shrink)

A unique collection of essays by Australia's foremost art historian, this volume explores the problems involved in defining and describing a visual aesthetic suited to a modern democratic society. Smith sets these problems in their Australian as well as their universal contexts, probing into such areas as community art, art and elitism, Aboriginal art, art and urban society, art in a multi-cultural society, art and abstraction, art and Marxism, and art and modernism.

Casting directors are tasked with selecting a suitable actor for a given role. “Suitable” in this context typically means possessing a combination of physical attributes and acting skills. But are there any moral constraints on the choice? I argue that there are. This is an uncommon supposition, and few even entertain the question. In this essay, I discuss the reasons for this omission and attempt to make up for it.

Helga Griffiths is a Germany-based Multi-Sense-Artist working at the intersection of art, science and technology.

The present research applies Michel Foucault's perspectives on discipline and punishment to Steve Hamilton's novel The Lock Artist, exploring the criminal subjectivity of the protagonist beyond the binary of good and evil. Through textual analysis, the study examines the norms, upbringing, and circumstances that shape the protagonist's identity as a deviant and criminal. The research also investigates the role of confession as a tool of the modern state in altering the subjectivity of its subjects. The findings suggest that deviance (...) and illegality are social constructs, created and maintained by power structures. The study highlights how society defines deviance and the state defines illegality, leading individuals down a path of criminalization. This research provides insight into the ways power operates to shape an individual’s subjectivity, particularly in relation to criminality, and offers a critical analysis of the ways the modern state exercises control over its subjects. For useful explanation and analysis of criminal subjectivity, Michel Foucault’s book ‘discipline and punishment’ has been referred. This article discusses the norms, upbringing, and circumstances of the protagonist and tries to explore his subjectivity as a criminal beyond the paradigm of good and evil. It elaborates those factors which constitute his identity as a deviant and then as a criminal. Also, this research discusses the role of confession as a tool of the modern state to alter the subjectivity of its subject. (shrink)

This thesis aims to explain why art is the ideal agent for overcoming the absurdity and the meaninglessness of existence. The focus is Camus’ Rebellion in conjunction with Sartre’s notion of Authenticity. Together they provide an adequate answer to the fundamental questions of human existence. Together Camus’ rebellion and Sartre’s authenticity provide the necessary foundations for the overall authenticity of art, facilitating the emergence of purpose from the abyss of absurdity.

In Kant scholarship the significance of the beauty of nature for Kant’s aesthetics has been traditionally favored over the beauty of art. By focusing on Kant’s characterization of genius as a gift of nature, my aim is to show that, in contrast to the already existing interpretations of this issue in Kant literature, the works of art as the works of genius can indeed serve as ‘signs’ that nature and the world as a whole is hospitable to the realization of (...) our moral ends, or is morally purposive. My claim that for Kant not only the beauty of nature but also the works of art as the works of genius serve as signs of world’s moral purposiveness, or of—in Dieter Henrich’s words—the “moral image of the world,” calls for a reevaluation of the role of art in Kant’s moral teleology and, consequently, for a reevaluation of the place of art in Kant’s aesthetics. (shrink)

In Kant scholarship the significance of the beauty of nature for Kant’s aesthetics has been traditionally favored over the beauty of art. By focusing on Kant’s characterization of genius as a gift of nature, my aim is to show that, in contrast to the already existing interpretations of this issue in Kant literature, the works of art as the works of genius can indeed serve as ‘signs’ that nature and the world as a whole is hospitable to the realization of (...) our moral ends, or is morally purposive. My claim that for Kant not only the beauty of nature but also the works of art as the works of genius serve as signs of world’s moral purposiveness, or of—in Dieter Henrich’s words—the “moral image of the world,” calls for a reevaluation of the role of art in Kant’s moral teleology and, consequently, for a reevaluation of the place of art in Kant’s aesthetics. (shrink)

Arthur Danto’s analytic theory of art relies on a form of artistic interpretation that requires access to the art theoretical concepts of the artworld, ‘an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art: an artworld’. Art, in what Danto refers to as post-history, has become theoretical, yet it is here contended that his explanation of the artist’s creative style lacks a theoretical dimension. This article examines Danto’s account of style in light of the role the artistic (...) metaphor plays in the interpretation of the artwork, arguing that it is unable to account for the metaphorical power he claims is embedded within the work of art. An artist’s style issues from a unique perspective, the way an artist inhabits a specific spot in history. Though each person has such a perspective, when applied aesthetically, it is the key to the articulation of a unique historical meaning in the work of art. At the same time, artists’ knowledge of their contribution remains cut off from this perspective, for they are unaware of their self-manifestation of the historical concept of style. This article makes the case that Danto’s notion of style, based on Sartre’s notion of being-for-itself, cannot fulfil the role he allots it in his theory because, at some level, artists must apprehend their style to create a work of art capable of functioning critically as a countertext. It is only through the apprehension of their style, and dialogical activity that takes place between the artist and the beholders, that the unseen body of artworld theory is formed. Without this, when oriented to the aesthetic, style provides no concept or theory for the mind to behold. This article presents an alternative approach to style that recognizes the role of theory in the creation of metaphor, which would circumvent this problem. (shrink)