scholarly journals Un-Natural Histories: The Specimen as Site of Knowledge Production in Contemporary Art

Leonardo ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 50 (5) ◽  
pp. 532-532
Author(s):  
Helen Gregory
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Natural Histories

Art Criticism in the Contracted Field1

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Bowman
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Art Criticism ◽  
The Other ◽  
Potential Contribution ◽  
Roundtable Discussion ◽  
Cultural Field ◽  
Intellectual Labor ◽  
Critical Discourses

Abstract Just over a decade-and-a-half ago, a roundtable discussion published in the pages of October worried that the periodic renewal of critical discourses had slowed to a standstill and that art criticism was faced with obsolescence. Such an obsolescence should be understood in a broadly Hegelian manner: the danger is not that art criticism would disappear from the cultural field, but that it will continue—although drained of its previous necessity. Such fears perhaps run the risk of exaggeration, yet this article shall suggest that there seems a sense in which the field of art criticism has contracted in recent years. Self-reflexivity in art and the popularization of “para-curatorial” approaches, for instance, often underpin the artwork discursively before the arrival of art criticism upon the scene. To be sure, such circumstances are viewable positively as interdisciplinary dialogical opportunities, but the negative flipside here is that art criticism’s potential contribution becomes increasingly minimized. From another angle, critics such as Isabelle Graw have contended that the economic-cultural regime of post-Fordism, with its attention on intellectual labor and knowledge production, might actually hold possibilities for the contemporary art critic—but even here, I argue, art criticism becomes contracted, albeit in the other meaning of the word.

scholarly journals Application and Autonomy: The Reach and Span of Contemporary Art Didactics

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Boel Christensen-Scheel
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Teaching Methods ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Societal Needs ◽  
Specific Teaching

Aesthetics, as both a variety of practices and a field of research, has now begun a journey toward society and more applied thinking – that is, how can art, art thinking, and different forms of sensuousness interact with or interfere in societal contexts. In this special issue of InFormation we explore the frame of a possible contemporary art didactics, where knowledge production and dispersion in and through art and aesthetics are promoted. Here the qualities of responding to societal needs and challenges are negotiated with the particular qualities of art. The field of didactics is often tied to specific teaching methods, but can also be seen as a more general theory of learning. With the term ‘contemporary art didactics’, we want to propose a relational field of communication and interaction based on aesthetic activity and competence. In addition, we seek to emphasize the contemporary quality and engagement of this activity and competence. In this first article by the editor of the issue, some of the related discussions on application, autonomy and criticality are presented alongside a proposition to formulate certain specific art based qualities.

scholarly journals Between Contemporary Art and Cultural Analysis: Alternative Methods for Knowledge Production

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Billy Ehn
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
Alternative Methods ◽  
Ordinary Life ◽  
Academic Researchers ◽  
Research Objects ◽  
Methodological Approaches ◽  
The Spectator ◽  
And Performance

Artistic research suggests alternative methods for producing various kinds of knowledge, whether within or without the confines of academe. These methods may involve either the production of investigative artworks or the writing by the artist of a doctoral dissertation about his or her own work. For cultural researchers, the methods employed by artists engaged in these processes are both familiar and challenging, as conventional ethnography is mixed with more unpredictable experiments. This article presents several contemporary artworks, including sculpture, film, dance, installation and performance that explore various aspects of reality. What can be learnt from these works? And what could be achieved by an open exchange between artists and academic researchers? Four methodological approaches are highlighted as being of particular interest. The first relates to artists’ tendency to live experimentally, using themselves both as actors and as research objects. The second arises from the very tangible ways in which contemporary artworks approach the theme of materiality. The third relates to the emotional nature of much of contemporary art – even when it is categorised as conceptual – in its creation, forms of presentation, and influence on the spectator. Finally, many artists are gifted with the ability to find and communicate surprising meanings in ordinary life. How do they do this? Part of the answer seems to be that although artists are open to the implementation of “wild whims”, they exploit their spontaneity in a highly professional manner.

This is not thick description: Conceptual art installation as ethnographic process

Ethnography ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cassandra Hartblay
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Conceptual Art ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Cultural Performance ◽  
Performance Ethnography ◽  
Thick Description ◽  
Methodological Innovation ◽  
Art Installation ◽  
Feminist Disability Studies

What happens when an ethnographer takes up the idiom of contemporary art installation to explore an ethnographic problem? Building on performance ethnography as developed by Dwight Conquergood and D. Soyini Madison, in which the research process itself is cultural performance, this article describes a methodological innovation that encourages a rethinking of ethnographic outputs. Contemporary art installation is generative as well as representational, and challenges ethnographers to think by doing. This article describes one such project to show that while a minimalist installation aesthetic does not on the surface constitute ‘thick description’ in the Geertzian sense, it can be a generative part of a dialogic practice of ethnographic knowledge production. Integrating the interpretive tradition with feminist disability studies, my argument is that art installation offers a possible mode for ethnographers to work through ideas, solicit participation from academic audiences and research participants, create semiotic relationships, and come to know by doing.

scholarly journals Interweaving Contemporary Art and “Traditional” Crafts in Ethnographic Research

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-82
Author(s):  
Katerina Konstantinou ◽  
Aris Anagnostopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Community Engagement ◽  
Community Participation ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Interdisciplinary Collaboration ◽  
Active Participation ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Fertile Ground ◽  
Heritage Interpretation

This article presents a fieldwork collaboration between contemporary art, “traditional” craft, and ethnographic research in which community engagement plays a key role. Two decades after the abandonment of weaving in a depopulated mountainous village of Crete, Greece, a group of researchers invite an artist to turn the village’s old school into a weaving studio. Aiming at the active participation of the local community in weaving heritage interpretation, and the interdisciplinary collaboration of art and anthropology, the weaving studio experience provides a fertile ground for discussing the relationships between disciplines, the difficulties of crossing the boundaries of these disciplines and the challenges of community participation in managing knowledge production. Here we discuss our experience working with an artist in a project between art and research, including various observations, different approaches, and challenges.

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