Contemporary Art

Some Instances of Violation and Flouting of the Maxim of Quantity by the Main Characters (Barry & Tim) in Dinner for Schmucks

by Parvaneh Khosravizadeh

Co-authored with Nikan Sadehvandi

The focus of this study is to analyze the extent to which the maxim of quantity is either violated or flouted by the... more The focus of this study is to analyze the extent to which the maxim of quantity is either violated or flouted by the two main characters, in a movie entitled “Dinner for Schmucks”. In addition, it seeks to find if there is any occasion in which one party opts out of the conversation. Dinner for Schmucks is an American movie which is the second version of A French film Le Diner de Cons; (dinner game). The reason for selecting this movie is that it has a comedy genre and as it is common in most comedies, one of the characters favorably and expectedly has the most loquacious trait, and there is a great chance that he/she repeatedly either violates or flouts the conversational maxims. The findings of this study indicate that in five occasions the characters violated the maxim of quantity. Based on the findings of the study, it can be concluded that although cooperative principle describes the best practices in communication in order to facilitate the process of conversation to be smoother for both the listener and speaker, people frequently disobey these maxims in order to achieve certain purposes.

Future Ruins: Time, Memory and History in the Work of Komar and Melamid

by Allison Leigh

Three Artists, Three Cities, Three Continents: Weng Fen, Hema Upadhyay and Bodys Isek Kingelez

by Mark Haywood

Paper given at Contemp Art 12, Minar Sinan Fine Art University,, April 2012.

Published in Duyan (ed.) 'New Questions on Contemporary Arts' (DAKAR, Istanbul, 2012)

Three Artists, Three Cities, Three Continents:
Weng Fen, Hema Upadhyay and Bodys Isek Kingelez

more Three Artists, Three Cities, Three Continents:
Weng Fen, Hema Upadhyay and Bodys Isek Kingelez


Since the millennium there have been several international curatorial surveys that have used cities as comparative exemplars. These have included Century City: Art and Culture in the Modern Metropolis, the opening exhibition of London’s Tate Modern in 2001, Design Cities 1851-2008 at Istanbul Modern and, earlier this year, the Pompidou Centre’s Paris-Delhi-Bombay.

In February 2008 the United Nations’ Revision of World Urbanization Prospects predicted that by the end of that year, for the first time in human history, more than half the world’s population would be living in urban, rather than rural locations. Hania Zlotnik, Director of the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), which prepared the report, noted that, ‘Although Asia and Africa are the least urbanized areas, they account for most of the urban population of the world.’  It is frequently predicted that the archetypal city of the twenty-first century will be the non-Western (or southern hemisphere) megalopolis.

In light of these events and trends the paper compares the work of three contemporary artists from China, India and Africa, each of whom has made large installations based on burgeoning of local megacities. The artists surveyed are Weng Fen (China), Hema Upadhyay (India) and Bodys Isek Kingelez (Democratic Republic of the Congo). It is argued that despite obvious similarities of subject and format, the three artists’ works actually reflect widely differing local perspectives, concerns and futures. 

MUSEUMISATION OF THE PRESENT

by Suresh Pillai

"SAMO as an Escape Clause": Jean-Michel Basquiat's Engagement with a Commodified American Africanism

by Laurie Rodrigues

_Journals of American Studies_, Cambridge University Press 2011

Pretty

by Alyssa Matthews

2012 MFA Project Statement, University of Connecticut

My figurative paintings celebrate tableaus of femininity to explore tensions between gender, sexuality, and the... more My figurative paintings celebrate tableaus of femininity to explore tensions between gender, sexuality, and the gestural mark. This project statement discusses my work throughout graduate study, which asserts a feminist language of excess and prettiness as a means to subvert established and hierarchical aesthetics of Beauty.

Let´s make a toast to art: A transnational economic paradigm

by Tinna Grétarsdóttir

BOOK REVIEW - The Art of Life By Sabin Howard and Traci L. Slatton

by Darrelyn Gunzburg

This book is novelist Traci L. Slatton’s eulogy to the work of her figurative sculptor husband Sabin Howard, his... more This book is novelist Traci L. Slatton’s eulogy to the work of her figurative sculptor husband Sabin Howard, his journey towards becoming a figurative sculptor and the process he has come to use in the last 29 years.

Jamie Shovlin's Modern Masters

by Rosalind Ormiston

Review of 'Jamie Shovlin: Various Arrangements, Haunch of Venison, London

An Approach for the Study of Poetic Imagination

by Arezou Zalipour

Abstract of my PhD thesis that was completed in 2008. Please feel free to contact me if you are interested to know more about my PhD thesis. I am trying to publish it as a book. Your kind suggestions are most welcomed.

An Approach for the Study of Poetic Imagination

Arezou Zalipour, PhD
more An Approach for the Study of Poetic Imagination

Arezou Zalipour, PhD
arezouzalipour@gmail.com


This study examines notions of poetic imagination towards exploring its contemporary representations. It takes its initial point of departure with a historical and conceptual survey that traces the concepts and theories of both imagination and poetic imagination. The literature survey demonstrates that poetic imagination has not been featured in the theories of modern and contemporary poetry, barring the Romantics who celebrated the creative nature of imagination. Therefore, the existing concepts, ideas and theories of poetic imagination are largely unstructured and incoherent concepts inherited by contemporary poets. However, there are some researches on the concept of imagination in poetry in modern and contemporary philosophy and psychology. In the twentieth century, the use of poetic image in philosophical studies as well as the relations between imagination and reality have provided some insights into modern conceptions of poetic imagination. This thesis examines, discusses and collates the principles and concepts relevant to imagination to discover whether these notions can explain and define the nature of poetic imagination in contemporary poetry. Fundamentally, the thesis develops an approach for the exploration of contemporary notions of poetic imagination. The approach is drawn from the existing concepts and theories of imagination and poetic imagination. The approach is constructed featuring the elements of types of images, features of poetic imagination and modes of imagination.

These three categories shape the components of the theoretical framework and also form the three levels of the analytical procedure of the approach. In level one, we look at types of images in a poem which leads us to draw conclusions about features of poetic imagination in level two. In level three, the findings in levels one and two will then help us to determine the apparent and dominant mode of imagination in the poem/text. What should emerge by the end of the analysis is a special opportunity to look at how (creative) imagination is manifested in a poem/text. The approach was applied to a corpus of contemporary poetry in order to show the application of the approach and the way analysis is carried put. The assessment of the approach on a corpus of contemporary poetry was also in an attempt to elucidate the dimensions of relationships between the imagined, the imaged, and the real.

The research identifies that imagination in contemporary poetry moves more towards imaging rather than poetic imagination. In other words, imagination shows greater affinity to imaging in contemporary poetry. The significant contribution of the thesis is that it offers a continuum called Imaginiuum with one end as imaging, and poetic imagination as the other. Imaginiuum is a paradigm that describes contemporary notions of imagination in poetry.

Comments on Graham Harman's response to my article, 'The Future of Speculation?'

by Wesley Phillips

On 6th May, Graham Harman responded on his blog to a passage from my article, ‘The Future of Speculation?’, which... more On 6th May, Graham Harman responded on his blog to a passage from my article, ‘The Future of Speculation?’, which appeared a couple of days earlier in Cosmos and History. As Harman points out, I gave a version of this paper at SEP in York last year, but we didn’t meet on that occasion (I did however ask him about the place of ‘value’ in his system, which he rightly took to be a question about ‘politics’). I shall briefly respond to his remarks, which are reproduced further below. My numbers roughly correspond to those of Harman. Unfortunately, it was not possible to comment on the blog itself because it does not permit comment.

2012 Whitney Biennial

by Tim Gilman-Sevcik

A meditation on the biennial originally written for Lidovy Noviny newspaper in Prague

Can Photographs Make It So? Several Outbreaks of Valie Export’s Genital Panic,” in Hilde van Gelder and Helen Weestgeest, eds., Photography between Poetics and Politics. (Leuven: University Press Leuven, 2008)

by Mechtild Widrich

Differs in some parts from the revised version of 2012, particularly at the end.

Employing the term "performative" I look at the Marina Abramovic's restaging of Valie Export's Genital Panic... more Employing the term "performative" I look at the Marina Abramovic's restaging of Valie Export's Genital Panic at the Guggenheim Museum--I discuss the relationship between the photographs that were staged in the photographer's studio in Vienna, the claims of an actual action (first said to have happened in a porn cinema, a story later changed to "art cinema"--with various dates), and Abramovic's decisions to include the historiography of the piece in her performance. The text is relevant for the discussion of photography versus live event, but I am also trying to figure out how the imagine a performance as ONE work through sometimes conflicting fragments.

Contemporaneity and Art in Southeast Asia

by Joan Kee

This is an introduction to a special issue on contemporary art in Southeast Asia I co-edited with Patrick Flores. <Third Text>, August 2011

The Future of Speculation?

by Wesley Phillips

in Cosmos and History, Vol 8, No 1 (2012)

The emergence of a philosophical movement amidst the precarious situation of 'continental philosophy' is today... more The emergence of a philosophical movement amidst the precarious situation of 'continental philosophy' is today notable. Whilst welcoming a turn to questions of speculation and realism, this article will contend that speculative realism has misplaced the concept of speculation. Its quasi-naturalism prevents it from relating ‘necessary contingency' to any future-oriented task. What, then, is the future of speculative realism? I will examine the extent to which the phenomenon may at least prompt a self-problematisation of historical materialism, amidst the ongoing problem historical totalisation.

My case study is Iain Hamilton Grant's Philosophies of Nature After Schelling (2006), for the reason that it allows for a clear comparison between ‘Schellingian naturephilosophy' and its competing, Hegelian and Hegelian-Marxist alternatives. Hegel's speculative philosophy of history faces a set of problems of its own. In contrast to Grant's reading of Schelling, an examination of the relationship between Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit and the middle Schelling can address some of these problems. An alternative future to research on speculation is outlined.

Process and Authority: Marina Abramovic's Freeing the Horizon and Documentarity

by Mechtild Widrich

in Grey Room, 47 (Spring 2012), 8-97.

I am looking at a rarely known early slide installation by Marina Abramovic (1973), which consists of manipulated... more I am looking at a rarely known early slide installation by Marina Abramovic (1973), which consists of manipulated photographs of buildings in Belgrade. Looking at the reception and exhibition history as well as at the context of early 1970s Yugoslavia, I argue for a processual definition of the documentary that is context responsive.

Ensembles permanents et temporaires de sculpture contemporaine en plein air à Paris depuis les années 1960 : un panorama critique

by Julien Bastoen

Published in: 'Arte en el Espacio Público: Barrios artísticos y revitalización urbana' (Blanca Fernandez and Jesus Pedro Lorente, eds). Zaragoza (Spain): Prensas universitarias de Zaragoza ('Modos de ver'), 2009, 63-79

La question des espaces servant d’écrin à des ensembles de sculpture moderne et/ou contemporaine à Paris met en jeu... more La question des espaces servant d’écrin à des ensembles de sculpture moderne et/ou contemporaine à Paris met en jeu les relations passionnantes entre l’art et l’espace urbain. Pour ce qui concerne le territoire français, un bref tour d’horizon de la bibliographie consacrée à la sculpture en plein air suffit à prendre la mesure du déséquilibre qui règne entre la relative profusion d’ouvrages – le plus souvent des actes de rencontres interdisciplinaires – consacrés à la sculpture publique monumentale et la pénurie d’études – excepté quelques monographies spécifiques – dédiées aux groupements de sculptures modernes et/ou contemporaines, permanents ou temporaires, librement accessibles au public urbain. La région parisienne, foyer historique du développement de la sculpture en plein air en France, n’échappe pas à ce constat.
Paris demeure cependant la ville de France qui compte le plus grand nombre de groupements permanents de sculpture en plein air. Si les ensembles historiques (Luxembourg, Tuileries) ont repris vie depuis les années 1990 avec l’addition d’œuvres des cinquante dernières années ou l’organisation d’expositions temporaires, d’autres ensembles se sont développés à l’initiative de partenariats public-privé (La Défense) ou de personnalités (Musée de sculpture en plein air de la Ville de Paris) dès le début des années 1970. Ce regain d’intérêt pour la sculpture monumentale est à mettre en relation avec l’extension de la loi du 1%, avec l’action menée par le Service de la Création artistique fondé en 1962 par André Malraux, et enfin, avec la création du fonds de la commande publique en 1982, géré par le Centre national des arts plastiques.
En presque quarante ans, quelle a été l’évolution de ces ensembles en matière de statut, de gestion, de contenu, d’impact social, économique ou médiatique ? Quels ont été les artisans de cette évolution ? Y a-t-il encore une dimension expérimentale dans les nouvelles manifestations dédiées à la sculpture contemporaine ? A qui profite ce renouveau de la sculpture qu’on constate en France depuis les années 1960 ? Voici autant de questions auxquelles nous tenterons d’apporter une réponse dans cette contribution.

The Value of the Hand - Cathie Pilkington

by Benedict Carpenter

Published in 'The Medal' No.60 Spring 2012

This paper analyses the work of contemporary British sculptor Cathie Pilkington. It concentrates on her quotation of... more This paper analyses the work of contemporary British sculptor Cathie Pilkington. It concentrates on her quotation of craft and fine art processes as a satirical strategy to question the reflexive authority that aggregates around Romantic notions of genius. Her recent BAMS medal is discussed at some length, particularly in relation to the awkward status of the form, sitting as it does between the defined cultures of art and craft.

(Net)tachmental Arts

by Ebru Yetiskin

Yeni Toplumsallık ve B(ağ)lar Arasılık

by Ebru Yetiskin