An in depth summary on the Conceptual and contemporary international movement including artists, artworks, characteristics, subject matter, and influences on the movement. This summary includes artists like Mary Sibande and a few others who deal with issues of gender, racial classification, and whi...
Art Theory - Conceptual and Contemporary
International Art
Monday, 09 September 2024
16:48
Conceptual and Contemporary Art
Appreciates the ideas over the formal or visual elements
Characteristics
Rejected standard ideas of art
Articulating an idea counted as a work of art
Challenged commercial value of art
Incorporated the artist as the creator and the critic
Beauty and skill was no longer a measure of art
Reduced the material presence of the artwork to the absolute minimum - dematerialisation
Adopted the brutal simplicity of Minimalism
Art did not have to take physical form at all
Believed that the audience and gallery/museum completed the artwork - institutional
critique
Artists + Artworks
Ai Wei Wei
o An activist who brings attention to human rights and an artist who expands the
definition of art
o Has been harassed multiple times by police because there is no freedom of speech
o Comments on the gap between the ideal and the real in China
o One of the first to use social media
o Started in New York and came back to China and felt the difference in freedom
o Work is about risk and how it is a part of a free society
o Combines Minimalism and Conceptualism together from his teachings in the West
Ai Wei Wei - Sunflower Seeds
o Meaning is not confirmed
o Filled a hall with 100 000 000 porcelain sunflower seeds made by Chinese craftsmen
o Viewers were given the opportunity to pose questions and he would answer them
o Evokes associations connected to Chinese history and culture
o The seeds are made from a porcelain material that has long sustained the Chinese
economy
o Creates a greater understanding of mass-production in China and the issue of
expensive machinery and cheap human labour/lives
o Sunflower is an important Communist symbol, it also evokes memories of happy
childhood for Ai
o The seeds on the ground reflect an oppressed society since he was so brutally
harassed by the government
Ai Wei Wei - Remembering
o Made it to honour the thousands of children who died during the Sichuan
earthquake
o The government censored all the information relating to the earthquakes so people
didn't know the full story
o Questioned why government schools collapsed so easily
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