Concepts of Art Unit 1?

REALISM

In art and literature, the theory or practice of fidelity to nature or to real life and to accurate representation; the opposite of idealization.

APPROPRIATION

In art, the act of borrowing imagery or forms to create a new work of art. The act of borrowing pieces or sections of cultural products—from visual, performance, or popular sources—in order to create a new work. Can be used in homage or commentary.

JUXTAPOSITION

Placing seemingly disparate or unrelated objects or images close together or side-by-side, to encourage comparisons or contrasts. Visual artists often use juxtapositions to refer to existing images or ideas and suggest new meanings for them.

ESSENTIALISM (sameness)

Playing down distinctions among group members in the interest of building a large,cohesive coalition. (strategy often used by artists in the1970's / early 1980's)

AESTHETIC

Used to describe something as visually-based, beautiful, or pleasing in appearance and to the senses. Aesthetics is a term developed by philosophers during the 18th and 19th centuries and is also the academic or scientific study of beauty and taste in art.

PUBLIC ART

Works of art that are designed specifically for, or placed in, outdoor spaces or areas physically accessible to the general public.

CONVERGENT THINKING

a problem-solving strategy in which a pre-determined goal is pursued in a linear progression using a highly focused problem-solving process. Six steps are commonly used:1. define the problem, 2. do research, 3. determine your objective, 4. devise a strategy, 5. execute the strategy, 6. evaluate the results.

ANALOGY

a similarity or connection between things which are apparently separate and dissimilar. Analogies are often used to explain a difficult concept or unfamiliar skill. For example, when a teacher describes wet plaster as having the "consistency of cream," she is using an analogy.

GENRE

A means of categorizingworks of art based on style, form, and subject matter. For example, history painting and landscape are genres of painting;

PERSONA

A personality that a person projects in public, often representing a character in a fictional context.

MONUMENT

A public work of art, usually large in scale, which commemorates a group of people, historical event, or ideal. Monuments are most often made at the invitation of a civic group or government. Memorials are a type of monument and come in a variety of scales and materials, and are made for a range of audiences. Less a tribute than an invitation to remember, memorials can also be abstract in form, and subtle or inconclusive in message.

MOTIF

A recurrent or dominant theme in a work of visual or literary art.

OTHERNESS

male/female, black/white, heterosexual/homosexual, Western/non-Western -defined as a stereotyped contrast to a Westernized mainstream identity with the mainstream being "normal" and desirable identity (binary thinking)

CONCEPT / CONCEPTUAL ART

A concept is a thought or idea; a frame of mind that can include imagination, opinion, and logic. Concept-based or conceptual art emphasizes that the idea is equal to, if not more important than, the finished product. Conceptual art can take many forms, from photographs to texts to videos, and sometimes there is no art object at all. Emphasizing the ways things exist or are created more than how they look, conceptual art often raises questions about what a work of art is or can be. Conceptual art is also often difficult to collect or preserve, as it can be the artist's own experience that is the work of art.

COLLABORATION

A cooperative working arrangement between an artistand another person, group, or institution. Artists often work in collaboration with a variety of specialists, assistants, colleagues, and audiences. Some artists even form long-term working partnerships with other artists—these are seen as distinct from collaborations, which are often temporary.

GRAPHIC

A description applied to two-dimensional images without modulation of shadows and highlights to suggest three-dimensional form. Characterized by contrast and shape; often pertains to media such as fonts, comic books, and cartoons.

STEREOTYPE

A generalized type or caricature of a person, place, or culture, often negative in tone. Visual as well as verbal, stereotypes tend to reduce or oversimplify the subject.

PLACE

A geographic or imaginary location, landscape, origin, or relation in space. Artists are influenced by their surroundings and their works are often in response to a site or historical situation. In American history, places such as the antebellum South or the Wild West are mythic in their hold on the public imagination. Today, artists are continually drawn to the conceptual landscapes of cyberspace, television, and mass media.

METAPHOR

A relationship between disparate visual or verbal sources where one kind of object, idea, or image is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them. Artists use metaphor to bridge differences between seemingly dissimilar images and ideas. For example, when we say, "she's a diamond in the rough" we attribute to a woman the brilliance and value of an unpolished gem.

CONSUMER SOCIETY

A society in which mass-produced goods are made attractive and are advertised through mass-communication and media. People who participate in a consumer society by purchasing goods are known as consumers.

KITSCH

A term adopted from the German kitsch meaning trash. Used to describe items that are overly decorative or sentimental, that appeal to popular, undiscriminating, or lowbrow taste and are often of poor quality. Kitsch may also have negative connotations—meaning tastelessness or bad taste in art. Things generally considered to be kitschy in popular American culture include ceramic figurines, black velvet paintings, rhinestones, and glitter. However, what is kitsch in one cultural context may not be in another.

POSTMODERNISM

A term that has come to describe the stylistic developments that depart from the norms of modernism starting around the 1970's.. Postmodernism questions the validity of the emphasis of modernists on logic, simplicity, and order, suggesting that ambiguity, uncertainty, and contradiction may also have a valid place. Notable characteristics include conceptual emphasis, social commentary, irreverence, and skepticism about universal truths. Typically marked by the abandonment of strong divisions of genre or hierarchy, postmodernism questions the validity of the modernist emphasis on logic, simplicity, and order, suggesting that ambiguity, uncertainty, and contradiction may also have a valid place.

LAND ART

Also known as earth art or earthworks, land art uses the raw materials of the natural world to make large-scale, outdoor sculpture. Often taking many years to complete, some earthworks made in the 1970s exist to this day while others are still under construction.HISTORY

PROCESS

An artist's investigation, or the steps the artist takes to make a work of art. Processesdiffer widely from artist to artist. For many artists, the process of making a work of art has become just as important, if not more important, than the final work of art itself.

CRITIQUE

An assessment of something, with commentary on its good and bad qualities. Criticism is the activity of judgment or informed interpretation. In art, critiques often take the form of a group discussion in which the merits of a particular work are debated. Critique remains an important element in many works of art that address social issues, ideas, and events. A work of art itself can criticize a specific idea or express a critical idea or opinion.

MODERN ART / MODERNISM

An historical period and attitude fromthe early to mid-20th century, characterized by experimentation, abstraction, a desire to provoke, and a belief in progress. Modern artists strove to go beyond that which had come before. Works of modern art may be visually different and yet share the same commitment to questioning artistic conventions. Modern Art is oriented towards developing new visual languages (rather than preserving and continuing those of the past) and takes the form of a series of periods, schools, and styles.

ALLEGORY

An image or story that refers to a related or overarching concept, such as good or evil, which typically reflects truths or generalizations about human experience.

ICON

An image or symbol thathas a particular meaning, either learned or universal, by virtue of resemblance or analogy to the object or idea it represents.

UTOPIA

An imagined perfect society; an ideal community with perfect laws, government, and social conditions. Evocative of people's hopes and wishes, utopias are ultimately unrealizable. Some believe the Internet is a place where a utopia may be possible.

IDEOLOGY

An organized system of values and opinions that form the basis of a social, political, or economic agenda. Informed by a culture, ideologies often take the form of rules, codes, or guiding principles.

IDEOLOGY

An organized system of values and opinions which form the basis of a social, political, or economic agenda. Informed by a culture, ideologies often take the form of rules, codes, or guiding principles.

CONTEMPORARY ART

Art made after 1970 or works of art made by living artists. A loose term that at times overlaps with Modern Art, many museums specialize in showing art by living artists in isolation while other institutions show contemporary art along with works dating back thousands of years. Unlike Modern Art, contemporary art is not defined by a succession of periods, schools, or styles.

REPRESENTATION

Depicting recognizable people, places, or things. Includes the figurative, landscape, and still life genres of traditional painting and sculpture.

SITE-SPECIFIC

Describes works of art that are designed for a particular place; may be permanent or impermanent. Some site-specific works are located in remote places, and the experience of the artwork is often limited to photographic documentation and verbal explanation.

STYLIZED

Describes works of art that conform to imagined or invented visual rules. Artwork that is stylized tends to be less spontaneous or visually responsive to changes in subject matter.

IDENTITY

How you view yourself, how others perceive you, and how a society as a whole defines groups of people. Influences of one's identity are: ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, and class, as well as education, childhood, and life experience. Contemporary art often deals with artists' identities—what it means to be an artist in today's rapidly changing world.

ABSTRACTION

In visual art, the use of color, shape, and line as elements in and of themselves. The term also refers to artwork that reduces natural appearances to simplified or nonrepresentational forms.Abstraction can also be conceptual, such as when a sentence or subject matter is cut up in order to make nonsensical or unreal meanings. A characteristic trait of twentieth-century and Modern art, abstraction is used by many artists working today; some combine representational and abstract elements while others make works without recognizable people, places, or things.

DIORAMA

Invented by Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre (inventor of daguerreotype, early photography) in the early 1800's in Paris -today known as a full-size replica or model and often associated with museums and the depiction of nature, cityscapes, historical events (used for education).

VERNACULAR

Language specific to a social group or region; language spoken or written by everyday people as opposed to literary or cultured language. Vernacular images are those that commonly appear in daily life in a particular culture.

PAINTING

Large-scale painting that represents either historical events or scenes from legend or literature. Considered the highest form of art in the nineteenth century, history paintings are grand in concept and execution. Much of Modern art has been a reaction against history painting, while some contemporary artists have found ways to incorporate the genre into their work.

MEDIA

Materials that are used to create a work of art or are understood within a certain genre, like painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, or film. The term can alsorefer to tools or methods to deliver information, like newspapers, television, film, publications, periodicals, the Internet, or social networking websites.

POST-COLONIALISM

Post-colonialism refers to a set of theoretical approaches to the aftermath and legacy of nineteenth-and twentieth-century European colonial rule—and especially to issues of individual and national identity, the subjugation and exploitation of nations or ethnic groups, and dynamics of race, class, and gender.

PERFORMANCE / PERFORMANCE ART

Public, private, or videotaped, performances often involve the artist performing a creative, visually compelling action. Performance art is normally created by people with a visual arts education and relates more to the history of painting and sculpture than to theater or dance. Often taking place in a gallery or on video, performance art rarely involves trained actors or directors.

IDENTITY POLITICS

Refers to the beliefs and activities of those who target racism, sexism, and other forms of prejudice and work for social rights and economic parity

MULTICULTURALISM

Refers to the recognition of cultural differences -advocating these differences as desirable / good rather than something we should fear and repress

HYBRIDITY

Related to notions of multiculturalism and diversity -"state of being, arrived at through the innovative mixing an borrowing of ideas, languages, andmodes of practice"

DIVERSITY (difference)

Strongly contrasts with essentialism. Identity is not formed around one centralized variable like race -instead it is formed within a complex matrix of many variables (gender, sexuality, ethnicity, class, religion, community, nation, etc.). There are internal differences among members of any community (and our communities shift).

ICONOGRAPHY

Symbols and images that have a particular meaning, either learned or universal.SYMBOLISM:The practice of representing something by an image, sign, symbol, convention, or association.

VISUAL LITERACY

The ability to effectively interpret images or create and use images as a form of communication.

FABRICATION

The act of forming something into a whole by constructing, framing, or uniting its parts. The fabrication of a work of art often involves the collaboration of specialists, who provide skills and specialized machines or processes to realize the artwork.

CRAFT

The artistic practices within the decorative arts that are traditionally defined by their relationship to functional or utilitarian products. Craft can also refer to the labor or skill of an artist or artisan.

AMBIGUITY

The capacity to be understood in more than one way. In art, a word, phrase, or image can be ambiguous if it contains multiple meanings to the artist and/or the viewer. For artists, ambiguity is often cited as an important

POPULAR CULTURE

The collected creative expressions of contemporary society—such as literature, radio and TV broadcasting, music, dance, movies, and sports—distinguished by their broad availability and appreciation across ethnic, social, and regional groups, and often disseminated through mass media. Products of popular culture have increasingly influenced visual artists, who often respond to or critique its influences on society.

FEMINISM ART MOVEMENT

The efforts of artists internationally to bring increased visibility and respect to the role of women within art history and art practice. The movement began in the 1960s and continues today. Feminist art is related to the larger feminist movement that encompasses literary, political, and social activism.

CONSUMPTION

The intake of objects, images, and popular ideas into one's home, body, ordaily life. Whether in the form of food, furniture, art objects, or advertising, consumption is rooted in the sale and purchase of goods, in a modern consumer society like the United States. Artworks that deal with consumption involve stuff in the world, from products to slogans, and are often concerned with what a thing is, how it looks, and how it came into existence.

CONTEXT

The location, information, or time-frame that informs how a work of art is viewed and what it means. Works of art often respond to a particular space or cultural climate. If the context for a work of art is changed or re-contextualized, the way in which the work is understood may change as well.

MINIMALISM

The name coined to describe a school of abstract painting and sculpture that emphasizes extreme simplification ofform, often employing

CULTURE

The rarely questioned system of beliefs, values and practices that form one's life. Cultures are often identified by national borders, ethnicity, and religion—while some cultures cross borders, ethnicities and organized faiths. A culture which involves a select portion of a population and which is organized around a particular interest (such as cars, graffiti, or music) is known as a subculture.

NARRATIVE

The representation in art, by form and content, of an event or story. Whether a literal story, event, or subject matter—or a more abstract relationship between colors, forms and materials—narrative in visual art applies as much to the work as it does to the viewer's "story" of what they see and experience.

FORM

The shape and structure of a work of art, formal elements include color, shape, pattern, and duration. Many artists strive for a relationship between form and content, so that the way something is made fits with what the artist intends the work to be about or how it will be seen.

TRANSCENDENCE

The state of being beyond the range of normal perception and consciousness, or of being free from the constraints of the material world.

TYPOGRAPHY

The style, arrangement, or appearance of fonts, letters, or characters in printed or published texts or graphic designs.

CONTENT

The subject matter, concepts, or ideas associated with a work of art. A work's content is shaped by the artist's intentions, the context of its presentation, and by the experiences, thoughts, and reactions of the viewer.

INSTALLATION

The term installation originally referred only to the arrangement of works of art in a gallery. In contemporary art, an installation can also be an artwork that uses a range of materials to present a particular environment, or an artwork designed for a specific physical space (usually called a site-specific installation). Often engage multiple senses such as sight, smell and hearing. Installations are generally temporary, but some installations travel to different locations and exist over longer periods of time

HIGH/LOW

These terms refer to artistic traditions that previously were considered distinct but are increasingly blurred in contemporary culture. High art has been defined as visual expression using established materials and media, such as painting and sculpture, while low art includes more popular arts such as cartoons, kitsch objects, and cinema.

VOCABULARY

This list a starting point list of terms that we will be discussing throughout the semester and can be used as a resource for your discussion posts.

DIVERGENT THINKING

an open-ended problem solving strategy. Starting with a broad theme, the designer explores in all directions, expanding ideas in all directions.