Why Not Art History
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Why not study art history? Robert Rauschenberg (1953) Erased De Kooning
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A broad explanation of why Visual Cultural Studies is taught at Edinburgh College of Art rather than a more conventional Art History
Transcript of Why Not Art History
Why not study art history?
Robert Rauschenberg (1953) Erased De Kooning
Bestist!
Second Bestist
Third Bestist
Carol Gwizdak (2007) Hyacinth Ring (Seed Head, Silver ,Porcelain)
Marianne Brandt (1924) Tea infuser and strainer.
Damien Hirst (2007) Spot Painting
Good Design
Poor Design
Suitable for Mass Production
Not Suitable for Mass Production
Marianne Brandt (1924) Tea infuser and strainer. Marcel Breuer (1927-8) Wassily Chair. Walter Gropius (1938-9) Breuer House
Good Design
Poor Design
Rational forms
Turbid, Organic Forms
Sol LeWitt (1968[?]) 142, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Good Design
Poor Design
Functional
Useless
Good Design
Bad Design
Individual
Homogenous
Good Design
Environmentally Conscious
Mitchell Joachim (2006) The Fab Tree Hab
Good Art
Bad Art
Art for Art’s Sake
Anonymous (and commonplace)
Jenny Holzer (1986) Protect me from what I want. From the Truisms series. Spectacolor electronic sign. Times Square, New York
Why not study art history?
Modern Art
Moving towards ‘flatness’
Impure
Clifford Still (1948) Clifford Still [?]
Great Art
Exhibit ‘Grace’
Overworked
Art History
Privileges Painting (and Sculpture) Aesthetic (concerned with forms and
styles) Great Artists Linear Development (Taste)
Art History?
Values
“I can’t wait to get into a position to make really bad art and get away with it. At the moment if I did certain things people would look at me and say ‘Fuck off’. But after a while you can get away with things.” Damien Hirst 1990, quoted in (Stallabrass 1999, p.31)
Fame ≠ Good Artist/ Designer/ Craftsperson
££££££ ≠ Good Art/ Design/ Craft
“Hirst said that he only painted five spot paintings himself (there are about 300) because, ‘I couldn’t be fucking arsed doing it.’ He described his efforts as ’shite.’ ‘They’re shite compared to … the best person who ever painted spots for me was Rachel. She’s brilliant. Absolutely fucking brilliant. The best spot painting you can have by me is one painted by Rachel.’” Stephen Foster, Blog (2007)
Values
Question
Canon: A list that champions key designers, craftspeople or artists, key texts and keys works over and above others.
Ideology: An interpretative scheme made up of values that shapes the way we organise information.
Institutions and ‘sharing’ values
Discourse: the total some of (organised) information on a particular subject.
Why not study art history?
From left: Raine Hodgson (2009) [photo John McGregor]; Julie Chapman (2009) Ephemeral Pleasures [photo John McGregor]; Lottie Lindsay (2009) Hills Emit Hope [photo Tom Nolan].
Farty?
Why not art history?
• ECA students are creative in lots of different ways• The world is full of visual representations• Traditional Art History might not help your
understanding of contemporary art• Studying Art History (alone) wouldn’t prepare
you for being contemporary practitioners• Visual Cultural Studies could include aspects of
Art History, but as part of richer and broader field of study
Why not study art history?
First Published in 1957
Andy Warhol (1968) Brillo Box. First Exhibited in a series in the Stable Gallery, New York.
Clockwise from top left: Caravaggio (1602-3) Doubting Thomas. Potsdam. Jackson Pollock (1952) Blue Poles number 11. Turner, JMW (1842) Streamer in a Snowstorm. Tate London. Diego Velazquez (1656) Las Meninas. Prado Madrid
Andy Warhol (1968) Brillo Box. First Exhibited in a series in the Stable Gallery, New York.
Marcel Duchamp (1917) Fountain
First Published in 1961 First Published in 1962
Neither of these books contained a single
reference to female artists when first
published!!!
Mary Beth Edelson (1972) Some Living American Women
“The feminist critique of art history began by berating the discipline for its discriminatory exclusion of women artists. This was a necessary but limited tactic. For art history as a discourse actively produces its meanings by exclusion, repression and subordination...”
(Pollock 1988, p.128)
“The modern system of art is not an essence or a fate but something we have made. Art as we have generally understood it is a European invention barely two hundred years old.” (Larry Shiner 2001, p.3)
Gustave Courbet (1855) The Painter’s Studio
Lots of other important things... !!!
Criticisms of Art History
Narrowness of its subject matter Concentration on individual artists Restricted methods:
Style Iconography Quality Canon Dating Biography
Uniformity of Curricula Ignoring social context of art Inattention to theoretical change
(Fernire 1995)
To be continued ... by you!
References
Fernire, Eric (ed.) (1995) Art History and Its Methods. London, Phaidon Press Ltd.
Pollock, Griselda (1988) Vision and Difference. London, Routledge
Shiner, Larry (2001) The Invention of Art. London, The University of Chicago Press.
