Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good and Byron J. Good
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520252233
- eISBN:
- 9780520941021
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520252233.003.0003
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
This chapter examines how citizen-artists in Indonesia creatively and critically engaged in subjectifying the state through pointedly political art, generating narratives and fantasies both visual ...
More
This chapter examines how citizen-artists in Indonesia creatively and critically engaged in subjectifying the state through pointedly political art, generating narratives and fantasies both visual and discursive, private and public, and images of past, present, and future during the early period of post-Suharto reformation. It describes several notable works by Indonesian artists including Yuli Kodo's Indonesia Sakit, Alex Luthfi's Kado Reformasi, and Entang Wiharso's Don't Touch Me. The chapter suggests that these works reveal how the transformation of political engagements led to these artists' newfound subjectivity as post-New Order Indonesian citizens capable of publicly critiquing the state as well as reenvisioning, through their paintings, imagined possibilities for a new democratic Indonesian state.Less
This chapter examines how citizen-artists in Indonesia creatively and critically engaged in subjectifying the state through pointedly political art, generating narratives and fantasies both visual and discursive, private and public, and images of past, present, and future during the early period of post-Suharto reformation. It describes several notable works by Indonesian artists including Yuli Kodo's Indonesia Sakit, Alex Luthfi's Kado Reformasi, and Entang Wiharso's Don't Touch Me. The chapter suggests that these works reveal how the transformation of political engagements led to these artists' newfound subjectivity as post-New Order Indonesian citizens capable of publicly critiquing the state as well as reenvisioning, through their paintings, imagined possibilities for a new democratic Indonesian state.
Nizan Shaked
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781784992750
- eISBN:
- 9781526128171
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781784992750.003.0001
- Subject:
- Art, Art History
The introduction addresses two intersecting trajectories in American art between the late 1960s and the early twenty-first-century century. On the one hand, it traces the ways in which disciplinary ...
More
The introduction addresses two intersecting trajectories in American art between the late 1960s and the early twenty-first-century century. On the one hand, it traces the ways in which disciplinary Conceptual Art, with a capital “C”, expanded into the diverse set of practices that have been characterised generally as conceptualism. On the other hand, it shows how the expansion of a critical conceptualism has been strongly informed by the turbulent rights-based politics of the 1960s. Initially, first generation Conceptual artists responded to preceding art movements within disciplinary boundaries, examining the definition of art itself and engaging abstract concerns. Artists then applied the basic principles of Conceptual Art to address a range of social and political issues. This development reflects the influence of Civil Rights, Black Power, the student movement, the anti-war movement, second wave feminism, and the gay liberation movement. Central in the American context, the multiple identity-based mobilisations that came to be known as “identity politics” were further articulated in the 1970s. The artists addressed in this book: Adrian Piper, Joseph Kosuth, David Hammons, Renée Green, Mary Kelly, Martha Rosler, Silvia Kolbowski, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Lorna Simpson, Andrea Fraser, Hans Haacke, and Charles Gaines expanded the propositions of Conceptual Art.Less
The introduction addresses two intersecting trajectories in American art between the late 1960s and the early twenty-first-century century. On the one hand, it traces the ways in which disciplinary Conceptual Art, with a capital “C”, expanded into the diverse set of practices that have been characterised generally as conceptualism. On the other hand, it shows how the expansion of a critical conceptualism has been strongly informed by the turbulent rights-based politics of the 1960s. Initially, first generation Conceptual artists responded to preceding art movements within disciplinary boundaries, examining the definition of art itself and engaging abstract concerns. Artists then applied the basic principles of Conceptual Art to address a range of social and political issues. This development reflects the influence of Civil Rights, Black Power, the student movement, the anti-war movement, second wave feminism, and the gay liberation movement. Central in the American context, the multiple identity-based mobilisations that came to be known as “identity politics” were further articulated in the 1970s. The artists addressed in this book: Adrian Piper, Joseph Kosuth, David Hammons, Renée Green, Mary Kelly, Martha Rosler, Silvia Kolbowski, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Lorna Simpson, Andrea Fraser, Hans Haacke, and Charles Gaines expanded the propositions of Conceptual Art.
Nizan Shaked
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781784992750
- eISBN:
- 9781526128171
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781784992750.001.0001
- Subject:
- Art, Art History
The synthetic proposition: Conceptualism and the political referent in contemporary art examines the impact of Civil Rights, Black Power, the student, feminist and the sexual-liberty movements on ...
More
The synthetic proposition: Conceptualism and the political referent in contemporary art examines the impact of Civil Rights, Black Power, the student, feminist and the sexual-liberty movements on conceptualism and its legacies in the United States between the late 1960s and the present. It focuses on the turn to political reference in practices originally concerned with philosophically abstract ideas, and traces key strategies in contemporary art today to the reciprocal influences of conceptualism and identity politics, movements that have so far been historicized as mutually exclusive. It demonstrates that while identity-based strategies were particular, their impact spread far beyond the individuals or communities that originated them. Commencing with the early oeuvre of Adrian Piper, a first generation Conceptual artist, this book offers a study of interlocutors that expanded the practice into a broad notion of conceptualism, including Joseph Kosuth, David Hammons, Renée Green, Mary Kelly, Martha Rosler, Silvia Kolbowski, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Lorna Simpson, Hans Haacke, Andrea Fraser, and Charles Gaines. By turning to social issues, these artists analyzed the cultural conventions embedded in modes of reference and representation such as language, writing, photography, moving image, or installation and exhibition display.Less
The synthetic proposition: Conceptualism and the political referent in contemporary art examines the impact of Civil Rights, Black Power, the student, feminist and the sexual-liberty movements on conceptualism and its legacies in the United States between the late 1960s and the present. It focuses on the turn to political reference in practices originally concerned with philosophically abstract ideas, and traces key strategies in contemporary art today to the reciprocal influences of conceptualism and identity politics, movements that have so far been historicized as mutually exclusive. It demonstrates that while identity-based strategies were particular, their impact spread far beyond the individuals or communities that originated them. Commencing with the early oeuvre of Adrian Piper, a first generation Conceptual artist, this book offers a study of interlocutors that expanded the practice into a broad notion of conceptualism, including Joseph Kosuth, David Hammons, Renée Green, Mary Kelly, Martha Rosler, Silvia Kolbowski, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Lorna Simpson, Hans Haacke, Andrea Fraser, and Charles Gaines. By turning to social issues, these artists analyzed the cultural conventions embedded in modes of reference and representation such as language, writing, photography, moving image, or installation and exhibition display.
Laurie Shrage
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195153095
- eISBN:
- 9780199870615
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019515309X.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
Evaluates “pro‐life” and “pro‐choice” media campaigns, featuring fetuses and coat hangers respectively, and shows how both reflect individualistic ideologies about responsibility and freedom. Rather ...
More
Evaluates “pro‐life” and “pro‐choice” media campaigns, featuring fetuses and coat hangers respectively, and shows how both reflect individualistic ideologies about responsibility and freedom. Rather than participate in public discourses that construe individual responsibility and liberty as simple moral alternatives, considers feminist political art that raises questions about our collective responsibilities to support others. Also considers visual and performance artwork that draws attention to the way that pregnancy and persons are culturally constructed. Urges reproductive rights activists to jettison the coat hanger image in favor of images that would promote constructive public dialog on access to contraception, child and family support, the duties of all citizens to provide life‐saving help, the positive aspects of enabling women to control their fertility, and the dangers of religious extremism.Less
Evaluates “pro‐life” and “pro‐choice” media campaigns, featuring fetuses and coat hangers respectively, and shows how both reflect individualistic ideologies about responsibility and freedom. Rather than participate in public discourses that construe individual responsibility and liberty as simple moral alternatives, considers feminist political art that raises questions about our collective responsibilities to support others. Also considers visual and performance artwork that draws attention to the way that pregnancy and persons are culturally constructed. Urges reproductive rights activists to jettison the coat hanger image in favor of images that would promote constructive public dialog on access to contraception, child and family support, the duties of all citizens to provide life‐saving help, the positive aspects of enabling women to control their fertility, and the dangers of religious extremism.
Nizan Shaked
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781784992750
- eISBN:
- 9781526128171
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781784992750.003.0002
- Subject:
- Art, Art History
This chapter asks how a precisely articulated set of practices, defined by artists in the 1960s as Conceptual Art, evolve into a broad notion of conceptualism, and how the latter had expanded into ...
More
This chapter asks how a precisely articulated set of practices, defined by artists in the 1960s as Conceptual Art, evolve into a broad notion of conceptualism, and how the latter had expanded into its present forms. It shows how, in the United States context, some of the most important strategies of conceptualism developed through the influence of contemporaneous politics, more specifically the transition from Civil Rights into Black Power, the New Left, the anti-war movement, feminism, and gay liberation, as well as what later came to be collectively named “identity politics” in the 1970s. A range of artists who have self-defined as conceptualists synthesised Conceptual analytic approaches with an outlook on identity formation as a means of political agency, and not as a representation of the self, a strategy that significantly expanded in the 1970s. Two major aspects of identity politics have impacted the field. The first, activist and administrative, consisted of protests against existing institutions, the developments of action groups and collectives, and the subsequent formulation of alternative spaces. The second was the bearing that it had on artistic strategy, form, and subject matter. This chapter focuses on practices that took a critical outlook on identity formation.Less
This chapter asks how a precisely articulated set of practices, defined by artists in the 1960s as Conceptual Art, evolve into a broad notion of conceptualism, and how the latter had expanded into its present forms. It shows how, in the United States context, some of the most important strategies of conceptualism developed through the influence of contemporaneous politics, more specifically the transition from Civil Rights into Black Power, the New Left, the anti-war movement, feminism, and gay liberation, as well as what later came to be collectively named “identity politics” in the 1970s. A range of artists who have self-defined as conceptualists synthesised Conceptual analytic approaches with an outlook on identity formation as a means of political agency, and not as a representation of the self, a strategy that significantly expanded in the 1970s. Two major aspects of identity politics have impacted the field. The first, activist and administrative, consisted of protests against existing institutions, the developments of action groups and collectives, and the subsequent formulation of alternative spaces. The second was the bearing that it had on artistic strategy, form, and subject matter. This chapter focuses on practices that took a critical outlook on identity formation.
Demetrios S. Katos
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199696963
- eISBN:
- 9780191731969
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199696963.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies, Church History
This chapter argues that the Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom should be understood as a legal argument in defense of John composed in accordance with the principles of late antique ...
More
This chapter argues that the Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom should be understood as a legal argument in defense of John composed in accordance with the principles of late antique judicial rhetoric found in the Art of Political Speech (Anonymous Seguerianus) and Art of Rhetoric, attributed to Apsines of Gadara. This chapter analyzes the Dialogue in terms of its four constitutive parts, namely, the introduction [proemion], narration [diegesis], argumentation [kataskeue or pistis], and conclusion [epilogos] and explains the purpose and historical value of each. This chapter reveals that Palladius used the dialogue form to mimic courtroom debate and that he subordinated all narrative elements to the argumentation. It is the argumentation that is at the very heart of the Dialogue, even though its significance has been ignored or even dismissed by most scholarship which has long viewed the dialogue as a historical or biographical narrative.Less
This chapter argues that the Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom should be understood as a legal argument in defense of John composed in accordance with the principles of late antique judicial rhetoric found in the Art of Political Speech (Anonymous Seguerianus) and Art of Rhetoric, attributed to Apsines of Gadara. This chapter analyzes the Dialogue in terms of its four constitutive parts, namely, the introduction [proemion], narration [diegesis], argumentation [kataskeue or pistis], and conclusion [epilogos] and explains the purpose and historical value of each. This chapter reveals that Palladius used the dialogue form to mimic courtroom debate and that he subordinated all narrative elements to the argumentation. It is the argumentation that is at the very heart of the Dialogue, even though its significance has been ignored or even dismissed by most scholarship which has long viewed the dialogue as a historical or biographical narrative.
Karen Mary Davalos
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781479877966
- eISBN:
- 9781479825165
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479877966.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
This chapter traces the origins of the first Chicano arts organizations and explores how they combine art and commerce, two areas previously considered distinct and contradictory. Focusing on the ...
More
This chapter traces the origins of the first Chicano arts organizations and explores how they combine art and commerce, two areas previously considered distinct and contradictory. Focusing on the period 1969–1978, the chapter illustrates how the earliest ventures operated with complex and nuanced views about commerce, politics, community, and the arts. It challenges notions in Chicana/o studies that dismiss commerce as antithetical to Chicano movement or community politics, and it finds that Mechicano Art Center and Goez Art Studios and Gallery exceed notions of civic and cultural engagement, inaugurated pedagogies now central in Chicana/o studies and arts institutions, and mapped a decolonial imaginary for Los Angeles.Less
This chapter traces the origins of the first Chicano arts organizations and explores how they combine art and commerce, two areas previously considered distinct and contradictory. Focusing on the period 1969–1978, the chapter illustrates how the earliest ventures operated with complex and nuanced views about commerce, politics, community, and the arts. It challenges notions in Chicana/o studies that dismiss commerce as antithetical to Chicano movement or community politics, and it finds that Mechicano Art Center and Goez Art Studios and Gallery exceed notions of civic and cultural engagement, inaugurated pedagogies now central in Chicana/o studies and arts institutions, and mapped a decolonial imaginary for Los Angeles.
Maurizio Peleggi
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780824866068
- eISBN:
- 9780824876913
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824866068.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
Monastery, Monument, Museum examines cultural sites, artifacts, and institutions of Thailand as both products and vehicles of cultural memory. From rock caves to reliquaries, from cultic images to ...
More
Monastery, Monument, Museum examines cultural sites, artifacts, and institutions of Thailand as both products and vehicles of cultural memory. From rock caves to reliquaries, from cultic images to temple murals, from museums and modern monuments to contemporary artworks, cultural sites and artifacts are considered in relation to the transmission of religious beliefs and political ideologies, as well as manual and intellectual knowledge, throughout thelongue durée of Thailand’s cultural history. Sequenced by and large chronologically along a period of time spanning the eleventh century through to the start of the twenty-first, the eight chapters in this book are grouped into three sections that surface distinct themes and analytical concerns: devotional art in Part I, museology and art history in Part II, and political art in Part III. The chapters can even be read as self-contained essays, each supplied with extensive bibliographic references.By examining the interplay between cultural sites and artifacts, their popular and scholarly appreciation, and the institutional configuration of a cultural legacy, Monastery, Monument, Museum makes a contribution to the literature on memory studies. A second area of scholarship this book engages is the art history of Thailand by shifting focus from the chronological and stylistic analysis of artifacts to their social life—and afterlife. Monastery, Monument, Museum brings together in one volume a millennium of art and cultural history of Thailand. Its novel analysis and thought-provoking re-interpretation of a variety of artifacts and source materials will be of interest to both the specialist and the general reader.Less
Monastery, Monument, Museum examines cultural sites, artifacts, and institutions of Thailand as both products and vehicles of cultural memory. From rock caves to reliquaries, from cultic images to temple murals, from museums and modern monuments to contemporary artworks, cultural sites and artifacts are considered in relation to the transmission of religious beliefs and political ideologies, as well as manual and intellectual knowledge, throughout thelongue durée of Thailand’s cultural history. Sequenced by and large chronologically along a period of time spanning the eleventh century through to the start of the twenty-first, the eight chapters in this book are grouped into three sections that surface distinct themes and analytical concerns: devotional art in Part I, museology and art history in Part II, and political art in Part III. The chapters can even be read as self-contained essays, each supplied with extensive bibliographic references.By examining the interplay between cultural sites and artifacts, their popular and scholarly appreciation, and the institutional configuration of a cultural legacy, Monastery, Monument, Museum makes a contribution to the literature on memory studies. A second area of scholarship this book engages is the art history of Thailand by shifting focus from the chronological and stylistic analysis of artifacts to their social life—and afterlife. Monastery, Monument, Museum brings together in one volume a millennium of art and cultural history of Thailand. Its novel analysis and thought-provoking re-interpretation of a variety of artifacts and source materials will be of interest to both the specialist and the general reader.
Alexander M. Schenker
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300097122
- eISBN:
- 9780300128949
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300097122.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter begins with a discussion of the equestrian monument as political art and Peter the Great's idea to commission a monument to himself in his own lifetime. It then describes Catherine the ...
More
This chapter begins with a discussion of the equestrian monument as political art and Peter the Great's idea to commission a monument to himself in his own lifetime. It then describes Catherine the Great's appointment of Etienne-Maurice Falconet to create a new monument to Peter the Great; Prince Dmitry Alekseevich Golitsyn, Russia's minister plenipotentiary in Paris, who helped in the selection of Falconet; and the work done by Falconet before his trip to Russia.Less
This chapter begins with a discussion of the equestrian monument as political art and Peter the Great's idea to commission a monument to himself in his own lifetime. It then describes Catherine the Great's appointment of Etienne-Maurice Falconet to create a new monument to Peter the Great; Prince Dmitry Alekseevich Golitsyn, Russia's minister plenipotentiary in Paris, who helped in the selection of Falconet; and the work done by Falconet before his trip to Russia.
Elizabeth Cowie
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816645480
- eISBN:
- 9781452945866
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816645480.003.0007
- Subject:
- Art, Visual Culture
This chapter examines the role of time and memory in a documentary by addressing the question: what is gained and lost by spectators when watching a film? A documentary is considered aesthetics ...
More
This chapter examines the role of time and memory in a documentary by addressing the question: what is gained and lost by spectators when watching a film? A documentary is considered aesthetics because of its temporal disjuncture presented between the real time of the past event and its presence again in the film that can be seen as spectral. The chapter also discusses the aspect of time as political art.Less
This chapter examines the role of time and memory in a documentary by addressing the question: what is gained and lost by spectators when watching a film? A documentary is considered aesthetics because of its temporal disjuncture presented between the real time of the past event and its presence again in the film that can be seen as spectral. The chapter also discusses the aspect of time as political art.
Andrew Raffo Dewar
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190842741
- eISBN:
- 9780190842789
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190842741.003.0015
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
Two years after the 1966 military coup in Argentina, three musicians, Norberto Chavarri, Roque de Pedro and Guillermo Gregorio, formed the intermedia performance collective Movimiento Música Más. The ...
More
Two years after the 1966 military coup in Argentina, three musicians, Norberto Chavarri, Roque de Pedro and Guillermo Gregorio, formed the intermedia performance collective Movimiento Música Más. The collective combined experimental music, visual art, poetic performance, and political action, carrying out activities in concert halls, plazas, and city buses. This chapter examines the activist art of this little-known “Other” avant-garde that existed at the periphery of 1960s internationalism, focusing on two of its performance pieces: Plaza para una siesta de domingo (1970) and Música para colectivo línea 7 (1971), composed by Norberto Chavarri. These two performances embody the group’s approach to experimentalism: a commitment to bringing art and people into public spaces during a time of rigid governmental control of those spaces and bodies, creating domestically inspired aesthetic responses to the complex problems of late 1960s and early 1970s Buenos Aires.Less
Two years after the 1966 military coup in Argentina, three musicians, Norberto Chavarri, Roque de Pedro and Guillermo Gregorio, formed the intermedia performance collective Movimiento Música Más. The collective combined experimental music, visual art, poetic performance, and political action, carrying out activities in concert halls, plazas, and city buses. This chapter examines the activist art of this little-known “Other” avant-garde that existed at the periphery of 1960s internationalism, focusing on two of its performance pieces: Plaza para una siesta de domingo (1970) and Música para colectivo línea 7 (1971), composed by Norberto Chavarri. These two performances embody the group’s approach to experimentalism: a commitment to bringing art and people into public spaces during a time of rigid governmental control of those spaces and bodies, creating domestically inspired aesthetic responses to the complex problems of late 1960s and early 1970s Buenos Aires.
Fiona Deans Halloran
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807835876
- eISBN:
- 9781469600239
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807837351_halloran.8
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
Despite the success of his employment at Harper's Weekly, Thomas Nast continued to experiment with other art forms and other avenues of self-expression. This chapter discusses the political themes ...
More
Despite the success of his employment at Harper's Weekly, Thomas Nast continued to experiment with other art forms and other avenues of self-expression. This chapter discusses the political themes that began to dominate Nast's work. The election of General U. S. Grant to the presidency was one of the political campaigns that helped push Nast even more deeply towards political art.Less
Despite the success of his employment at Harper's Weekly, Thomas Nast continued to experiment with other art forms and other avenues of self-expression. This chapter discusses the political themes that began to dominate Nast's work. The election of General U. S. Grant to the presidency was one of the political campaigns that helped push Nast even more deeply towards political art.
Ryan Ebright
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190605285
- eISBN:
- 9780190605315
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190605285.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Steve Reich and Beryl Korot’s 1993 video opera, The Cave, addresses a potent political subject: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet shortly after its premiere, they publicly disavowed art’s ...
More
Steve Reich and Beryl Korot’s 1993 video opera, The Cave, addresses a potent political subject: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet shortly after its premiere, they publicly disavowed art’s capacity to effect political or social change. This disavowal belies the explicitly political genesis of The Cave, the development of which throughout the 1980s coincided with rising Arab-Israeli tensions and the First Intifada. Early sketches, outlines, and descriptions of The Cave reveal that the pair initially viewed their quasi-opera as a step toward “reconciling the family of man.” By 1993, however, they instead adopted a seemingly apolitical stance, shying away from answering the fundamental question they had set out to answer: How can Jews and Muslims live together peacefully? This chapter argues that traces of this bid for peace remain in the opera’s music, text, and narrative structure, and that despite its purported neutrality, The Cave espouses an Americanized vision of Arab-Israeli reconciliation.Less
Steve Reich and Beryl Korot’s 1993 video opera, The Cave, addresses a potent political subject: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet shortly after its premiere, they publicly disavowed art’s capacity to effect political or social change. This disavowal belies the explicitly political genesis of The Cave, the development of which throughout the 1980s coincided with rising Arab-Israeli tensions and the First Intifada. Early sketches, outlines, and descriptions of The Cave reveal that the pair initially viewed their quasi-opera as a step toward “reconciling the family of man.” By 1993, however, they instead adopted a seemingly apolitical stance, shying away from answering the fundamental question they had set out to answer: How can Jews and Muslims live together peacefully? This chapter argues that traces of this bid for peace remain in the opera’s music, text, and narrative structure, and that despite its purported neutrality, The Cave espouses an Americanized vision of Arab-Israeli reconciliation.
Jessica Lawless
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816670826
- eISBN:
- 9781452947181
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816670826.003.0019
- Subject:
- Art, Art History
This chapter considers the question of how the radical use of the camera can translate into concrete political activism that effects social change. A way to do this is to stop confining the ...
More
This chapter considers the question of how the radical use of the camera can translate into concrete political activism that effects social change. A way to do this is to stop confining the definition of political art to protest art and, conversely, to recognize the sublime in openly political artworks. It is also necessary to shift the concept of oblique to stealth. Oblique can be likened to passing, whereas stealth, if one is being conscious and strategic, can contribute to the dismantling of normative gender and sexuality in explosive ways. This is not just a rhetorical move. It is queering an approach to video making, queering how one looks through the camera, and queering how one sees what is captured. To be queer, one must become conscious of one’s location. Queering one’s approach to making video is not to become queer in one’s sexual practices but to become conscious of looking 45 degrees off center, askew and somewhat bent.Less
This chapter considers the question of how the radical use of the camera can translate into concrete political activism that effects social change. A way to do this is to stop confining the definition of political art to protest art and, conversely, to recognize the sublime in openly political artworks. It is also necessary to shift the concept of oblique to stealth. Oblique can be likened to passing, whereas stealth, if one is being conscious and strategic, can contribute to the dismantling of normative gender and sexuality in explosive ways. This is not just a rhetorical move. It is queering an approach to video making, queering how one looks through the camera, and queering how one sees what is captured. To be queer, one must become conscious of one’s location. Queering one’s approach to making video is not to become queer in one’s sexual practices but to become conscious of looking 45 degrees off center, askew and somewhat bent.
Doug Bailey
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190611873
- eISBN:
- 9780190611903
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190611873.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Archaeology: Non-Classical
This chapter provides a detailed description, discussion, and interpretation of the performance artist Ron Athey’s 1994 show 4 Scenes in a Harsh Life, and the controversy that it caused at local, ...
More
This chapter provides a detailed description, discussion, and interpretation of the performance artist Ron Athey’s 1994 show 4 Scenes in a Harsh Life, and the controversy that it caused at local, national, and international levels. Discussion places that performance in the contexts of Athey’s other work, and the broader practice of performance art of the body, and then argues for the relevance of the Athey work for understanding the Neolithic pit-houses at Neolithic Măgura. Primary articulations of relevance are the previously under-represented role of the digger-as-performer, of the audience-as-witness and spectator, and of visibility and ephemera in performance. The chapter ends with a discussion about types of questions that we might now ask about pit-house sites such as Măgura.Less
This chapter provides a detailed description, discussion, and interpretation of the performance artist Ron Athey’s 1994 show 4 Scenes in a Harsh Life, and the controversy that it caused at local, national, and international levels. Discussion places that performance in the contexts of Athey’s other work, and the broader practice of performance art of the body, and then argues for the relevance of the Athey work for understanding the Neolithic pit-houses at Neolithic Măgura. Primary articulations of relevance are the previously under-represented role of the digger-as-performer, of the audience-as-witness and spectator, and of visibility and ephemera in performance. The chapter ends with a discussion about types of questions that we might now ask about pit-house sites such as Măgura.
