Art Theory
It was 1971 when art historian Linda Nochlin (Brooklyn, 1931 – Manhattan, 2017) shooke the art world with a shocking question: Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? 2021 marks the 50 anniversary of this essay which was—and still is— a watershed for Art History and Feminism studies. But is that really the question we should be asking? Is it a relevant question even for today?
By Abel Cervantes
A few weeks ago Netflix released one of the most interesting series in recent months. Directed by Martin Scorsese and starring writer Fran Lebowitz, Pretend It’s a City exposes in 7 chapters several of the most transcendent topics about one of the most emblematic places in the world through a question: is New York a city? From a critical and acute perspective—how could it be otherwise with Lebowitz as the main character—.Pretend It’s a City reaches one of its highest points in the second chapter, dedicated to cultural manifestations. Though from a scathing and lapidary perspective, the New York-based writer cleverly exposes some of the most common perspectives around the visual arts. I stop here to explore two of them:
By Camila Durán
There is a confusion between some concepts related to images, specifically documentary images, many of which are part of different works of contemporary art. When someone mentions the word manipulation, viewers and readers tend to associate the concept with the media and propaganda. However, the construction of any audiovisual discourse is a manipulation. As Harun Farocki said it: when I take an image and juxtapose it (montage) I am creating a sense of manipulation.
By Camila Durán
As Eric Hobsbawm says in Fractured Times. Culture and Society in the Twentieth Century, the twentieth century was, fundamentally, the time of manifestos. The Futurists inaugurated it. In 1909 they published in Le Figaro, in France, a declaration of principles in which they proposed a new way of understanding art. For example, conceiving art as a space of boldness, rebellion and challenge. Or propose that in art there is no greater beauty than that of struggle. The art manifestos that followed are innumerable. Surrealism, Dada, Fluxus and the major avant-gardes all had their own list of what art should be like.
By Camila Durán
One of the reasons that contemporary art is difficult to define is because it engages in an open dialogue with everyday life situations. As Boris Groys has explained in his texts, contemporary art is alive because it flees from museums. When art join museums, a double process begins. On the one hand, it adheres to the tradition of art. It is part of everything we call “ART”. But on the other hand, a part of its life vanishes.
By Andrea Cuevas
If we have always seen through the frames, why are we so afraid of the art seen through social media? As part of a public, but also as a researcher, I’m the kind of person who has mixed feelings on regard the “instagrammable art”: sharing and give some kind of light to exhibitions or artistic projects on Instagram is something I really enjoy.
