Journal Description
Arts
Arts
is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal promoting significant research on all aspects of the visual and performing arts, published bimonthly online by MDPI.
- Open Access— free for readers, with article processing charges (APC) paid by authors or their institutions.
- High Visibility: indexed within ESCI (Web of Science), and other databases.
- Rapid Publication: manuscripts are peer-reviewed and a first decision is provided to authors approximately 33.7 days after submission; acceptance to publication is undertaken in 8.6 days (median values for papers published in this journal in the second half of 2023).
- Recognition of Reviewers: reviewers who provide timely, thorough peer-review reports receive vouchers entitling them to a discount on the APC of their next publication in any MDPI journal, in appreciation of the work done.
Impact Factor:
0.5 (2022)
Latest Articles
Violent Raiding, Systematic Slaving, and Sweeping Depopulation? Re-Evaluating the Scythian Impact on Central Europe through the Lens of the Witaszkowo/Vettersfelde Hoard
Arts 2024, 13(2), 57; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020057 - 14 Mar 2024
Abstract
In 1882, the lavishly decorated golden regalia of a steppe nomad warrior prince, which was crafted in the late sixth century BCE in a “bilingual” Scythian–Milesian workshop on the Black Sea coast, was found on the edge of a Lusatian swamp 120 km
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In 1882, the lavishly decorated golden regalia of a steppe nomad warrior prince, which was crafted in the late sixth century BCE in a “bilingual” Scythian–Milesian workshop on the Black Sea coast, was found on the edge of a Lusatian swamp 120 km southeast of Berlin. Its discovery and the ongoing findings of steppe nomad armaments—arrows, battle axes, and swords—in central Europe have led to a lively debate about the nature of Scythian–Indigenous interaction in the Early Iron Age, ranging from benign visions of long-term acculturation to violent scenarios of short-term raiding. In this article, I argue that an analysis of the iconography of the Witaszkowo hoard and new information from excavations at its find spot make it likely that it was sent as a diplomatic gift by Scythian elites to an indigenous leader and deposited by the local community as a votive hoard. An affirmation of the compact chronological range of Scythian artefacts found in the west, growing evidence for the destruction of indigenous strongholds by horse-borne archers, and concurrent evidence for the drastic depopulation of vast landscapes in the second half of the sixth century BCE allow us to envisage the gifting of this hoard as an episode of a fierce and destructive altercation. It is posited that this onslaught was a facet of the western thrust of the Lydian and Persian Empires, and that its extirpative impact was the result of systematic, commercially driven slaving triggered by the concurrent monetisation of the economies of the Black Sea coast. The effects of these raids on Eastern Central Europe’s later prehistoric communities are made manifest by analogies to the disastrous ramifications of the transatlantic slave trade on societies of 16th-to-18th-century West Africa.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Situating Eurasia in Antiquity: Nomadic Material Culture in the First Millennium BCE)
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Interiority, Metamorphosis, and Simone Leigh’s Hybrid Cowries
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Tiffany Johnson Bidler
Arts 2024, 13(2), 56; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020056 - 14 Mar 2024
Abstract
By way of an analysis of Simone Leigh’s You Don’t Know Where Her Mouth Has Been (2017), this essay argues that by hybridizing the cowrie and watermelon, Leigh creates her own natural history of these biological forms that disorders the rigid taxonomic classification
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By way of an analysis of Simone Leigh’s You Don’t Know Where Her Mouth Has Been (2017), this essay argues that by hybridizing the cowrie and watermelon, Leigh creates her own natural history of these biological forms that disorders the rigid taxonomic classification on which systems of discrimination rely. The resulting hybrid cowrie not only defies classification, it also forms a folded architecture that facilitates a Deleuzian reading. The hybrid cowries, by way of their capacious construction and narrow slits, evoke an interiority that enables metamorphosis. By way of the analysis of the works of Cupboard (2014) and Cowrie (Pannier) (2015), the essay further investigates architectural forms. It considers the intricate interactions between the hybrid architecture of natural forms, such as cowries and watermelons, and human-fabricated forms, such as teleuks and crinolines.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Modern and Contemporary Art: Topical Abstraction in Contemporary Sculpture)
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Nandanar: Visibilizing Caste in Bharatanatyam Performance
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Preethi Ramaprasad
Arts 2024, 13(2), 55; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020055 - 12 Mar 2024
Abstract
What are the implications of a bejeweled dancer in fine silk on the proscenium stage performing a piece that undeniably centers caste? As the Bharatanatyam field reflects on the art form’s appropriation from the hereditary dance community, analyzing choreography reveals different bodily representations
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What are the implications of a bejeweled dancer in fine silk on the proscenium stage performing a piece that undeniably centers caste? As the Bharatanatyam field reflects on the art form’s appropriation from the hereditary dance community, analyzing choreography reveals different bodily representations of caste. Many Bharatanatyam dancers globally perform excerpts of the Nandanar Charitram, by Tamil composer Gopalakrishna Bharathi. The plot traces Nandanar, a Dalit saint who is not allowed in many temples and ends with his immolation, allowing his “purified” self to unite with the Hindu god Shiva. I study performances of the Nandanar Charitram comparing two Bharatanatyam showings and the 1942 film “Nandanar”. To recognize how caste is both articulated and understood, I analyze choreography, interviews conducted with dancers, and forums where audience members share their responses to the works. I use Judith Butler and Dwight Conquergood’s theorization of performativity, acknowledging that while Bharatanatyam choreography is often “iterative”, it has the potential to “disrupt” dominant norms on caste and politics. Nandanar remains the most prominent Dalit figure seen in the Bharatanatyam repertoire. By studying representations of his story, I highlight the relevance of bodily caste politics in the South Asian diaspora today.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Choreographing Society)
Open AccessArticle
Bridging the Vantage Point of Distance: Reynaldo Rivera and the Visual Legacies of Queer Spectacle across Time and Space
by
Estefanía Vélez
Arts 2024, 13(2), 54; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020054 - 12 Mar 2024
Abstract
Gender impersonators and trans gender-nonconforming people have long been a source of fascination within the visual arts. Nevertheless, illustrators and photographers alike have perpetually instrumentalized the image of the queer subject as a visual shorthand for criminality, freakishness, and deception. Beginning with the
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Gender impersonators and trans gender-nonconforming people have long been a source of fascination within the visual arts. Nevertheless, illustrators and photographers alike have perpetually instrumentalized the image of the queer subject as a visual shorthand for criminality, freakishness, and deception. Beginning with the broadside illustrations of José Guadalupe Posada, this article examines how visual representations of Latinx queerness and gender nonconformity shifted across the Americas and throughout the late nineteenth century into the late twentieth century. Ultimately, I contend that Reynaldo Rivera’s photography of late-twentieth-century ballroom culture provides a substantial departure from these speculatory conventions by visually legitimizing the lived authenticity of the queer Latinx people who populate his work.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Queer Latinx Artists and the Human Body)
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“Playing” with Color: How Similar Is the “Geometry” of Color Harmony in the CIELAB Color Space across Countries?
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Yulia A. Griber, Tatyana Samoilova, Abdulrahman S. Al-Rasheed, Victoria Bogushevskaya, Elisa Cordero-Jahr, Alexey Delov, Yacine Gouaich, James Manteith, Philip Mefoh, Jimena Vanina Odetti, Gloria Politi and Tatyana Sivova
Arts 2024, 13(2), 53; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020053 - 12 Mar 2024
Abstract
In physical environments and cultural landscapes, we most often deal not with separate colors, but with color combinations. When choosing a color, we usually try to “fit” it into a preexisting color context, making the new color combination harmonious. Yet are the “laws”
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In physical environments and cultural landscapes, we most often deal not with separate colors, but with color combinations. When choosing a color, we usually try to “fit” it into a preexisting color context, making the new color combination harmonious. Yet are the “laws” of color harmony fundamental to our shared cognitive architecture, or are they cultural products that vary from country to country? To answer these questions we conducted an experiment with 599 participants aged 18 to 76 from eight different countries, including Algeria (MA = 26.2 years; SD = 8.8; 49 men, 26 women), Belarus (MA = 19.8 years; SD = 9.1; 19 men, 63 women), Italy (MA = 29.0 years; SD = 12.8; 23 men, 67 women), Mexico (MA = 20.0 years; SD = 7.0; 34 men, 23 women), Nigeria (MA = 34.7 years; SD = 10.5; 29 men, 32 women), Russia (MA = 24.6 years; SD = 6.3; 17 men, 72 women), Saudi Arabia (MA = 24.5 years; SD = 8.6; 28 men, 38 women), and Chile (MA = 34.3 years; SD = 15.1; 35 men, 43 women). To create experimental stimuli, we used 10 color combinations composed by the Russian avant-garde artist Mikhail Matyushin and his disciples for the Reference Book of Color (1932) based on shades that were typical in architectural design—yellow ochre, light umber, light ochre, and burnt umber. We removed the “intermediary” linking color from each of the selected color triads and asked participants to adjust the color of this band according to their liking. Mapping 2995 color choices into CIELAB and CIELCh color space to identify their chromatic characteristics (hue, lightness, and chroma), we demonstrate graphically that color triads in different cultures have a different “geometry” in CIELAB color space and on the color circle. We conclude that the revealed patterns of these relationships reflect cross-cultural “shifts” in human perception of color harmony. The analysis presented in this paper will facilitate opportunities for architects, designers, and other color professionals to create culturally specific harmonic color combinations in urban environments.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Colour: Art and Design in Urban Environments)
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Local Fabric: Mid-Century Modernisms, Textile and Fashion Design, and the Northwest Coast, 1940–1967
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Laura J. Allen
Arts 2024, 13(2), 52; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020052 - 11 Mar 2024
Abstract
In the mid-twentieth century, growing North American textile and ready-to-wear industries vigorously appropriated Native American aesthetics to cultivate a commercial and design identity apart from Europe. Most studies of the circulation of Indigenous idioms in these industries focus on Southwestern or South Pacific
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In the mid-twentieth century, growing North American textile and ready-to-wear industries vigorously appropriated Native American aesthetics to cultivate a commercial and design identity apart from Europe. Most studies of the circulation of Indigenous idioms in these industries focus on Southwestern or South Pacific regionalisms, and scholarship on studio and commercial fabric and fashion design from the Northwest Coast in the twentieth century is limited. This paper contributes by raising Indigenous and non-Indigenous use of Northwest Coast design forms during the politically turbulent 1940s–1960s and analyzing the impact of this aesthetic vocabulary within broader North American textiles and fashion. Throughout, I engage with the approaches of critical fashion theory and multiple modernisms, considering the frictions of property and power relations within settler-colonial states, then and now. Drawing from study of objects, periodicals, and archival materials as well as first-person perspectives, I contextualize these representations within entangled art, museum, and design worlds in the Northwest Coast, New York City, and the Southwest. My examination illustrates that Northwest Coast artists and art ideas asserted a peripheral but locatable role in mid-century textiles and fashion, facilitating the development of today’s robust Indigenous fashion network on the Northwest Coast and its cultural politics.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Arts of the Northwest Coast)
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Murals and Graffiti in Ruins: What Does the Art from the Aliko Hotel on Naxos Tell Us?
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Elzbieta Perzycka-Borowska, Marta Gliniecka, Dorota Hrycak-Krzyżanowska and Agnieszka Szajner
Arts 2024, 13(2), 51; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020051 - 05 Mar 2024
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This manuscript investigates the cultural and educational dimensions of murals and graffiti in the ruins of the Aliko Hotel on Naxos Island. Moving beyond their aesthetic value, these artworks are examined as conduits for complex sociocultural and educational discourses. Employing semiotic analysis, particularly
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This manuscript investigates the cultural and educational dimensions of murals and graffiti in the ruins of the Aliko Hotel on Naxos Island. Moving beyond their aesthetic value, these artworks are examined as conduits for complex sociocultural and educational discourses. Employing semiotic analysis, particularly informed by Roland Barthes’ conceptual framework, the study offers a multi-layered interpretation of the significance of street art. A systematic approach guided the empirical data collection, entailing the careful selection and categorisation of 76 photographs, eventually honed down to 21 key images for detailed analysis. This set, comprising 6 murals and 15 graffiti pieces, was subjected to meticulous examination to discern both dominant themes and motifs (‘studium’) and the elements evoking personal connections (‘punktum’), thereby facilitating emotional and intellectual engagement. The methodology of the study is tailored to uncover the collective narratives encapsulated within these visual forms, as well as the individual responses they provoke. It probes how personal interpretations are influenced by the viewers’ beliefs and backgrounds, thereby expanding the semiotic analysis to encompass both shared and individual meanings. This balanced analytical approach deepens the understanding of visual expressions as dynamic interactions between the artwork and its audience. It underscores the transformative role of street art in urban environments and its contribution to public art discourse. The impending demolition of the Hotel Aliko ruins underscores the ephemeral nature of street art. The murals and graffiti, as transient custodians of cultural and social narratives, accentuate the fragile nature of this cultural heritage. This critical moment underscores the importance of documenting and preserving such art forms and the stories they encapsulate, highlighting their significant role in shaping community identity and cultural education.
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Jewish “Ghosts”: Judit Hersko and Susan Hiller and the Feminist Intersectional Art of Post-Holocaust Memory
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Lisa E. Bloom
Arts 2024, 13(2), 50; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020050 - 29 Feb 2024
Abstract
This article delves into the underexplored intersection of Jewish identities and feminist art. It critically examines artworks by Judit Hersko and Susan Hiller, aligning with evolving identity constructs in contemporary aesthetics. Concepts like “postmemory” link second-generation Jewish artists to past experiences and unveil
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This article delves into the underexplored intersection of Jewish identities and feminist art. It critically examines artworks by Judit Hersko and Susan Hiller, aligning with evolving identity constructs in contemporary aesthetics. Concepts like “postmemory” link second-generation Jewish artists to past experiences and unveil the erasure of Jewish women’s memory of Jewish genocide. Analyzing Hersko and Hiller’s diverse works, from landscape photography and sculpture to performance art, it underscores their shared pursuit: illuminating lingering “ghosts” of the Holocaust in modern landscapes. Susan Hiller’s The J Street Project represents an ongoing exploration of loss and trauma beyond the Holocaust in Germany, using archives as a dynamic, evolving phenomenon. Judit Hersko’s art calls for bearing witness to a potential climate catastrophe in Antarctica. The article culminates in the exploration of “The Memorial” (2017), an art project by the activist collective Center for Political Beauty that focuses on the resurgence of overt anti-Semitism in Germany. In essence, Hiller and Hersko confront erasures in history and nature, emphasizing justice and repair. Their art, intertwined with a project addressing contemporary anti-Semitism, serves as a testament to the enduring power of feminist art, reflecting, mourning, and transforming a world marked by historical traumas and war.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Articulations of Identity in Contemporary Aesthetics)
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Open AccessEssay
Feeling Is First
by
Richard Shiff
Arts 2024, 13(2), 49; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020049 - 28 Feb 2024
Abstract
Within the fields of aesthetics and psychology, there is a long tradition of arguing that affect precedes cognition. A verbalized thought following upon a feeling and associated with it does not translate the feeling precisely or adequately. In fact, as C. S. Peirce
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Within the fields of aesthetics and psychology, there is a long tradition of arguing that affect precedes cognition. A verbalized thought following upon a feeling and associated with it does not translate the feeling precisely or adequately. In fact, as C. S. Peirce would argue, the thought itself projects its own affect, which is independent of its logic. The essence of affect or feeling will always elude linguistic capture. This essay argues that experiences of belief and doubt are affective sensations, and both can be graphed on a scale of sensuous intuition or cognitive guessing (which, again, projects affect). The failure of language to grasp what we refer to as instances of emotion, feeling, sensation, affect, belief, doubt, and the like is more of an intractable problem for philosophical aesthetics than it is for the aesthetics of the art experience. Examples of the art of Cy Twombly, Barnett Newman, Donald Judd, Bridget Riley, and Katharina Grosse are invoked to argue through the gap between thought and feeling.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Affective Art)
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Golden Swords of the Early Nomads of Eurasia: A New Classification and Chronology
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Denis Topal
Arts 2024, 13(2), 48; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020048 - 27 Feb 2024
Abstract
The “ceremonial” forms of swords and daggers—that is, bladed weapons decorated with precious metals—occupy a special place in the culture of the early nomads. For the Scythian period, we know at least 76 ceremonial objects from 61 sites, corresponding to 3.5% of the
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The “ceremonial” forms of swords and daggers—that is, bladed weapons decorated with precious metals—occupy a special place in the culture of the early nomads. For the Scythian period, we know at least 76 ceremonial objects from 61 sites, corresponding to 3.5% of the total sample. More than half of the finds come from the northern Black Sea region (mainly Ukraine). Ceremonial forms are represented in all morphological categories (from daggers to extra-long swords), but their distribution is slightly different. Most akinakai belong to the average and long swords. Most Scythian akinakai in Eurasia belong to the dagger and short sword groups. Although most Scythian swords and daggers fall into the Middle Scythian period, most ceremonial forms belong to the last phase of Classical Scythian culture. This period is a veritable “golden autumn” of Scythia with its huge royal burial mounds and abundance of gold, perfectly illustrating our argument that conspicuous consumption coincides with periods of political and social instability. After the peak of the proliferation of ceremonial akinakai in the third quarter of the 4th century BC, we observe a generation later the complete disappearance of Classical Scythian culture, along with its characteristic weapons, horse harnesses, and animal style.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Situating Eurasia in Antiquity: Nomadic Material Culture in the First Millennium BCE)
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La Liga de la Decencia: Performing 20th Century Mexican History in 21st Century Texas
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Jessica Peña Torres
Arts 2024, 13(2), 47; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020047 - 27 Feb 2024
Abstract
This article describes the development and public performances of La Liga de la Decencia, a new play presented as part of the 2023 New Works Festival at the University of Texas at Austin. Inspired by the cabaret scene and teatro de revista
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This article describes the development and public performances of La Liga de la Decencia, a new play presented as part of the 2023 New Works Festival at the University of Texas at Austin. Inspired by the cabaret scene and teatro de revista of the 1940s in Mexico City, La Liga de la Decencia combines live performance and video art to explore how hegemonic gender and social norms shaped by the emergent nationalism of postrevolutionary Mexico continue to oppress femme and queer bodies today across the US–Mexico border. Through satire, parody, and dance, La Liga de la Decencia problematizes the social, class, and gender norms as established by the cultural elite and the state. Following research-based theatre as an inquiry process, this article describes how writing and directing this play allowed for a deeper understanding of the dynamics of a historical period. By mixing facts, fiction, and critical commentary, La Liga de la Decencia investigates history through embodiment.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exploring Research-Based Theatre within Contemporary Theatre Education)
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Gold Artifacts from the Early Scythian Princely Tomb Arzhan 2, Tuva—Aesthetics, Function, and Technology
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Barbara Armbruster and Caspar Meyer
Arts 2024, 13(2), 46; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020046 - 27 Feb 2024
Abstract
This article explores the extraordinarily rich gold finds from the Early Scythian princely tomb Arzhan 2 in the Republic of Tuva, southern Siberia (late 7th to early 6th centuries BCE), through the methodological framework of the chaîne opératoire (operational sequence), in order to
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This article explores the extraordinarily rich gold finds from the Early Scythian princely tomb Arzhan 2 in the Republic of Tuva, southern Siberia (late 7th to early 6th centuries BCE), through the methodological framework of the chaîne opératoire (operational sequence), in order to reconstruct the objects’ processes of manufacture. Through an interdisciplinary study of the finds at the State Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, the principal author analyzed tool marks and surface morphologies, which allow for the comprehensive identification and documentation of the numerous techniques employed in the creation of the often very elaborate jewelry, decorated weapons, and other personal ornaments. The production of both individual pieces and extensive series of thousands of identical trimmings attests to the existence of complex craft processes and workshop organizations. The technological aspects of the gold finds impress through their diversity and outstanding quality, both artistically and in terms of their craftsmanship. As this article will demonstrate, the objects present the earliest evidence for a highly specialized goldsmith artform in southern Siberia.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Situating Eurasia in Antiquity: Nomadic Material Culture in the First Millennium BCE)
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Permission to Cry—Drifts on Research Based Theatre on Top of an Elephant
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Emilio Méndez-Martínez, Esther Uria-Iriarte and Montserrat González Parera
Arts 2024, 13(2), 45; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020045 - 27 Feb 2024
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This article aims to propose a critical reflection on what it means to be a professional of drama-based practices. To do so, we promote a process of cooperative creation and research based on our own doubts, contradictions, and concerns about the different roles
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This article aims to propose a critical reflection on what it means to be a professional of drama-based practices. To do so, we promote a process of cooperative creation and research based on our own doubts, contradictions, and concerns about the different roles we play in our practice. The results of this process are presented in artistic form, using dramatic language and metaphor as doors to new spaces for reflection.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exploring Research-Based Theatre within Contemporary Theatre Education)
Open AccessArticle
Spanishness and Race in North American Monumental Architecture
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Lauren Beck
Arts 2024, 13(2), 44; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020044 - 23 Feb 2024
Abstract
The representation of Spain, and Spanishness in general, at sites of collective identity in the United States and Canada requires scholarly attention. Many monuments, which range from statues and museums to capitol buildings and national parks, continue to commemorate colonial times despite broader
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The representation of Spain, and Spanishness in general, at sites of collective identity in the United States and Canada requires scholarly attention. Many monuments, which range from statues and museums to capitol buildings and national parks, continue to commemorate colonial times despite broader public awareness of the association between colonization and racialized violence, as well as the explicit movement toward decolonization. This commemorative material also demonstrates how non-Spanish settlers have appropriated historical moorings of Spain and its colonial past to reinforce and whitewash their identities in places such as New Mexico and Texas, and even in Newfoundland and Labrador. How monuments are funded and gain public support is another vector that points to the ways that identity—particularly, white identity—informs monumental architecture in ways that exclude people of colour, as well as women, who, when featured in monuments, are usually dehumanized as concepts rather than being the actors of settler-colonialism. This article explores these challenging topics with the aim of articulating a roadmap for future scholarship on this subject.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Race and Architecture in the Iberian World, c. 1500-1800s)
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“Grand Narratives” and “Personal Dramas”: (Re)reading the Masterpieces by Artemisia Gentileschi
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Małgorzata Stępnik
Arts 2024, 13(2), 43; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020043 - 22 Feb 2024
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This article discusses the œuvre of Artemisia Gentileschi, a prominent Baroque painter who was rediscovered by art historian Roberto Longhi in the 1910s. Today, her art is interpreted through various lenses, including art theory, women’s studies, and psychoanalysis. Gentileschi’s paintings are often “read”
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This article discusses the œuvre of Artemisia Gentileschi, a prominent Baroque painter who was rediscovered by art historian Roberto Longhi in the 1910s. Today, her art is interpreted through various lenses, including art theory, women’s studies, and psychoanalysis. Gentileschi’s paintings are often “read” in close reference to her painful biography, with a focus on the “chiaroscuro” of trauma and its overcoming. Significantly, such biography-oriented approaches seem to be predominant in scholarship on art created by women. The argument presented is that Gentileschi’s works require a thorough re-reading free of “compulsive biographism”, as postulated by Salomon. The focus should shift from an empathic Einfühlung (or empathic projection) towards an objective analysis based purely on art-historical or sociological criteria. This article also explores the presence of the socially mediated and mediatised figure of the artist in fine literature (novels by Banti, Lapierre and Vreeland), cinematic biographies (Artemisia, directed by Merlet, documentaries (Artemisia Gentileschi: Warrior Painter, directed by River), anime (a series titled Arte, directed by Takayuki Hamana), and graphic novels (Ferlut and Baudouin; Siciliano). In this artistic constellation Artemisia is labelled as an art/feminist “icon”, a female genius, and as in numerous scholarly texts dedicated to her, “a victim”. I propose that the discussed literary and visual texts related to Gentileschi be interpreted as symptomatic (in line with Panofsky’s concept of ‘iconology’) of the contemporary mentality, which is filtered through feminist and subaltern thought.
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MoMA Goes beyond the Iron Curtain: The Eastern European Tour of The Prints of Andy Warhol
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Elena Sidorova
Arts 2024, 13(2), 42; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020042 - 21 Feb 2024
Abstract
In 1990, three years after Andy Warhol’s death and one year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) organized the first one-man show of this pop artist in Eastern Europe. The Prints of Andy Warhol, although
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In 1990, three years after Andy Warhol’s death and one year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) organized the first one-man show of this pop artist in Eastern Europe. The Prints of Andy Warhol, although never shown at the MoMA in New York, traveled to the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain in Jouy-en-Josas, France, the Národní Galerie in Prague, Czechoslovakia, the Staatliche Kunstsammlung in Dresden, the GDR, the Mücsarnok in Budapest, Hungary, and the Muzeum Narodowe in Warsaw, Poland. The current paper analyzes the cultural–political context of The Prints of Andy Warhol. It first discusses the place of both American pop art and Eastern Europe in MoMA’s International Program (IP) and then explores the organizational challenges, art historical contents, and public reception of the exhibition. The paper concludes by examining the broader impact of The Prints of Andy Warhol on both the growing awareness of American pop art in Eastern Europe and MoMA’s cultural diplomacy in this region after the fall of the Iron Curtain.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cultural Diplomacy and Informal Artistic Relations in East Central Europe in the 20th Century: A Global Perspective)
Open AccessEssay
Love Rising: The Transformation of Emotions in Contemporary Art
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Rebecca Bedell
Arts 2024, 13(2), 41; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020041 - 20 Feb 2024
Abstract
This essay surveys the shifting emotional regimes in Western art from the eighteenth century into the twenty-first, concentrating on the place accorded social affections. In particular, it calls attention to a significant change underway in recent decades as the suppression of the full
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This essay surveys the shifting emotional regimes in Western art from the eighteenth century into the twenty-first, concentrating on the place accorded social affections. In particular, it calls attention to a significant change underway in recent decades as the suppression of the full range of emotions instigated by modernism has been challenged and the tender emotions re-embraced. Important contemporary artists, such as Hank Willis Thomas and Emily Hass, are invoking and exploring themes of love, care, empathy, and concern and, in many cases, making creative use of them to advance social, political, and environmental justice.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Affective Art)
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Arts and Refugees: Multidisciplinary Perspectives (Vol. 2)
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Marco Martiniello and Elsa Mescoli
Arts 2024, 13(1), 40; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010040 - 19 Feb 2024
Abstract
Published in 2019, the Special Issue entitled “Arts and Refugees: Multidisciplinary Perspectives” gathered together a set of articles exploring the role of art created and performed by refugees settled in urban European contexts [...]
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Arts and Refugees: Multidisciplinary Perspectives (Vol. 2))
Open AccessEditorial
Im/Materiality in Renaissance Arts
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Kate van Orden and Lisa Pon
Arts 2024, 13(1), 39; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010039 - 19 Feb 2024
Abstract
The inspiration for this Special Issue on Im/Materiality in Renaissance Arts arose from two convictions: (1) that sensual experiences and the physicality of creation must be a part of our accounts of the past, and (2) that crosstalk among scholars of music, literature,
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The inspiration for this Special Issue on Im/Materiality in Renaissance Arts arose from two convictions: (1) that sensual experiences and the physicality of creation must be a part of our accounts of the past, and (2) that crosstalk among scholars of music, literature, art, and architecture can reveal both the historiographical gaps endemic to specific disciplines and the critical tools each specialty brings to the project of incorporating living, breathing artists, builders, poets, singers, players, worshippers, scientists, and others into histories of the Renaissance arts [...]
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Im/Materiality in Renaissance Arts)
Open AccessArticle
The Discursive Power of Digital Popular Art during the Russo-Ukrainian War: Re/Shaping Visual Narratives
by
Svitlana Kot, Alina Mozolevska, Olha Polishchuk and Yuliya Stodolinska
Arts 2024, 13(1), 38; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010038 - 18 Feb 2024
Abstract
Twenty-first century digital technologies and popular visual art have transformed the ways military conflicts are experienced, narrated, and shared. It demonstrates that digital platforms have become arenas for constructing visual narratives that influence public perception and engagement with the conflict. Through a multimodal
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Twenty-first century digital technologies and popular visual art have transformed the ways military conflicts are experienced, narrated, and shared. It demonstrates that digital platforms have become arenas for constructing visual narratives that influence public perception and engagement with the conflict. Through a multimodal and visual analysis of over 950 digital artworks shared on Instagram during the first three months of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, this study investigates how these artworks form specific visual narratives which contribute to portraying the new wartime reality while also constructing images of the self and the other through heroization, victimization, dehumanization, and other strategies. All these visual narratives jointly represent the complexity of the war reality and form an epistemic understanding of the conflict. This study highlights the important function that popular visual art on digital platforms such as Instagram plays in shaping perceptions of the Russo-Ukrainian War, particularly in expressing emotions, conveying traumas, and influencing public opinions.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ukraine Under Fire: The Visual Arts in Ukraine and Abroad Since 2014)
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