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Volume 13
Issue 4
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Arts, Volume 13, Issue 4 (August 2024) – 25 articles

Cover Story (view full-size image): There are tens of thousands of painted rock art motifs in the Serranía de la Lindosa in the Colombian Amazon, including those of humans, animals, therianthropes, geometrics, and flora. For most of the last 100 years, inaccessibility and political unrest have resulted in limited research activities in the region. In this paper, we discuss findings of six years of field research and consider the role of rock art as a manifestation of Indigenous ontologies. By employing intertwining strands of evidence—a range of ethnographic sources, local Indigenous testimonies from 2021 to 2023, and the motifs themselves—we argue that the rock art here is connected to ritual specialists negotiating spiritual realms, somatic transformation, and the interdigitation of human and non-human worlds. View this paper
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26 pages, 11291 KiB  
Article
‘A World of Knowledge’: Rock Art, Ritual, and Indigenous Belief at Serranía De La Lindosa in the Colombian Amazon
by Jamie Hampson, José Iriarte and Francisco Javier Aceituno
Arts 2024, 13(4), 135; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13040135 - 19 Aug 2024
Viewed by 4260
Abstract
There are tens of thousands of painted rock art motifs in the Serranía de la Lindosa in the Colombian Amazon, including humans, animals, therianthropes, geometrics, and flora. For most of the last 100 years, inaccessibility and political unrest has limited research activities in [...] Read more.
There are tens of thousands of painted rock art motifs in the Serranía de la Lindosa in the Colombian Amazon, including humans, animals, therianthropes, geometrics, and flora. For most of the last 100 years, inaccessibility and political unrest has limited research activities in the region. In this paper, we discuss findings from six years of field research and consider the role of rock art as a manifestation of Indigenous ontologies. By employing intertwining strands of evidence—a range of ethnographic sources, local Indigenous testimonies from 2021–2023, and the motifs themselves—we argue that the rock art here is connected to ritual specialists negotiating spiritual realms, somatic transformation, and the interdigitation of human and non-human worlds. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Rock Art Studies)
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27 pages, 8777 KiB  
Article
‘No State, No Masters’: Café Lavandería in Tokyo, Music, and Anticapitalism in a Cultural Environment
by María José González Dávila and Federico Fco. Pérez Garrido
Arts 2024, 13(4), 134; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13040134 - 12 Aug 2024
Viewed by 929
Abstract
This paper is part of a series of research that these authors are conducting to study the linguistic landscape of the Tokyo megacity. In this instance, our focus lies on Shinjuku city. However, our examination does not extend to the linguistic landscape of [...] Read more.
This paper is part of a series of research that these authors are conducting to study the linguistic landscape of the Tokyo megacity. In this instance, our focus lies on Shinjuku city. However, our examination does not extend to the linguistic landscape of the city itself; rather, it zeroes in on a café situated at its core, the Café Lavandería. How did Café Lavandería contribute to the development of the Hispanic linguistic, sociolinguistic, and subversive landscape in central Tokyo? The research unfolds in various segments. Initially, contextualization introduces the reader to Tokyo and Shinjuku; subsequently, the significance of Café Lavandería and the subversive social and political movements in Japan are elucidated. Following this, the study’s foundation, including the photographic evidence and corresponding data, is presented. Lastly, an analysis of these data is conducted, culminating in an evaluation of Café Lavandería’s impact in Japan. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Arts: Art and Urban Studies)
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26 pages, 8566 KiB  
Article
Queer Latinx Bodies and AIDS: Joey Terrill’s “Still Here” and “Once Upon A Time”
by Alexis Salas
Arts 2024, 13(4), 133; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13040133 - 9 Aug 2024
Viewed by 1161
Abstract
Through two interviews conducted two years apart, the author and artist Joey Terrill offer an intimate historical trajectory rooted in the singular voice of the artist through the discussion of artworks in the exhibitions “Joey Terrill: Still Here” and “Joey Terrill: Once Upon [...] Read more.
Through two interviews conducted two years apart, the author and artist Joey Terrill offer an intimate historical trajectory rooted in the singular voice of the artist through the discussion of artworks in the exhibitions “Joey Terrill: Still Here” and “Joey Terrill: Once Upon A Time: Paintings, 1981–2015”. The method of storytelling, interview, and art representation chronicles the artist’s emotional, intellectual, and embodied experience of illness, queerness, and resistance as an HIV-positive queer Chicano. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Queer Latinx Artists and the Human Body)
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20 pages, 23235 KiB  
Article
Soldiers and Prisoners in Motion in Mesopotamian Iconography during the Early Bronze Age
by Barbara Couturaud
Arts 2024, 13(4), 132; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13040132 - 6 Aug 2024
Viewed by 1163
Abstract
Military images of the ancient Near East during the Early Bronze Age are characterized by one of their main features: the serial reproduction of soldiers and prisoners, side by side, the former clearly identifiable by the visual signs of power they bear and [...] Read more.
Military images of the ancient Near East during the Early Bronze Age are characterized by one of their main features: the serial reproduction of soldiers and prisoners, side by side, the former clearly identifiable by the visual signs of power they bear and the latter by their humiliation. These images are usually and almost naturally conceived as the ideological prerogative of city-states in conflict for territorial domination or as signs of visual identity intended to reinforce the powers that be. However, the end of the Early Bronze Age is marked by the hegemony of the Akkadian dynasty and the iconographic changes that it generated. While strongly maintaining the military iconographic theme in its visual discourse, it broke with the motif of static parades of prisoners and introduced many details intended to clearly identify the protagonists, the enemies, or the environment of the battles. It could represent a transition from a discourse based on evocative repetition in order to present an ideal to one founded on detailed narration in order to assert the authenticity of an event. This paper investigates the phenomenon of repetition through soldiers and prisoners on images. Analyzing the message lying behind the series of hindered prisoners and battalions of soldiers also underlines the way the change of iconographic discourse during the Akkadian period can be understood, particularly given that the power of the Akkadian dynasty mainly rested on its military victories. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ancient Egyptian Art Studies: Art in Motion, a Social Tool of Power and Resistance)
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8 pages, 221 KiB  
Editorial
Nomadic Material Culture: Eurasian Archeology beyond Textual Traditions
by Caspar Meyer
Arts 2024, 13(4), 131; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13040131 - 2 Aug 2024
Viewed by 822
Abstract
The term nomadic material culture refers to the tools, equipment, and other tangible items associated with communities that are characterized by a high degree of residential mobility [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Situating Eurasia in Antiquity: Nomadic Material Culture in the First Millennium BCE)
4 pages, 131 KiB  
Editorial
“Modern and Contemporary Art: Topical Abstraction in Contemporary Sculpture” Special Issue Introduction
by Elyse Speaks and Susan Richmond
Arts 2024, 13(4), 130; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13040130 - 1 Aug 2024
Viewed by 832
Abstract
The essays gathered in this Special Issue of Arts concern artists working in the United States and Europe since the 1960s who have leveraged sculptural abstraction to address topical issues without ceding to the classical framework of figuration [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Modern and Contemporary Art: Topical Abstraction in Contemporary Sculpture)
10 pages, 254 KiB  
Article
Revolutionary Art and the Creation of the Future: The Afrofuturist Texts of José Antonio Aponte and Martin R. Delany
by James J. Fisher
Arts 2024, 13(4), 129; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13040129 - 30 Jul 2024
Viewed by 895
Abstract
Afrofuturism (an artistic perspective in which Black voices tell alternative narratives of culture, technology, and the future) and the Dark Fantastic (interrupting negative depictions of Black people through emancipatory interpretations of art) are two interrelated concepts used by Black artists in the Atlantic [...] Read more.
Afrofuturism (an artistic perspective in which Black voices tell alternative narratives of culture, technology, and the future) and the Dark Fantastic (interrupting negative depictions of Black people through emancipatory interpretations of art) are two interrelated concepts used by Black artists in the Atlantic World to counter negative images and emphasize a story from a Black perspective. Likewise, these concepts have been used to recreate and re-narrate history with an eye towards subverting white supremacist historical narratives. By using Afrofuturism and the Dark Fantastic as lenses through which texts by authors from the African Diaspora in the Atlantic World are examined, an alternative narrative of Black histories and futures concerned with revolution, liberation, and justice can be seen. The two texts that are the subject of this research include José Antonio Aponte’s descriptions of his book of paintings under interrogation in 1812–1813, and Martin Delany’s novel Blake; or the Huts of America (1859–1862), providing images of enslavement that run counter to a white supremacist telling of history. They both imagine alternative pasts and futures for Africa and the Afro-Diaspora involving revolution and magic. These works, though produced at different times and locations in the nineteenth century, offer new ways in which to discuss liberation and freedom in the context of the artistic production of the Atlantic World. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Black Artists in the Atlantic World)
13 pages, 10232 KiB  
Article
Imperial Art: Duality on Tanwetamani’s Dream Stela
by Christopher Cox
Arts 2024, 13(4), 128; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13040128 - 29 Jul 2024
Viewed by 950
Abstract
In the 7th century BCE, the Kushite king Tanwetamani commissioned his “Dream Stela”, which was to be erected in the Amun Temple of Jebel Barkal. The lunette of the stela features a dualistic artistic motif whose composition, meaning, and significance are understudied despite [...] Read more.
In the 7th century BCE, the Kushite king Tanwetamani commissioned his “Dream Stela”, which was to be erected in the Amun Temple of Jebel Barkal. The lunette of the stela features a dualistic artistic motif whose composition, meaning, and significance are understudied despite their potential to illuminate important aspects of royal Kushite ideology. On the lunette, there are two back-to-back offering scenes that appear at first glance to be nearly symmetrical, but that closer inspection reveals to differ in subtle but significant ways. Analysis of the iconographic and textual features of the motif reveals its rhetorical function in this royal context. The two strikingly similar but meaningfully different offering scenes represented the two halves of a Kushite “Double Kingdom” that considered Kush and Egypt together as a complementary geographic dual, with Tanwetamani presiding as king of both. This “Mirrored Motif” encapsulated the duality present in the Kushite ideology of kingship during the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty, which allowed Tanwetamani to reconcile the present imperial expansion of Kush with the history of Egyptian activity in Nubia. The lunette of the Dream Stela is therefore political art that serves to advance the Kushite imperial agenda. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ancient Egyptian Art Studies: Art in Motion, a Social Tool of Power and Resistance)
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16 pages, 963 KiB  
Article
“Beyond Quantum Music”—A Pioneering Art and Science Project as a Platform for Building New Instruments and Creating a New Musical Genre
by Sonja Lončar and Andrija Pavlović
Arts 2024, 13(4), 127; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13040127 - 25 Jul 2024
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1053 | Correction
Abstract
In this text, we discuss the “Beyond Quantum Music” project, which inspired pianists, composers, researchers, and innovators Sonja Lončar and Andrija Pavlović (LP Duo) to go beyond the boundaries of classical and avant-garde practices to create a new style in composition and performance [...] Read more.
In this text, we discuss the “Beyond Quantum Music” project, which inspired pianists, composers, researchers, and innovators Sonja Lončar and Andrija Pavlović (LP Duo) to go beyond the boundaries of classical and avant-garde practices to create a new style in composition and performance on two unique DUALITY hybrid pianos that they invented and developed to create a new stage design for multimedia concert performances and establish a new musical genre as a platform for future musical expression. “Beyond Quantum Music” is a continuation of the groundbreaking art and science project “Quantum Music”, which began in 2015; we envisioned it as a long-term project. In order to build an experimental dialogue between music and quantum physics, we created the DUALITY Portable Hybrid Piano System. This innovative instrument was essential for expanding the current sound of the classical piano. As a result, new compositions and new piano sounds were produced using various synthesizers and sound samples derived from scientific experiments. The key place for this dialogue between music and science was the Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands, where Andrija Pavlović, as a Kavli artist in residence, and Sonja Lončar, as an expert, spent several months in 2022 collaborating with scientists to compose new music. Later on, we collaborated with the visual artist “Incredible Bob” to develop the idea for the multimedia concert “LP Duo plays Beyond Quantum Music” to be performed at various locations, including the Scientific Institute MedILS Split (Croatia), the Theater Hall JDP Belgrade (Serbia), the Congress Hall TU Delft (the Netherlands), and open-air concerts at the Kaleidoskop Festival (Novi Sad, Serbia) and Ars Electronica Festival in Linz (Austria). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applied Musicology and Ethnomusicology)
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21 pages, 7074 KiB  
Article
Visualizing Scale: Inducing Transformations in Perception through Art and Science
by Joshua DiCaglio and Meredith Tromble
Arts 2024, 13(4), 126; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13040126 - 23 Jul 2024
Viewed by 1125
Abstract
In order for scientists and technologists to describe many of their objects, they must observe at a scale that exceeds typical human experience. Atoms and ecologies, microbes and galaxies all exist at scales that require retroactively reconstructing a picture (whether rendered visually, through [...] Read more.
In order for scientists and technologists to describe many of their objects, they must observe at a scale that exceeds typical human experience. Atoms and ecologies, microbes and galaxies all exist at scales that require retroactively reconstructing a picture (whether rendered visually, through an alternative visualization, or simply pieced together as a description) of what human perceptual apparatus usually does not observe. Scale is also central to the production of artwork that uses changes in scale to help us examine the world differently, disorient our normalized ways of experiencing, and direct us to new objects and new relations. This article examines these problems of scale as they are shared between art and science, analyzing contemporary artists whose works highlight core aspects of scale. In examining these artworks together, we demonstrate that scale presents one way of clarifying when and how science runs us into basic questions at the core of many artistic practices. Full article
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14 pages, 16357 KiB  
Article
Fragments of the Liturgical-Musical Codex from the Archdiocesan Archive of Gniezno (Poland): Source Analysis and Provenance Hypotheses
by Piotr Wiśniewski
Arts 2024, 13(4), 125; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13040125 - 22 Jul 2024
Viewed by 762
Abstract
This paper discusses hitherto unidentified loose folios of a parchment liturgical and musical book held in the Archdiocesan Archive of Gniezno (Poland), containing the offertory and communion antiphons for the feasts De Trinitate and Corpus Christi. The author provides the codicological description of [...] Read more.
This paper discusses hitherto unidentified loose folios of a parchment liturgical and musical book held in the Archdiocesan Archive of Gniezno (Poland), containing the offertory and communion antiphons for the feasts De Trinitate and Corpus Christi. The author provides the codicological description of the leaves (analyzing Latin script, musical notation, ornamentation); identifies the time of their creation (15th century); indicates the type of the liturgical book to which they belong (graduale); seeks a melodic model for them and puts forward provenance hypotheses. He states that the melodics of the antiphons, although closest to the Cistercian tradition, are nevertheless variantly different from the melodic line preserved in foreign and Polish codices. It is possible to narrow down the dating of the leaves thanks to the type of Latin script, the calligraphic ornamentation of the initials and the spelling of certain letters. Full article
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16 pages, 270 KiB  
Review
Integrating NFTs into Feminist Art Practices: Actualizing the Disruptive Potential of Decentralized Technology
by Natalie Ponder
Arts 2024, 13(4), 124; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13040124 - 18 Jul 2024
Viewed by 851
Abstract
The integration of NFT technology into the art market utilizes a two-pronged approach of decentralization and increased accessibility as an equalizing answer to rectify gender discrepancies in the contemporary art world. This is not the first time that technology as an art medium [...] Read more.
The integration of NFT technology into the art market utilizes a two-pronged approach of decentralization and increased accessibility as an equalizing answer to rectify gender discrepancies in the contemporary art world. This is not the first time that technology as an art medium has been used as a feminist tool to disrupt the previously established status quo. Through the exploration of the 1990’s Cyberfeminist Net Art Movement, this article will discuss how female-identifying artists employ technological characteristics such as anonymity and online gender masquerading to answer the exclusionary issues affecting their art practices. Furthermore, it will examine how NFTs work to build upon the previously established revolutionary movement of the 1990s to evolve the contemporary art practices of feminist artists. Additionally, this article will address the impacts of this new digital landscape, where anonymity is preferred and algorithmic ordering is non-existent, as a more pragmatic way of creating, selling, and buying art. Finally, this article will examine how the integration of blockchain technology—entirely machine-operated and free from human manipulation—aims to eliminate the human biases of identifying factors such as gender that can be concealed or fabricated when operating in an online sphere. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue NFTs, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Metaverse: The Web3 Revolution That Has Transformed the Art Market)
17 pages, 12904 KiB  
Article
Associate/Dissociate: Allusive and Elusive Care in Veronica Ryan’s Sculpture
by Catherine Spencer
Arts 2024, 13(4), 123; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13040123 - 18 Jul 2024
Viewed by 872
Abstract
Reflecting on the experience of curating Veronica Ryan’s work for the 2021 exhibition Life Support: Forms of Care in Art and Activism at Glasgow Women’s Library, this essay contextualizes the artist’s recent sculptures in relation to the theories, philosophies, and ethics of care [...] Read more.
Reflecting on the experience of curating Veronica Ryan’s work for the 2021 exhibition Life Support: Forms of Care in Art and Activism at Glasgow Women’s Library, this essay contextualizes the artist’s recent sculptures in relation to the theories, philosophies, and ethics of care that have recently gained increasing prominence in artistic and curatorial practice. Drawing on the philosopher Virginia Held’s understanding of care as inherently intersubjective, it proposes that Ryan’s sculptures model a comparable understanding of caring relations through their associative yet ultimately elusive operations. Ryan is recognized for her use of abstracted organic forms, particularly seeds, pods, husks, and fruits. Since moving to New York from Britain in 1990 and developing a career between the two countries, Ryan has engaged with industrial and mass-produced receptacles, molds, and packing materials, an interest which has expanded to include fishing wire, plastic bottles, and take-away food containers, alongside textiles. Yet, although many of these elements remain identifiable, the resulting works delight in category confusion between organic and prefabricated, instigating uncanny textural effects that engender perceptual uncertainty. Their chains of allusion resist singular, fixed meanings, generating a continual back and forth of association and dissociation that constitutes a sustained meditation on care’s relational complexity. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Modern and Contemporary Art: Topical Abstraction in Contemporary Sculpture)
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14 pages, 9230 KiB  
Article
On Perceiving Molecular Time: Computational Chemical Simulations and the Moving Image
by Andrea Rassell
Arts 2024, 13(4), 122; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13040122 - 17 Jul 2024
Viewed by 1083
Abstract
The perception of time undergoes a radical shift between the human scale and the nanoscale. In an age of rapidly evolving media and scientific technologies, we need to understand how these impact human perception and visual culture. This essay explores computational molecular simulations [...] Read more.
The perception of time undergoes a radical shift between the human scale and the nanoscale. In an age of rapidly evolving media and scientific technologies, we need to understand how these impact human perception and visual culture. This essay explores computational molecular simulations through the lenses of temporal media theory and moving image practice. Emerging from a creative fellowship with a physical chemistry research group, I focus on two moving image works that depict crystalline structures. One is a nanoscale computational simulation of soot formation and the other is a durational video artwork showing the dissolution of sugar. Computational molecular simulations are shown to produce a feeling of time by smearing an extremely short duration across a longer perceptible duration. This analysis uncovers how the awareness of media as a construct troubles our chronoception (perception of time), while unexpectedly, the screen becomes complicit in scientists’ expert temporal understanding. The videos present vastly different spatial and temporal scales and have different chronoceptive effects: one gives a sense of being within time, the other across time. Ultimately, computational simulations emerge as isomorphic media that have explicit aesthetic properties that connect us to the implicit, abstract energetics of chemical reactivity. Full article
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27 pages, 25360 KiB  
Article
The Sublime Divinity: Erotic Affectivity in Renaissance Religious Art
by Maya Corry
Arts 2024, 13(4), 121; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13040121 - 17 Jul 2024
Viewed by 1822
Abstract
In the context of the Catholic Reformation serious concerns were expressed about the affective potency of naturalistic depictions of beautiful, sensuous figures in religious art. In theological discourse similar anxieties had long been articulated about potential contiguities between elevating, licit desire for an [...] Read more.
In the context of the Catholic Reformation serious concerns were expressed about the affective potency of naturalistic depictions of beautiful, sensuous figures in religious art. In theological discourse similar anxieties had long been articulated about potential contiguities between elevating, licit desire for an extraordinarily beautiful divinity and base, illicit feeling. In the later fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, in the decades preceding the Council of Trent, a handful of writers, thinkers and artists asserted a positive connection between spirituality and sexuality. Leonardo da Vinci, and a group of painters working under his aegis in Lombardy, were keenly aware of painting’s capacity to evoke feeling in a viewer. Pictures they produced for domestic devotion featured knowingly sensuous and unusually epicene beauties. This article suggests that this iconography daringly advocated the value of pleasurable sensation to religiosity. Its popularity allows us to envisage beholders who were neither mired in sin, nor seeking to divorce themselves from the physical realm, but engaging afresh with age-old dialectics of body and soul, sexuality and spirituality. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Affective Art)
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14 pages, 689 KiB  
Article
A Green Moment to Share: A Theatrical Laboratory to Explore Climate Crisis Possibilities within Single Moments
by Nic Bennett, Venese Alcantar, Tulasi Ravindran, Vanna Chen, River Terrell and Kathryn Dawson
Arts 2024, 13(4), 120; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13040120 - 16 Jul 2024
Viewed by 1134
Abstract
Many youth experience distress around the climate crisis. However, mainstream environmental messages ignore youth concerns, blame individuals, and suggest techno-fixes rather than addressing root causes. Young people need a way to productively process and collectively engage with their complex feelings about the climate [...] Read more.
Many youth experience distress around the climate crisis. However, mainstream environmental messages ignore youth concerns, blame individuals, and suggest techno-fixes rather than addressing root causes. Young people need a way to productively process and collectively engage with their complex feelings about the climate crisis. During the spring of 2023, a group of university students facilitated a Research-based Theatre project to explore their relationship to climate and environmental justice as part of a biannual performance festival of student new work. Specifically, we used Theatre of the Oppressed techniques to slow down and embody participants’ struggles with environmental action. We argue that this process allowed participants to explore how and why they made sense of mainstream environmental messaging about the climate crisis. This paper offers a case study exploring how the interwoven themes of power, positionality, and agency emerged through embodied investigations during the early development of our Research-based Theatre performance. The paper concludes by discussing how Research-based Theatre can embrace a post-activist lens that supports the complexity of sense-making and troubles the over-emphasis on solution as the only response to environmental/climate crisis. Further, we argue for the kin-making possibilities that crisis can teach us when engaged through embodied exploration. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exploring Research-Based Theatre within Contemporary Theatre Education)
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12 pages, 267 KiB  
Article
Postcards and Emotions: Modernist Architecture in the Films of Pedro Almodóvar and Woody Allen
by Rubén Romero Santos, Ana Mejón, Begoña Herrero Bernal and Carmen Ciller
Arts 2024, 13(4), 119; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13040119 - 14 Jul 2024
Viewed by 933
Abstract
Modernism has emerged as the preeminent iconic representation of Barcelona. However, the process through which this peculiar style has attained its iconic status is an arduous and multifaceted endeavor. This paper examines the challenges inherent in the categorization and periodization of Modernisme, followed [...] Read more.
Modernism has emerged as the preeminent iconic representation of Barcelona. However, the process through which this peculiar style has attained its iconic status is an arduous and multifaceted endeavor. This paper examines the challenges inherent in the categorization and periodization of Modernisme, followed by a succinct review of its initial filmic representations, culminating in a comprehensive analysis of two films in which Modernisme assumes a pivotal role: All About My Mother (Pedro Almodóvar 1999) and Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Woody Allen 2008). We conclude that Modernisme’s transformation into a cultural brand is largely attributable to the erosion of its ideological component in favor of a touristic and globalizing gaze. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Arts: Art and Urban Studies)
24 pages, 15801 KiB  
Article
Egyptian Art in Colonized Nubia: Representing Power and Social Structure in the New Kingdom Tombs of Djehutyhotep, Hekanefer and Pennut
by Rennan Lemos
Arts 2024, 13(4), 118; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13040118 - 14 Jul 2024
Viewed by 1339
Abstract
Monumental rock-cut tombs decorated with wall paintings or reliefs were rare in New Kingdom colonial Nubia. Exceptions include the 18th Dynasty tombs of Djehutyhotep (Debeira) and Hekanefer (Miam), and the 20th Dynasty tomb of Pennut (Aniba). The three tombs present typical Egyptian artistic [...] Read more.
Monumental rock-cut tombs decorated with wall paintings or reliefs were rare in New Kingdom colonial Nubia. Exceptions include the 18th Dynasty tombs of Djehutyhotep (Debeira) and Hekanefer (Miam), and the 20th Dynasty tomb of Pennut (Aniba). The three tombs present typical Egyptian artistic representations and inscriptions, which include tomb owners and their families, but also those living under their direct control. This paper compares the artistic and architectural features of these decorated, monumental rock-cut tombs in light of the archaeological record of the regions in which they were located in order to contextualize art within its social setting in colonized Nubia. More than expressing cultural and religious affiliations in the colony, art seems to have been essentially used as a tool to enforce hierarchization and power, and to define the borders of the uppermost elite social spaces in New Kingdom colonial Nubia. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ancient Egyptian Art Studies: Art in Motion, a Social Tool of Power and Resistance)
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12 pages, 734 KiB  
Article
Mural as a Living Element of Urban Space: Seasonal Dynamics and Social Perception of “The Four Seasons with Kora” in Warsaw
by Aleksander Cywiński and Anita Karyń
Arts 2024, 13(4), 117; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13040117 - 10 Jul 2024
Viewed by 855
Abstract
Street art, with a particular emphasis on murals, plays a crucial role in shaping the cultural DNA of contemporary cities. A prime example of this is the mural “Four Seasons with Kora” in Warsaw, which is dedicated to the renowned Polish [...] Read more.
Street art, with a particular emphasis on murals, plays a crucial role in shaping the cultural DNA of contemporary cities. A prime example of this is the mural “Four Seasons with Kora” in Warsaw, which is dedicated to the renowned Polish artist Kora (Olga Jackowska). This large-scale mural, which combines the artist’s portrait with a chestnut tree motif, visually changes with the season, influencing the artist’s social perception. This study analyzed murals’ functions in social, cultural, and ecological contexts, highlighting their role in informal education and as a platform for social dialogue and integration. Using research methods such as visual analysis and examining comments and reactions on social media, this work aimed to understand how a mural integrates with its surroundings and is perceived throughout different seasons. The results indicated that the mural has become an important element of public space, not only for beautifying the city but also for stimulating social and cultural reflection. Full article
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20 pages, 13906 KiB  
Article
Reviving Ancient Egypt in the Renaissance Hieroglyph: Humanist Aspirations to Immortality
by Rebecca M. Howard
Arts 2024, 13(4), 116; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13040116 - 8 Jul 2024
Viewed by 1548
Abstract
In his On the Art of Building, Renaissance humanist Leon Battista Alberti wrote that the ancient Egyptians believed that alphabetical languages would one day all be lost, but the pictorial method of writing they used could be understood easily by intellectuals everywhere [...] Read more.
In his On the Art of Building, Renaissance humanist Leon Battista Alberti wrote that the ancient Egyptians believed that alphabetical languages would one day all be lost, but the pictorial method of writing they used could be understood easily by intellectuals everywhere and far into the future. Amidst a renewed appreciation of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics found on obelisks in Italy and the discovery of Horapollo’s Hieroglyphica, which purported to translate the language, Renaissance humanists like Alberti developed an obsession with this ancient form of non-alphabetical writing. Additionally, a growing awareness of the lost language of their Etruscan ancestors further ignited an anxiety among Italian humanists that their own ideas might one day become unintelligible. As Egyptomania spread through the Italian peninsula, some saw an answer to their fears in the pictorial hieroglyphics of the ancient Egyptians, for they perceived, in Egyptian writing, the potential for a universal language. Thus, many created Renaissance hieroglyphs based on those of the Egyptians. This essay examines the successes and failures of these neo-hieroglyphs, which early modern humanists and artists created hoping that a language divorced from alphabetical text might better convey the memory of their names and contributions to posterity. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ancient Egyptian Art Studies: Art in Motion, a Social Tool of Power and Resistance)
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17 pages, 5181 KiB  
Article
Forever Becoming: Teaching “Transgender Studies Meets Art History” and Theorizing Trans Joy
by Alpesh Kantilal Patel
Arts 2024, 13(4), 115; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13040115 - 1 Jul 2024
Viewed by 1420
Abstract
Academics often comment that their teaching affects their research, but how this manifests is often implicit. In this essay, I explicitly explore the artistic, scholarly, and curatorial research instantiated by an undergraduate class titled “Transgender Studies meets Art History,” which I taught during [...] Read more.
Academics often comment that their teaching affects their research, but how this manifests is often implicit. In this essay, I explicitly explore the artistic, scholarly, and curatorial research instantiated by an undergraduate class titled “Transgender Studies meets Art History,” which I taught during the fall of 2022. Alongside personal anecdotes—both personal and connected to the class—and a critical reflection on my pedagogy, I discuss the artwork and public programming connected to a curatorial project, “Forever Becoming: Decolonization, Materiality, and Trans* Subjectivity, I organized at UrbanGlass, New York City in 2023. The first part of the article I examine how “trans” can be applied to thinking about syllabus construction and re-thinking canon formation for a class focused on transgender studies’ relationship to art history. In the second half, I theorize trans joy as a felt vibration between/across multiplicity and singularity, belonging and unbelonging, and world-making and world-unmaking. Overall, I consider trans as a lived experience and its utility as a conceptual tool. As a coda, I consider the precarity of teaching this course in the current political climate of the United States. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Articulations of Identity in Contemporary Aesthetics)
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30 pages, 15273 KiB  
Article
‘Bodhisattva Bodies’: Early Twentieth Century Indian Influences on Modern Japanese Buddhist Art
by Chao Chi Chiu
Arts 2024, 13(4), 114; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13040114 - 30 Jun 2024
Viewed by 875
Abstract
The first decade of the twentieth century marked a turning point for Japanese Buddhism. With the introduction of Western academia, Buddhist scholars began to uncover the history of Buddhism, and through their efforts, they discovered India as the birthplace of Buddhism. As India [...] Read more.
The first decade of the twentieth century marked a turning point for Japanese Buddhism. With the introduction of Western academia, Buddhist scholars began to uncover the history of Buddhism, and through their efforts, they discovered India as the birthplace of Buddhism. As India began to grow in importance for Japanese Buddhist circles, one unexpected area to receive the most influence was Japanese Buddhist art, especially in the representation of human figures. Some artists began to insert Indian female figures into their art, not only to add a sense of exoticism but also to experiment with novel iconographies that might modernize Buddhist art. One example included the combination of Indian and Japanese female traits to create a culturally fluid figure that highlighted the cultural connection between Japan and India. Other artists were more attracted to “Indianizing” the Buddha in paintings to create more historically authentic art, drawing references from both Indian art and observations of local people. In this paper, I highlight how developments in Buddhist studies in Japan led to a re-establishment of Indo–Japanese relationships. Furthermore, I examine how the attraction towards India for Japanese artists motivated them to travel abroad and seek inspiration to modernize Buddhist art in Japan. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Japanese Buddhist Art of the 19th–21st Centuries)
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23 pages, 11671 KiB  
Article
Verification and Establishment of Techniques of Ajami Artwork
by Ziad Baydoun, Tenku Putri Norishah Tenku Shariman and Fauzan Mustaffa
Arts 2024, 13(4), 113; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13040113 - 29 Jun 2024
Viewed by 1453
Abstract
Ajami, a technique of painted wood paneling, was popular in the Ottoman Empire from the 17th to the late 18th centuries. Ajami art became prominent in Syria after the decline of tile production, and it rose to a sophisticated level of art in [...] Read more.
Ajami, a technique of painted wood paneling, was popular in the Ottoman Empire from the 17th to the late 18th centuries. Ajami art became prominent in Syria after the decline of tile production, and it rose to a sophisticated level of art in both local and global markets. Today, however, Ajami art has become almost forgotten and unknown by the modern generation, due to being an exclusive art that can be seen only in palaces, museums, and historical houses. This study investigates the traditional method and techniques of making Ajami, with a focus on the work of a renowned Syrian Ajami art master artisan named Mr. Abdulraouf. The study aims to identify and document the traditional method of Ajami production and determine the materials and techniques used for making Ajami. The study found that Ajami art consists of natural elements that are utilized in four main stages; foundation, design, painting, and finishing. The artisans have a strong preference for floral and geometric designs, influenced by Islamic religious beliefs. The findings of this study could serve as an educational guide to preserve heritage and make it presentable for the present and future generations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Visual Arts and Design: Practice-Based Research)
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32 pages, 5156 KiB  
Article
Liturgical Spaces and Devotional Spaces: Analysis of the Choirs of Three Catalan Nuns’ Monasteries during the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
by Marta Crispí
Arts 2024, 13(4), 112; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13040112 - 25 Jun 2024
Viewed by 1036
Abstract
Choirs in female monastic and convent communities are spaces whose complexity has been highlighted because of their multipurpose and multifunctional nature. Although they are within the community’s private sphere of prayer of the divine office, it has also been noted that they play [...] Read more.
Choirs in female monastic and convent communities are spaces whose complexity has been highlighted because of their multipurpose and multifunctional nature. Although they are within the community’s private sphere of prayer of the divine office, it has also been noted that they play a liturgical role as the space from which the nuns ‘hear’ and follow the celebrations taking place in the church and even in the choral altars. The devotional–liturgical binomial is joined by other contrasting terms, like esglesia dintra–sgleya de fora, indicating a duality, as follows: the claustration (as an enclosed, internal and private space of the nuns) and the external church accessible to priests and laypeople, as well as private devotion versus community devotion. The Poor Clares of the monastery of Sant Antoni i Santa Clara actually mentioned the choir altar as nostro altar, underscoring the close bonds that joined them to a liturgical table in this private space, as opposed to those of the esglesia defora. The objective of this article is to study the choirs of three female monasteries in Barcelona during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries—Sant Pere de les Puel·les (Benedictines), Sant Antoni i Santa Clara and Santa Maria de Pedralbes (both Clarissan)—from a holistic standpoint, including spaces, functions, goods, furnishings and decorations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue History of Medieval Art)
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21 pages, 22234 KiB  
Article
How Many Lives for a Mesopotamian Statue?
by Imane Achouche
Arts 2024, 13(4), 111; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13040111 - 21 Jun 2024
Viewed by 869
Abstract
Among the indicators of the value and power ascribed to statues in Mesopotamia, reuse is a particularly significant one. By studying some of the best-documented examples of the usurpation and reassignment of a new function to sculptures in the round from the 3rd [...] Read more.
Among the indicators of the value and power ascribed to statues in Mesopotamia, reuse is a particularly significant one. By studying some of the best-documented examples of the usurpation and reassignment of a new function to sculptures in the round from the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC, our study reveals the variety of motives and methods employed. We hereafter explore the ways in which the status of such artefacts is maintained, reactivated, or adapted in order to secure their agency. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ancient Egyptian Art Studies: Art in Motion, a Social Tool of Power and Resistance)
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