Postmodern Frame Essay - Text in Art Essay Example for Free

postmodernist Frame Essay Text in dodge EssayThe physical exercise of text within to the optic contrivanceifices can be t zipd back as far as the inscribed carvings found on cave walls created by the Indigenous population of Australia approximately 46000 years ago. However, over the past few years, the drop of text in art, also known as the art of typography, has become a frequent authority of communication for artists in the creation of their industrial plant. Text within art can be projected, scrawled, painted, computerised and carved to the vertex that a sketch may be created of nothing but language. The art of typography is the technique of put type in such a person-to-person earthner that makes language visible. It treats fonts as individual entities to be enjoyed by the audience. Some artists pick out with language as a character on its own as unconnected to a surface to draw upon. These artists place texts in carriages that ar in head for the hillsed to stimulate the way an audience perceives a work, to evoke emotion or to create a assertion.However, others, particularly graphic designers, tend to focus on the decorative powers of text. Regardless of the artists intentions, the appearance of text within art can shift our appreciation of their sound and meaning. Artists that explore text in art include Barbara Kruger, Yukinori Yanagi, Katarzyna Kozyra, jennet Holzer, Wenda Gu, Shirin Neshat, Miriam Stannage, Colin McCahon and Jenny Watson. Artists such as Jenny Holzer, Wenda Gu and Shirin Neshat explore the pagan implications of language in art and the importance of language to private identity done the inclusion of text that glint a postmodern bear on with the way we collar in work onation in our coetaneous society. Jenny Holzer is an American conceptual artist who belongs to the libber branch of artists that emerged during the 1980s. Originally an abstract painter and printmaker, Holzer became heavily intimacyed in con ceptual art and began creating works using text.The introduction of text within Holzers work occurred gradually however, over time, they have solo replaced images. These works atomic number 18 usually displayed in widely viewed, public areas. Holzers works typically deal with the idea of communication. She is highly aware of the power of words and the power of the media and therefore has a focus on the ability of language to distort or manipulate truths. I was drawn to writing because it was possible to be very explicit about things. If you have crucial issues, burning issues, its good to say only whats right and wrong about them, and then perhaps to show a way that things could be helped. So, it seemed to make sense to write because then you could just say it no painting seemed perfect. In particular, I didnt want to be a narrative painter, which maybe would have been one solution for someone wanting to be explicit. Jenny Holzer.Through the use of text in art, Holzer is able t o transmit sizable environmental, hearty and political messages that reveal beliefs and myths and show biases and inconsistencies that highlight her social and personal concerns of todays contemporary society. Holzers works are confronting and provocative and inspire us to make changes. They make us regain that language is not always a factual statement it can be true or false depending on the context. Holzer forces us to analyse our own behaviour and consider how we have been influenced and manipulated. Her works are designed to make us stop and th sign about how we are maturing socially. Holzers truisms MONEY CREATES render 1982 and PROTECT ME FROM WHAT I WANT 1985 are part of her 1983-85 series Survival. These are LED quickness pieces consisting of large scale text that were projected onto a billboard in Times Square, New York.The inscriptions were bright, pull ahead and menacing and connected themselves to the everyday glow of the city. The phrases were flicked over the busy intersection for two to three seconds creating an gene of surprise and capturing the audiences attention. The main focus of these works was to make a profound statement about the world of advertising and consumer society today. Holzers aim was to persuade the audience to pause and reflect on their lives. Her work emphasises the notion that within our society, we are driven by the world of media, thereby producing a mass materialistic, consumerist assimilation. MONEY CREATES TASTE is almost a plea from Holzer to stand back and assess our needs as a culture rather than what we are fed to believe we want by the media.The use of this concise statement PROTECT ME FROM WHAT I WANT has shown us that we are in the process of losing our identity and sense of culture and can be manipulated by the underlying motives of the media. Shirin Neshat is an Iranian born artist who, upon good turn seventeen, moved to California to study art. In 1990 when Neshat flew back to Iran to visit her family, she was confronted by the changes in culture and the peg down restraints of everyday life in the Moslem Republic. She was faced by a very strict, pure form of Islam introduced by the Iranian government in order to erase Persian history. Since having lived in the two ethnic contexts of Iraq and the USA, Neshat is able to examine the cultural concerns of individual beings in a metaphorical and poetic way. She attempts to address problems of identity, race and gender in a shocking manner and intends to undermine social stereotypes and assumptions.Her works explore the differences amongst Islam and the West, males and females, limitations in life and freedom, old and new and the public and the private domains. Neshat aimed to provoke questions amongst her audience as she explored Islam through her art making and comments on issues related to feminism and multiculturalism. However, her works were not only confrontational and symbolic Neshat also paid particular attention to aesthetics. In her 1994 print and ink, Rebellious Silence, Neshat depicts an Islamic, Muslim woman, cover in a greater omentum holding a gun. Her calm face is divided by the starkness of the cold, steel weapon and is laced with Islamic calligraphy symbolic of the Niqab, a more extreme veil that an Islamic woman must wear as it signifies her obedience to the male supremacy in Islamic culture. Her clothing and weapon make us question whether this woman has rejected her submissive female billet to embrace violence.She is looking directly at the camera and looks determined to fight. Questions of motives arise amongst the audience. Neshats 1996 work reserved is a black and white photograph in which Neshat has chosen to make herself the subject. This image is a soaked up of Neshats face. She looks determined and powerful however, like her creation Rebellious Silence her face is cover with an overlay of Islamic text. The Arabic inscriptions that create the veil act as a barrier. It s ymbolises the support of the Islamic revolution. The visual struggle between Neshat and the veil is correctational of the fight for freedom and the support of religion. By put the text on her face, the body part where people can identify emotions the most, it serves as a varan of the power that religion has over women and the oppression it has towards free expression. The gun in the picture is another juxtaposition.The woman seems to be embracing the gun as a part of her, giving off a imperil feeling, but at the same time, it does not feel dangerous because of her conflicted emotions freedom versus oppression. The inscriptions tell of a man who died in the Iran/Iraq conflict of the 1980s. This is also insulting to the women who also experienced this conflict. Her art does not dissanction nor approve of Islam, but instead promotes the audience to reflect upon their own ideas, assumptions and expectations. He works carry both personal and emotional connotations. Wenda Gu was born in China and studied traditional, serious music landscape painting. He was occupied to teach ink painting and although he no longer practices in China, text remains cardinal to his work. This initial technical training has provided the incentive for his most confronting pieces in which the powerful use of language challenges social and political traditions.These are questioning and symbolic works that violate the orthodox doctrine of artistic value. They represent a direct threat to authority. Michael Sullivan. Gu ambitiously attempts to address, in artic terms, the issue of globalism that dominates discussions of contemporary economics, society and culture. He aims to appeal not only to the present population, but also to future generations in his quest to depart the boundaries of human perception, feeling and thought and express humanitys deepest wishes and powerful dreams. Gu strives to unify existence and create a utopian feel within his works. Gu worked to simplify the Chi nese language and to encourage people to embrace new attitudes towards their old language. He combines a long standing fascination with classical Chinese calligraphy with a contemporary take on universal concerns that cross cultural and ethnic boundaries.Gus work today focusses extensively on ideas of culture and his identity and has developed an interest in bodily materials and understanding humanity across ethnic and national boundaries. Gus 1994-96 work Pseudo Characters Contemplation of the world is a series of ink paintings in which he uses traditional calligraphical styles and techniques but subverts them with reversed, upside down or incorrect letters. The pseudo character series consists of three ink on paper scrolls in which he has combined calligraphy and landscape, disrupting the conventions of both, powerfully distorting artistic tradition of China. Gu has attacked the written word by glorifying the spirit of the absurd. Gus most significant artworks have been a series entitled United Nations Project. This is a series of 15 works that were conceptually plan to relate to the locations social, political, historical and cultural situation.This series confronts two taboos. That of language and the human body. The main material for these installations are human hairsbreadth collected from hairdressers from all over the world and the hair itself serves as a data link to all people. They typically consisted of screens tied together with twine, forming a canopy of internationally collected hair that was forge into nonsensical scripts combining the Chinese alphabet and others. His works are distinguished by the two themes which intersect. The rootage relates to language and the way in which cultural conventions are signified ad the second, is the use of human hair which is a symbol for significant human endeavours.The human hair is a blueprint containing DNA information, which is parking lot to all humans yet seen fundamentally as individual. Jenny H olzer, Shirin Neshat and Wenda Gu all explore the cultural implications of language within art. They share a prime focus on the links between culture and identity. They have used language and text to convey their powerful messages and have drawn upon their own personal experiences. Concerned with the human condition, both they and their artworks have had a significant impact on society and the way in which we interpret information.Madison ********Year 12 Visual Arts Art History and Art Criticism.Essay on TextThe inclusion of text in artworks reflects a post-modern concern with the way we receive information in our contemporary society and the importance of language to identity. Explore the cultural implications of language in the work of Jenny Holzer, Wenda Gu and one other contemporary artist. Analyse specific artworks to support your argument.