Liverpool — News and Updates on Our Annual Arts Conference this July!

Published on May 7, 2012 in Headline and Newsletter. 0 Comments

Book Your Hotel

We encourage you to make arrangements regarding your hotel stay as soon as possible, as space is limited and rates will increase after our rates expire. For more information, visit the Accommodations webpage.

Registration

If you have not registered for the 2012 Arts Conference in Liverpool, please visit the Arts Conference website to register or email support@artsinsociety.com. The deadline to register for In-Person Presentations is 9 July 2012. In-Person Presenter Registrations completed after this date are not guaranteed to appear in the printed program available at the conference. Click here to register now or for more information.

Introducing Our New Sessions

We are pleased to introduce our newly themed sessions at this year’s Arts Conference in Liverpool! Traditionally, paper presentations have been scheduled into individual 30-minute sessions, with corresponding papers scheduled before and after, but without interaction. In order to foster greater interaction and more meaningful feedback at this year’s conference, we’ve grouped papers into 70-minute and 90-minute themed sessions with two to three other presenters. Papers are grouped by similar topics and perspectives, enhancing discussion and collaboration. Find out more about our conference sessions….

Prepare for Your Trip

For more information on the conference venue, city maps, transportation and our 2012 Arts Conference Delegate Pack, please visit our Location webpage. Also, you may browse other presenters’ sessions and read about our featured Plenary Speakers.

We look forward to seeing you at the 2012 Arts Conference, 23-25 July in Liverpool, UK!

The Arts in Society Family of Journals

Published on April 30, 2012 in Headline, Journal and Newsletter. 0 Comments

In recent years, The International Journal of the Arts in Society has become larger, too large in fact as the amount of top-quality material we are receiving has grown. This has occurred even though we have continued to tighten our already-rigorous acceptance procedures.

As a consequence, we have decided to divide the journal into a number of thematically focused journals, plus a highlights journal which contains reprints of top-ranked and invited articles from plenary speakers at the Arts Conference.

This development will have a number of advantages to authors and readers. The journals will be of a more ‘normal’ size. Individual papers will be published electronically and as a single-article paper offprint as soon as they are ready, followed by the full issue of each journal on regular, scheduled publication dates four times per year both electronically and in print. The journals will be more accessible and coherent, as more closely aligned articles will now be better grouped. For these reasons, the new journals are likely to gain enhanced recognition in journal indexes and citation counts.

In the area addressed by The Arts in Society knowledge community, these will be the journals into which articles will be published:

  • The International Journal of Arts Education
  • The International Journal of Arts Theory and History
  • The International Journal of New Media, Technology and the Arts
  • The International Journal of  Social, Political and Community Agendas in the Arts

Each of these thematically focused journals will be clearly linked to the highlights journal with the following subtitle, ‘A section of The International Journal of the Arts in Society’.

Authors can request which of the thematic journals they would prefer for the publication of their article, should it receive a favorable review and a reviewer recommendation to publish. Alternatively, when the author does not opt to make a selection, the Common Ground editorial team will curate each paper into the appropriate thematic journal.

Authors will not submit directly to the highlights journal. This journal will consist only of reprints of articles from the thematic journals. This will not be a second publication of the article, and the subtitle of the highlights journal will clearly indicate that this journal only consists of reprints of highlights of general interest from the thematic journals.

Participants at the Arts Conference and members of The Arts in Society Open Institute are provided subscription access to all journals in this family of journals for the 12-month period associated with their conference registration or Institute membership dues.

This is an exciting development for The Arts in Society knowledge community, one which we believe will greatly benefit both authors and readers.

Futurism Is Still Influential, Despite Its Dark Side

Published on April 26, 2012 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

From Henry Adams at Smithsonian Magazine’s ARTiculations…

In 2014 the Guggenheim Museum in New York will open the biggest exhibition ever held on the Italian Futurists; the event has been foreshadowed by an article in Smithsonian, accompanied by an online photo gallery of Futurist masterpieces. It’s a good moment to reflect a bit on what Futurism represents, how it happened and how it has transformed the world we live in.

Today we think of Futurism as a visual style—a sort of animated Cubism that endows images and objects with a feeling of windblown movement. Remarkably, however, the movement began with a manifesto, and a series of “happenings,” before the artists associated with it had developed a new style.

The movement was first trumpeted in a manifesto by the poet Filippo Marinetti,which was published in the Paris newspaper Le Figaro on February 20, 1909. The intention of the movement, Marinetti explained, was to smash anything old, sentimental or conventional and create a new manly culture based on machines, speed and modernity. Hailing the “beauty of speed,” he argued that museums libraries, academies and “venerated” cities had to be destroyed, since they represented the culture of the past, and were stale and reactionary, as were “morality, feminism and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice.” More…

Letter from Tasmania

Published on April 20, 2012 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

From Robert Moor at n+1…

The first man to pick us up, as we hitchhiked out of Launceston on our way to Cradle Mountain and down to the capital city of Hobart, had his fingernails cut into rough polygons and a lot of tools in the back of his extended cab pickup. But right away he made it clear to me (an American) and my travel companion, Remi (a Sydney native living in New York), that he didn’t take kindly to insinuations that Tasmania is less culturally developed than the mainland. When I asked him what he thought distinguished Tasmanians from other Australians, he reckoned, with a smile, that “For one thing, the rest of Oz isn’t worth a shit.” He then turned to Remi, and added, politely, “No offense, mate.”

From my two hours in the state—which had consisted of standing by the side of a road and eating some dry fast food chicken with a Styrofoam cup of brown gravy—I was having trouble discerning any distinction from the mainland whatsoever. The cuisine, customs, and accents seemed surprisingly similar. We’d heard it would be colder here, but the sun glowed like a white-hot coil. In Tasmania, as in the north, the roadsides are dotted with yellow signs depicting Pokemon-like creatures (cuddly wallabies, echidnas, and wombats blindly crossing the road; super-strong kangaroos overturning cars) and alarmist PSAs urging drivers to pull over every two hours to take a rest. People bemoan the latter as the work of “the nanny state,” which makes it illegal even to hang one’s arm out of the driver side window. As Remi explained it, Australians love to be governed because Australians love to do reckless things, but don’t want others to do the same. More…

Spot Art

Published on April 10, 2012 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

Review from Jacob Mikanowski at The Point…

No one commands higher prices than Damien Hirst, and nothing is more fashionable than to loathe him. Still, we can’t do without him. In his person and his work, Hirst embodies the current condition of the art market: aloof, reckless, profligate, creepy, fast, fat and out of control. He is to art what Dubai is to architecture and Michael Bay is to movies: the leading exponent of the current blockbuster style. No one else has been as good at giving material drama and visual form to the vast accumulations of wealth during the latest, rococo phase of capitalist accumulation. That makes him our canary in the mineshaft. Whether despicable or dumb, whatever he does is at least worth noticing.

This month, an exhibition of Hirst’s spot paintings opened at every outpost of the Gagosian Gallery empire the world over. It’s a terrific marketing trick, as is almost everything Hirst does. Anyone who visits all eleven galleries (spread among eight cities) will get a free print—and, in spite of myself, I’ve been wondering if I could swing a trip to Athens and Hong Kong next month. As an art exhibit, though, “The Complete Spot Paintings” offers a strange mix of commercial megalomania and aesthetic tedium. More…

Thomas Kinkade, Artist to Mass Market, Dies at 54

Published on April 7, 2012 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

From Matt Flegenheimer at The New York Times (photo: Lightpost Publishing)…

Thomas Kinkade, the prolific painter of bucolic and idealized scenes who estimated that his mass-produced works hung in one out of 20 American homes, died on Friday at his home in Los Gatos, Calif. He was 54.

He appeared to have died of natural causes, according to a statement that his family issued to The San Jose Mercury News.

Though often disdained by the fine art establishment, Mr. Kinkade built a decorative art empire by creating sentimental paintings that were, for the most part, relatively inexpensive and resonated with the desires of homeowners who did not ordinarily buy art. He sold his work directly, through his own franchise galleries or on cable television home shopping networks, and eventually online.

Much of his work reflected Christian themes or visions of a traditional, rustic America residing in comforting solitude. The paintings — of homey cottages and rural churches and rivers flowing gently through brilliant foliage — rarely included people, which allowed the owners to project themselves into the scenes. More…

 

‘The Art of the Event’ – A Look at the 2012 Arts Conference Plenaries

Published on February 28, 2012 in Headline and Newsletter. 0 Comments

In partnership with the Institute of Cultural Capital and alongside the 2012 Olympic Games and events, the 2012 Arts Conference calls to question ‘The Art of the Event’ – addressing the role of the arts in major world events such as the Cultural Olympiad, Commonwealth Games, Capital of Culture programs, International Arts Festivals, and Biennials. Highlighting this conversation are the 2012 Plenary Speakers – Dr. Beatriz Garcia, Head of Research at the Institute of Cultural Capital; Professor Andy Miah, Director of the Creative Futures Research Centre; and Sally Tallant, Artistic Director of the Liverpool Biennial. A little more on our speakers:

Dr Beatriz García is Head of Research at the Institute of Cultural Capital, a collaboration between the University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores University. She is also the director of Impacts 08 – The Liverpool Model, a research programme which has assessed the long term cultural, social, economic and environmental impacts of Liverpool becoming European Capital of Culture in 2008. Prior to this post, she was a Research Council UK (RCUK) academic fellow at the Centre for Cultural Policy Research, University of Glasgow, where she led a major research project looking into the long term cultural legacy of Glasgow becoming the 1990 European City of Culture. More…

Professor Andy Miah, PhD (@andymiah), is Director of the Creative Futures Research Centre (creativefutur.es) & Chair of Ethics and Emerging Technologies in the Faculty of Business & Creative Industries at the University of the West of Scotland. He is also Global Director for the Centre for Policy and Emerging Technologies, Fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, USA and Fellow at FACT, the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, UK. More…

Sally Tallant is the Artistic Director of the Liverpool Biennial. The Liverpool Biennial is the UK’s largest festival of contemporary visual art and was established in 1998. Since its inception, the International exhibition has commissioned well over 100 new works, many for the streets and public spaces of Liverpool, engaging established contemporary artists from around the world. Previously, Ms. Tallant was Head of Programmes at the Serpentine Gallery, London where she was responsible for the delivery of an integrated programme of Exhibitions, Architecture, Education and Public Programmes. More…

Recently published in the Arts Journal

Published on February 28, 2012 in Journal. 0 Comments

arts1

Recently published papers in The International Journal of the Arts in Society include:

Seemingly Innocuous Assignments That Will Lead to Improbable Calamities

Published on February 25, 2012 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

From Kevin Zucker at n+1…

Make something ugly

Some twisted genius will stumble upon the ultimate solution to this art school chestnut: when it’s their turn to be critiqued they’ll just stand up and destroy the work of one of their classmates. An administrative sh*tstorm will ensue.

Make a work on paper that is either embarrassing or serves a confessional purpose

This assignment turns out to be appropriate only for grad students, who, unlike undergrads, can generally be trusted not to pin you against the crit wall and try to make out with you. Not that you’d be that comfortable getting publicly molested by any of your students, but it bears noting that the student who does this will inevitably be of the gender you’re appreciably less into making out with. Still beet-red fifteen minutes later, you will have to find some way to address the “work” in a group critique where nobody can stop laughing. Since the assignment was given in a works on paper class, you, at a total loss, will first ask how paper was in any way involved—to which the student will point out that the wall against which the performance took place was made of Homasote, technically a paper product. More…

At Large: Reviewing the Arts in South Africa

Published on February 24, 2012 in Book and Newsletter. 0 Comments

At Large: Reviewing the Arts in South Africa by Christopher Thurman is now available as part of  The Arts in Society series.

As a ‘critic at large’, Chris Thurman has engaged with the work of theatre practitioners, musicians, dancers, visual artists and writers from across the South African arts spectrum. In this collection of journalistic essays, reviews and interviews produced over the course of five years, he not only explores the role of the arts – and the challenges facing artists – in a country still completing its transition to democracy, but also asks provocative questions about a range of social and political issues. Informed by an awareness of South Africa’s complex cultural history/histories, At Large offers a snapshot (or, rather, a series of snapshots) of the arts in the country during the early years of the twenty-first century, providing insight into the production and reception of both ‘local’ and ‘global’ artistic phenomena.

Chris Thurman teaches at the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg) and contributes to various publications as arts critic, political commentator and travel writer. His other books are Sport versus Art: A South African Contest, Guy Butler: Reassessing a South African Literary Life and Text Bites: South African Poems, Plays, Stories and Non-fiction.