Relational Art as Social Semiotic

Riley, Howard (2011) Relational Art as Social Semiotic. International Journal of the Arts in Society, 6. ISSN 1833-1866

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Abstract

Abstract: This article, a revised and extended version of a presentation to the “6th International Conference of the Arts in Society,” Berlin, May 2011, elaborates the dialectical relationship between visual art forms and the social structures in which they are produced, by extending Robert Witkin’s taxonomy first presented in his 1995 book “Art and Social Structure.” Witkin tracked the history of visual art from pre-modern times, for which he invented the label “invocational art,” to the advent of Modernism, described in terms of “evocational” and “provocational art.” The article then extrapolates from Witkin’s model to include post-Modernism, for which the author ’s term “revocational art” has been coined, and goes on to discuss Nicolas Bourriaud’s concept of “Altermodernism,” his term for describing the relationship between contemporary art practices and the social conditions of today, for which the author suggests an alternative-”convocational art”-a synonym for Bourriaud’s term “relational art.” The paper then introduces a systemic-functional semiotic model for the analysis of relational art, and concludes with a demonstration of the model as applied to the work of Anton Vidokle.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Relational art, Social semiotics
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR
Divisions:	Institutes and Academies > Wales Institute for Science & Art (WISA) > Academic Discipline: Art & Media
Depositing User:	John Dalling
Date Deposited:	19 Dec 2011 11:03
Last Modified:	27 Aug 2024 13:50
URI:	https://repository.uwtsd.ac.uk/id/eprint/222

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