A glossary of global art terms, alongside jargon and phrases coined in Southeast Asia. These definitions cite examples of artists, exhibitions, techniques, and more, in which the phrases have been applied.
As a term in art history and criticism, this refers to the taking over, into a work of art, of a real object or even an existing work of art. The practice can be tracked back to the Cubist constructions and collages of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque made from 1912 onwards, in which real objects, such as newspapers, were included to represent themselves. Appropriation was developed much further in the ready-mades created by the French Dada artist Marcel Duchamp from 1913. Most notorious of these was Fountain, a men’s urinal signed, titled and presented on a pedestal. Later, Surrealism also made extensive use of appropriation in collages and objects, such as Salvador Dali’s Lobster Telephone. In the late 1950s, appropriated images and objects appear extensively in the work of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, and in Pop art. However, the term seems to have come into use specifically in relation to certain American artists in the 1980s, notably Sherrie Levine and the artists of the Neo-Geo group, particularly Jeff Koons. Appropriation art raises questions of originality, authenticity and authorship, and belongs to the long modernist tradition of art that questions the nature or definition of art itself. Appropriation has been used extensively by artists since the 1980s. Source: Tate.org.uk. AWDB highlighted artist: Andres Barrioquinto. Abstract art
Art in which the artist has begun the process of creating with a chosen visual object and abstracted elements from it to arrive at a simplified or structured form. The term is also used to describe art using forms that have no basis at all in external existence. A group of hypothetical ideas lies behind abstract art: the notion of art for art’s sake; art’s effects should be created by pure patterns of form, colour and line. The idea is that the chief form of beauty lies not in the forms of the physical world, but in geometry; the notion that abstract art, to the extent that it does not represent the material world, can be seen to embody the spiritual. Overall, abstract art is seen as carrying a moral aspect, in that it can be seen to stand for virtues such as order, purity, simplicity, and spirituality. Western pioneers of abstract painting were Wassily Kandinsky, Kasimir Malevich and Piet Mondrian from about 1910-20. Source: The National Museum of the Philippines. AWDB highlighted artist: Hernando Ruiz Ocampo.
Animation
The rapid display of sequences of static imagery in such a way as to create the illusion of movement. The history of animation dates back to early Chinese shadow lanterns and the optical toys of the eighteenth century, but it was not until the beginning of the twentieth century that illustrators like Émile Cohl began drawing cartoon strips on to celluloid. The most famous animator was Walt Disney, best known for his cartoon feature films like Fantasia and The Jungle Book. Computer animation began in the 1960s and is animation’s digital successor. Using software programs like Adobe Flash, animators build up sequences on a computer to be used as special effects in film, called Computer Generated Imagery (CGI), or as animated sequences in their own right. Sites like YouTube and Vimeo have become forums for computer animation, bypassing the traditional galleries and museums as the spaces for enterprise. Source: tate.org. AWDB Highlighted artist: Bjorn Calleja
Animism
Animism is a belief that events in the world are mobilized by the activities of spirits. In visual, media and performance art it is often used to explore the dualisms of people and things. Source: oxfordreference.com (partial). AWDB highlighted artist: Rodel Tapaya
Appropriation
Art intervention
The term art intervention applies to art designed specifically to interact with an existing structure or situation, be it another artwork, the audience, an institution or in the public domain.
The popularity for art interventions emerged in the 1960s, when artists attempted to radically transform the role of the artist in society, and thereby society itself. They are most commonly associated with conceptual art and performance art. Source: tate.org.uk. AWDB highlighted artist: Tiffany Chung.
Arte povera
Arte povera was a radical Italian art movement from the late 1960s to 1970s whose artists explored a range of unconventional processes and non-traditional ‘everyday’ materials.
Arte povera means literally ‘poor art’ but the word poor here refers to the movement’s signature exploration of a wide range of materials beyond the traditional ones of oil paint on canvas, bronze, or carved marble. Materials used by the artists included soil, rags and twigs. In using such throwaway materials, they aimed to challenge and disrupt the values of the commercialised contemporary gallery system.
The heyday of the movement was from 1967–1972, but its influence on later art has been enduring. It can also be seen as the Italian contribution to conceptual art. In Japan, the mono-ha group looked into the essence of materials and stepped away from technological modernism. In the United States, the terms anti-form and post-minimalism were used to describe work that rejected the fixed industrial shapes and sleek forms of minimalist sculpture. Source: tate.org.uk. AWDB highlighted artist: Montien Boonma.
Artefact
An artefact is an ornament, tool, or other object that is made by a human being, especially one that is historically or culturally interesting. In the context of contemporary art, the artefacts that the artist produces make use of a multitude of communicative and stylistic objects and devices, to influence the perspective of the spectator about the topic being presented. The purpose is to cause that subject to be seen in a particular light. In this way, the art object communicates what the artist wishes to convey. Source: tate.org.uk. and the AWDB team. AWDB highlighted artist: Alya Hatta.
Artist-in-residence
An artist who has been given time, space and financial aid by an institution or a community in order to create art. Residencies can exist anywhere, but they are usually attached to some kind of institution; a gallery, a museum, an arts centre, a university or a college, although increasingly there are artists-in-residence programs being established in large corporations, science laboratories, hospitals and airports. The subject matter the artist chooses to work with is often inspired by the organization in which the artist is in residence, but not always. Residencies are for a specified time and are not meant to be endless. Source: Tate.org.uk. AWDB highlighted organisation: STPI.