Unit 3 - 2:1
Critically compare a range of contexts within which Art and Design is
positioned.
This is easy enough if your research is good quality and if
you’re blogging your research as recommended. You could add this to the main
body of the work or within the analysis section of the Gibbs reflection
(section 4).
Context (The
situation in which something exists).
This is where you have to demonstrate that you’re aware that
images are used and defined in a range of different contexts. Again as you go
through the course and the more you read journals such as the British Journal
of Photography and Hotshoe, you’ll realise the potential photography has in
communicating ideas and concepts and engaging its audience.
In time, you’ll get to understand that your images and the
work of others can be pitched and produced in different ways to fit different
contexts. One of the key questions you should be asking when deconstructing and
analysing images is… What kind of work is
it and in what context does it exist?
The one that we hope you engage with and comprehend is that
of the
photograph as contemporary art . So the question you have to explore is
when does a photograph become a piece of contemporary art? Why for instance is
Gursky’s Rhein II deemed as art when most people (layman) would dismiss it as
something they could do? Think back to your earlier lessons when we explored
visual language, subjectivity v objectivity and Thomas Ruff. Think of the
discussions/lessons when we discussed context of Ruff’s work – is it
portraiture, or is it something more complex, what is it that makes it more complex
and therefore richer… ‘Art’ as opposed to something else?
In what context does it exist now and does it differ from
the way that it was seen in 1993? Is it fashion or is it a portrait, how much
was it worth to the photographer at the time and how much might it be worth now
and what has made that difference? What kind of photography was it when it was
first made and what signifies its context, what makes it what it was then and
what’s changed since?
Now relate the signifiers to your own work. When you make
your work, who might it be for, why does it meet their requirements, what kind
of photography are you making and therefore what are its characteristics and
attributes? Where would it be seen, why would they buy it, what makes it fit
for purpose?
Compare and contrast at least two different contexts in
which images are used, discuss genre and the fact that images cross-over contexts
from one to another.
Different to this (Andreas Gursky Rhein II)
