Evaluate the claim that what constitutes ‘art’ is highly dependant on social and cultural context.
In a world where one can roll out of bed leaving a disarray of sheets and strewn tissues and call it art (Emin 1998), we could be forgiven for believing that the former famous greats of the art world such as Van Gogh and Da Vinci might well be turning in their graves at the preposterous levels at which art can be declared within our contemporary society. This begs the debate of what is it that we actually define as being a work of ‘art’?
If art were to be summarised as simply that which we find to be beautiful or inspiring and thus worthy of our appreciation; how then would this include an unmade bed or a Barnett Newman coloured canvas? In this …show more content…
Silver in his study of Ashanti art in Ghana. In the the city of Kumasi the tourist art market thrives with carved reproductions of traditional and sacred Asantehene regalia in addition to other more contemporary wood carvings reflecting the amalgamation of culture between the West African tribes and an influx of Muslim migrants over the past 75 years; a consequence of capitalist development, following the establishment of a sawmill erected in the city around the late 1950s (ibid:193). As the carving of traditional Asantehene regalia is often ritually restricted by rules of culture and heritage, there is in turn an encouraged demand for more secular items, imbued with multicultural impressions. The carvers who produce for this open market must learn to gauge the probable popularity of an item before making it, thus all modern carvers, regardless of their skill, are basically gearing current production toward a Western or Westernized clientele (ibid:194). Silver reports than in the Ashanti craft market three major categories of works can be distinguished: 1)Faithful reproductions of objects with established religious, political or cultural importance 2) innovative treatments of traditional secular themes of the culture and, 3) completely new motifs reputedly of foreign origin (ibid.195). Of the Asante craft artists who cater for the tourist market Silver found that many of these artists regularly make aesthetic decisions based on the market demand, decisions that are comparable to those made using a Western concept of aesthetic judgement, insofar as the carvers themselves do not view every object which they produced as beautiful (Sharman: 180). In a his ethnography Silver interviewed at length 81 skilled carvers, in order to glean an idea of their opinions on the art styles that have been borrowed from other cultural traditions to meet the demand of
In a world where one can roll out of bed leaving a disarray of sheets and strewn tissues and call it art (Emin 1998), we could be forgiven for believing that the former famous greats of the art world such as Van Gogh and Da Vinci might well be turning in their graves at the preposterous levels at which art can be declared within our contemporary society. This begs the debate of what is it that we actually define as being a work of ‘art’?
If art were to be summarised as simply that which we find to be beautiful or inspiring and thus worthy of our appreciation; how then would this include an unmade bed or a Barnett Newman coloured canvas? In this …show more content…
Silver in his study of Ashanti art in Ghana. In the the city of Kumasi the tourist art market thrives with carved reproductions of traditional and sacred Asantehene regalia in addition to other more contemporary wood carvings reflecting the amalgamation of culture between the West African tribes and an influx of Muslim migrants over the past 75 years; a consequence of capitalist development, following the establishment of a sawmill erected in the city around the late 1950s (ibid:193). As the carving of traditional Asantehene regalia is often ritually restricted by rules of culture and heritage, there is in turn an encouraged demand for more secular items, imbued with multicultural impressions. The carvers who produce for this open market must learn to gauge the probable popularity of an item before making it, thus all modern carvers, regardless of their skill, are basically gearing current production toward a Western or Westernized clientele (ibid:194). Silver reports than in the Ashanti craft market three major categories of works can be distinguished: 1)Faithful reproductions of objects with established religious, political or cultural importance 2) innovative treatments of traditional secular themes of the culture and, 3) completely new motifs reputedly of foreign origin (ibid.195). Of the Asante craft artists who cater for the tourist market Silver found that many of these artists regularly make aesthetic decisions based on the market demand, decisions that are comparable to those made using a Western concept of aesthetic judgement, insofar as the carvers themselves do not view every object which they produced as beautiful (Sharman: 180). In a his ethnography Silver interviewed at length 81 skilled carvers, in order to glean an idea of their opinions on the art styles that have been borrowed from other cultural traditions to meet the demand of