Major of Art - Essay.
Budget: $30 – $250 SGD
Major of Art essay. Share your previous works in such a Major.
Enhance and consolidate your critical understanding of the unit’s themes and program.
Explore and demonstrate deeper, sch engagement with memory theories in connection to art and identity.
Focus and shape your research towards a specific topic area covered, as it relates to your own interests in memory, identity and art.
Task
Choose one of the essay questions on below to research and write on, drawing on theorists of memory and your own research.
This assignment would be like:
1. Memory and Oblivion
“Memories are crafted by oblivion as the outlines of the shore are created by the sea” (Marc Augé, Oblivion, University of Minnesota Press, 2004, p. 20).
How does oblivion relate to memory?
Discuss this question in relation to private and/or public memory through the work of three contemporary artists, choosing at least two from this list: Walid Raad, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Christian Boltanski, Janet Laurence, Fiona Foley, Shimon Attie, Cornelia Parker, Yhonnie Scarce, Lindy Lee.
2. Art and the Past
Louise Bourgeois once said: “Every day you have to abandon your past or accept it and then, if you cannot accept it, you become a sculptor” (Louise Bourgeois quoted in Destruction of the Father / Reconstruction of the Father: Writings and Interviews, 1923-1997).
Relate the sentiments of this quote to the following artists: Louise Bourgeois, Tracy Emin and one other contemporary female sculptor of your choice (suggestions include: Julie Gough, Yvonne Koolmatrie, Sarah Lucas, Doris Salcedo, Tau Lewis, Chihaur Shiota). Through a discussion of at least one work by each artist, consider how they negotiate personal and/or public memory through their sculptural works. Compare the artists and discuss points in common and points of difference.
3. Memory, Home, and Exile
“Exile is …. [t]he unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted” (Edward Said, “Reflections on Exile” in Reflections on Exile, Harvard University Press, 2000, p.137).
What does it mean to live in exile? The artists Shirin Nishat, Ai Weiwei, Mona Hatoum, and Hossein Valamanesh, have experienced what it is like to live in exile. Discuss how exile (from “home”) is expressed in at least one work by three of the artists listed. Explain what they share in common, how they differ, and address whether there is an “essential sadness” in their work.
4. Dreams, the Unconscious, Memory
The Surrealist were highly influenced by theories of memory. Choose one work by each of these three artists — Leonora Carrington, Salvador Dali and Max Ernst — and explain how it relates to issues of memory and identity. In your visual analysis discuss memory is given visual form, and also refer to one theorist of memory who was relevant to Surrealism.
5. Museums, Archives, Memory
What is an ‘archive’ and how is it related to memory? Through an exploration of 3 contemporary artists works, discuss the relationship of memory and archive. Analyse at least one work by each artist, and as part of your discussion consider what they share in common and how they differ. (Suggested artists include: Mark Dion, Anne Ferran, Brook Andrew, Fiona Pardington, Gerhard Richter, Leah King Smith, and Zoe Leonard.)
6. Film and Memory
Film has often been understood as resembling memory. It is a temporal medium that records moments and many films often explore narratives around the notion of memory. Examine how one of the films below, evokes and explores memory. What does the film say about memory and how can the film’s insights about memory connect to theorists’ concepts of memory. Your response should analyse both the narrative significance of memory to the film and the film techniques that evoke memory.
Below are some notable films exploring memory for you to choose from:
Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), La Jetee (1962), The Matrix (1999), Memento (2000), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Ten Canoes (2006), Inception (2010) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017).
Important to note:
Any artists chosen must be critically recognised and have works held in public collections (this is to assist with your research and analysis)
For the purposes of this writing, contemporary artist means any artist that has exhibited their work in a state gallery or museum, in the last 40 years.
Enhance and consolidate your critical understanding of the unit’s themes and program.
Explore and demonstrate deeper, sch engagement with memory theories in connection to art and identity.
Focus and shape your research towards a specific topic area covered, as it relates to your own interests in memory, identity and art.
Task
Choose one of the essay questions on below to research and write on, drawing on theorists of memory and your own research.
This assignment would be like:
1. Memory and Oblivion
“Memories are crafted by oblivion as the outlines of the shore are created by the sea” (Marc Augé, Oblivion, University of Minnesota Press, 2004, p. 20).
How does oblivion relate to memory?
Discuss this question in relation to private and/or public memory through the work of three contemporary artists, choosing at least two from this list: Walid Raad, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Christian Boltanski, Janet Laurence, Fiona Foley, Shimon Attie, Cornelia Parker, Yhonnie Scarce, Lindy Lee.
2. Art and the Past
Louise Bourgeois once said: “Every day you have to abandon your past or accept it and then, if you cannot accept it, you become a sculptor” (Louise Bourgeois quoted in Destruction of the Father / Reconstruction of the Father: Writings and Interviews, 1923-1997).
Relate the sentiments of this quote to the following artists: Louise Bourgeois, Tracy Emin and one other contemporary female sculptor of your choice (suggestions include: Julie Gough, Yvonne Koolmatrie, Sarah Lucas, Doris Salcedo, Tau Lewis, Chihaur Shiota). Through a discussion of at least one work by each artist, consider how they negotiate personal and/or public memory through their sculptural works. Compare the artists and discuss points in common and points of difference.
3. Memory, Home, and Exile
“Exile is …. [t]he unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted” (Edward Said, “Reflections on Exile” in Reflections on Exile, Harvard University Press, 2000, p.137).
What does it mean to live in exile? The artists Shirin Nishat, Ai Weiwei, Mona Hatoum, and Hossein Valamanesh, have experienced what it is like to live in exile. Discuss how exile (from “home”) is expressed in at least one work by three of the artists listed. Explain what they share in common, how they differ, and address whether there is an “essential sadness” in their work.
4. Dreams, the Unconscious, Memory
The Surrealist were highly influenced by theories of memory. Choose one work by each of these three artists — Leonora Carrington, Salvador Dali and Max Ernst — and explain how it relates to issues of memory and identity. In your visual analysis discuss memory is given visual form, and also refer to one theorist of memory who was relevant to Surrealism.
5. Museums, Archives, Memory
What is an ‘archive’ and how is it related to memory? Through an exploration of 3 contemporary artists works, discuss the relationship of memory and archive. Analyse at least one work by each artist, and as part of your discussion consider what they share in common and how they differ. (Suggested artists include: Mark Dion, Anne Ferran, Brook Andrew, Fiona Pardington, Gerhard Richter, Leah King Smith, and Zoe Leonard.)
6. Film and Memory
Film has often been understood as resembling memory. It is a temporal medium that records moments and many films often explore narratives around the notion of memory. Examine how one of the films below, evokes and explores memory. What does the film say about memory and how can the film’s insights about memory connect to theorists’ concepts of memory. Your response should analyse both the narrative significance of memory to the film and the film techniques that evoke memory.
Below are some notable films exploring memory for you to choose from:
Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), La Jetee (1962), The Matrix (1999), Memento (2000), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Ten Canoes (2006), Inception (2010) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017).
Important to note:
Any artists chosen must be critically recognised and have works held in public collections (this is to assist with your research and analysis)
For the purposes of this writing, contemporary artist means any artist that has exhibited their work in a state gallery or museum, in the last 40 years.