The Conceptual framework
What is the Conceptual Framework?
The conceptual framework helps Visual Arts students explain all the information and ideas surrounding an artwork by examining the relationships between the agencies of artworld which are: the artist, artwork, world and audience. The sets of relationships of the conceptual framework are shaped and generated by the frames and provide ways of understanding practice. In the senior years, we must move beyond mere interpretation of the artwork itself. A consideration of the conceptual framework allows senior students to effectively investigate the agencies of the artworld that have contributed to the production of an artwork. You should also attempt to use the Conceptual Framework when shaping and generating your own art making practice. The agencies can help you to connect with your own artmaking and help you interpret and explain your artmaking.
The Agencies of the Conceptual Framework:
An Artist:
• traditionally makes images or objects intentionally as artworks, as part of an artistic practice. Sometimes the artist may place their signature on an artwork where they have enlisted others to produce the work.
• Produces artworks and objects using sign systems as a language that can be read
(structural frame ).
• Can sometimes be the romantic hero/heroine, the genius who originates the new, the prophet and the bearer of deep universal truths (subjective frame)
• Can be a skilled artisan or tradesperson working for powerful social institutions or the
propagandist or apologist for an ideology or an individual, or a respected elder, the custodian of specialised knowledge (cultural frame).
• Might be a celebrity, entrepreneur, and the market and media savvy personality (postmodern )
• Often works in a studio- ‘a room [or space] of their own’ which provides authority within practice. Light, size and view, objects, books, magazines and artworks are some of the elements that comprise the ‘studio’.
Often works with others and values this collaboration and shared experience.
• Considers the experience of physical place as vital to practice or of no consequence,
preferring an inner psychological world.
• Is often secretive and may prefer others ( critics, dealers, theorists) to speak for them.
• Is an individual or group exhibitor who considers exhibitions as central to their practice.
An artwork:
• Is intentionally made by artists.
• has a material and physical form
• Is a form traditionally described by its materials and techniques
• May be impermanent or fragile.
• May need to have in its place a documented reproduction which could survive the original artwork
• May be a performance which utilises the body as form.
• May be a film, video and digital artworks which use the material of celluloid, tape and chip, although the viewer is likely to experience the form of the artwork as a screen image
• Often utilises new technologies and contemporary practices, including reproduction which challenges conventional notions of the unique, singular and precious object as art..
• Functions in different ways in each of the frames - e.g. as a text to be read like language in the structural frame. Postmodern artworks also function as text through intertextuality and is understood by reference to other texts.
The sum of an artist’s practice, of artworks produced, is a body of work. A Body of work displays independence and a reflective, autonomous practice informed by the field of visual arts and design.
Artworks are often studied in reproductions as slides, print and digital copies. The unique and original artwork has a presence, ‘aura’ or depth that is lost or changed in ‘mechanical reproduction’. Artworks produced for viewing on the net, screen or through digital processes and exist only in a virtual form, alter how audiences may view and interact with artworks.
An Audience:
• Is ongoing yet changeable as artworks inhabit different viewing contexts, are bought and sold, exhibited, privately viewed, destroyed, damaged, lost or consigned to storage.
• typically engages with artworks through museum and gallery exhibitions.
• Are increasingly found or produced through the public display of artworks and includes accessing artworks by electronic and print media. Sculpture is often located outdoors. Designed images and objects may be shown in museum collections or displays. As
many designed objects are manufactured as multiples they can be purchased and appear in everyday use. Architecture is also experienced by being used.
• Changes with time and place, contemporary audiences will differ from historical audiences as different worlds, along with diverse subjectivities of gender, race and class, produce the audience function.
• Has different contexts including other artists, dealers, gallery directors, curators, collectors and auction houses, along with writers, theorists, students and educators and members of the public.
*The artist provides the first audience for an artwork. In some cases, often in the postmodern, the audience function is intrinsic and necessary to the resolution of the full meaning of the work.
The World:
• Involves artists, artworks and audiences functioning in relation to each other and the world.
• Is all the vast and possible things artists and audiences get interested in, and artworks can be about.
• Is about the systematic ideas of the time, existing theoretical commitments, what is considered
plausible and credible, implausible and incredible in the field of visual arts.
• Is mediated by the frames, and not to be confused with the cultural frame which refers to issues of power and identity arising from the economic, the social and the political.
• Is aligned with art history and art criticism, classifying and identifying artworks in time and place. Art historians also trace audiences when investigating the origin of an artwork. Art critics interpret and make judgments about artworks. The art critic’s audience is the
public.
References:
http://artsmartstudents.blogspot.com.au/p/conceptual-framework.html
http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/secondary/creativearts/assets/visualarts/pdf/vas4analysiscont.pdf
The conceptual framework helps Visual Arts students explain all the information and ideas surrounding an artwork by examining the relationships between the agencies of artworld which are: the artist, artwork, world and audience. The sets of relationships of the conceptual framework are shaped and generated by the frames and provide ways of understanding practice. In the senior years, we must move beyond mere interpretation of the artwork itself. A consideration of the conceptual framework allows senior students to effectively investigate the agencies of the artworld that have contributed to the production of an artwork. You should also attempt to use the Conceptual Framework when shaping and generating your own art making practice. The agencies can help you to connect with your own artmaking and help you interpret and explain your artmaking.
The Agencies of the Conceptual Framework:
An Artist:
• traditionally makes images or objects intentionally as artworks, as part of an artistic practice. Sometimes the artist may place their signature on an artwork where they have enlisted others to produce the work.
• Produces artworks and objects using sign systems as a language that can be read
(structural frame ).
• Can sometimes be the romantic hero/heroine, the genius who originates the new, the prophet and the bearer of deep universal truths (subjective frame)
• Can be a skilled artisan or tradesperson working for powerful social institutions or the
propagandist or apologist for an ideology or an individual, or a respected elder, the custodian of specialised knowledge (cultural frame).
• Might be a celebrity, entrepreneur, and the market and media savvy personality (postmodern )
• Often works in a studio- ‘a room [or space] of their own’ which provides authority within practice. Light, size and view, objects, books, magazines and artworks are some of the elements that comprise the ‘studio’.
Often works with others and values this collaboration and shared experience.
• Considers the experience of physical place as vital to practice or of no consequence,
preferring an inner psychological world.
• Is often secretive and may prefer others ( critics, dealers, theorists) to speak for them.
• Is an individual or group exhibitor who considers exhibitions as central to their practice.
An artwork:
• Is intentionally made by artists.
• has a material and physical form
• Is a form traditionally described by its materials and techniques
• May be impermanent or fragile.
• May need to have in its place a documented reproduction which could survive the original artwork
• May be a performance which utilises the body as form.
• May be a film, video and digital artworks which use the material of celluloid, tape and chip, although the viewer is likely to experience the form of the artwork as a screen image
• Often utilises new technologies and contemporary practices, including reproduction which challenges conventional notions of the unique, singular and precious object as art..
• Functions in different ways in each of the frames - e.g. as a text to be read like language in the structural frame. Postmodern artworks also function as text through intertextuality and is understood by reference to other texts.
The sum of an artist’s practice, of artworks produced, is a body of work. A Body of work displays independence and a reflective, autonomous practice informed by the field of visual arts and design.
Artworks are often studied in reproductions as slides, print and digital copies. The unique and original artwork has a presence, ‘aura’ or depth that is lost or changed in ‘mechanical reproduction’. Artworks produced for viewing on the net, screen or through digital processes and exist only in a virtual form, alter how audiences may view and interact with artworks.
An Audience:
• Is ongoing yet changeable as artworks inhabit different viewing contexts, are bought and sold, exhibited, privately viewed, destroyed, damaged, lost or consigned to storage.
• typically engages with artworks through museum and gallery exhibitions.
• Are increasingly found or produced through the public display of artworks and includes accessing artworks by electronic and print media. Sculpture is often located outdoors. Designed images and objects may be shown in museum collections or displays. As
many designed objects are manufactured as multiples they can be purchased and appear in everyday use. Architecture is also experienced by being used.
• Changes with time and place, contemporary audiences will differ from historical audiences as different worlds, along with diverse subjectivities of gender, race and class, produce the audience function.
• Has different contexts including other artists, dealers, gallery directors, curators, collectors and auction houses, along with writers, theorists, students and educators and members of the public.
*The artist provides the first audience for an artwork. In some cases, often in the postmodern, the audience function is intrinsic and necessary to the resolution of the full meaning of the work.
The World:
• Involves artists, artworks and audiences functioning in relation to each other and the world.
• Is all the vast and possible things artists and audiences get interested in, and artworks can be about.
• Is about the systematic ideas of the time, existing theoretical commitments, what is considered
plausible and credible, implausible and incredible in the field of visual arts.
• Is mediated by the frames, and not to be confused with the cultural frame which refers to issues of power and identity arising from the economic, the social and the political.
• Is aligned with art history and art criticism, classifying and identifying artworks in time and place. Art historians also trace audiences when investigating the origin of an artwork. Art critics interpret and make judgments about artworks. The art critic’s audience is the
public.
References:
http://artsmartstudents.blogspot.com.au/p/conceptual-framework.html
http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/secondary/creativearts/assets/visualarts/pdf/vas4analysiscont.pdf