Museum visit

Museum visit

DescriptionPlease note: I will do the cover sheet

Research paper: “Exhibition Review”
USE: word docx or pdf
PAPER OVERVIEW OBJECTIVES
1. Critique and analyze the form, content, and context of artwork (use worksheet and elements of art handout to guide you through the process of evaluating/critiquing the work of art).
2. Compare the personal subjective opinion and an informed critique of the artwork
3. Analyze the connections between the contemporary art developments and global cultural, political and financial contexts.
4. Use an encounter with an artwork to explore the emotional impact of art on the viewer and the artist’s motivations.
5. Develop greater empathy towards and understanding of the “other” and capacity for self-reflection. Evaluate the work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, New York, or one of the Chelsea Galleries. Based on the exhibition write an analysis of the artwork that you like and one that you do not like.
Introduction: (100 points) like and dislike. Personal Subjective reaction (min 1 page) First, you should react to what you see, subjectively. Just have an opinion. Then move on to formal analysis, then look at the content and contexts.
Body: (300 points) Evaluation Describe the form/content/context in detail, use citations to support your observations. Use APA format. Consider works and try to suspend your personal judgment. Now you will need to evaluate the work and go deeper into the artist’s history, artist’s intent, and cultural context. (Use the worksheet).
Conclusion: (100 points) Reevaluate like and dislike. Did your opinion change after further research? Why? (Include in your reflection: whether your opinions changed, what influenced your opinions, how do you decide to like or not like artworks, do you think that you form other judgments in a similar way)
Formatting: Body of paper 7 pages minimum, 12 points, double spaces, if you use illustrations, place them on separate page not in text. Use page 8 for “Work Cited” page.

(Use this worksheet as a guide)
Interpretation is a process of deciphering the work or art using the tools available…understand what it aims to express, not whether it is “GOOD” THE PROCESS OF EVELUATING AN ARTOWRK
This is an important exercise as the process of forming an opinion, extending beyond engagement with art alone.
1. HOLD YOUR INITIAL OPINION (S) You may like or dislike the subject matter, application, composition, colors, theme, etc. – this is fine and understandable and inevitable – but if you wish to evaluate the work, set your emotional responses aside momentarily. This is not to say, “reject your feelings”, but as in every other aspect of our lives, it is helpful to be fully informed before we can truly appreciate.
2. HISTORY To evaluate a particular work of art, or artist(s) for that matter, we need to place the work within its historical context: When was the work produced? And where? Man? Woman? Collaborative? What were/are the historical implications of this particular work? How does it compare to other works produced in that time and place? Do we recognize any specific artistic or cultural influences? Try, as specifically as you can, to understand the work’s historical placement and significance.
3. CRAFT This is not a question of “good or bad”. . Often the naïveté of a work – it’s apparent lack of craft, its relation to the common, facile or “uncultured” – may, in fact, be precisely the intent of the artist. In the cases where this is true, one would have to agree that the work is crafted “well”; to its purpose and intent, that is. We must, if we are to interpret well, trudge through these often unseemly works, recognizing the failed from the successful. The “intention of craft” must be understood to place the work within a context that we can begin to understand and talk, relevantly, about the work. 4. LANGUAGE All Art speaks in a language of signs, symbols and semblances: It looks like something, sounds like something, feels like some thing or references something. Or not! And if not, what is it the absence of? In the case of Abstraction, Art is referencing itself, an extension of our personal self-referencing – “I think; therefore, I am”. It (Art) exists because it exists. This is neither good nor bad in and of itself; first we must attempt to understand what it is asking of us. IF YOU USE THESE FOUR STEPS AND ANSWER QUESTIONS LISTED UNDER EACH, YOU WILL HAVE A COMPREHENSIVE METHOD TO CRITIQUE ANY PIECE OF ART. DESCRIBE: TELL WHAT YOU SEE (THE VISUAL FACTS)
1. What is the name of the artist who created the artwork?
2. What is the name of the artwork?
3. When was the artwork created?
4. Name some other major events in history that occurred at the same time this artwork was created.
5. List the literal objects in the painting (trees, people, animals, mountains, rivers, etc.).
6. What do you notice first when you look at the work(s)? Why?
7. What kinds of colors, shapes, lines, and textures do you see? How would you describe emotions, associations, moods evoked?
8. What is the overall visual effect or mood of the work(s)? ANALYZE Mentally separate the parts or elements, thinking in terms of textures, shapes/forms, light/dark or bright/dull colors, types of lines, and sensory qualities. In this step consider the most significant art principles that were used in the artwork. Describe how the artist used them to organize the elements. Suggested questions to help with analysis:
1. What sort of effect do the colors have on the artwork?
2. How have shapes and lines been used in the work(s)? Has the artist used them as an important or dominant part of the work, or do they play a different roll?
3. How has the artist used light in the work(s)? Is there the illusion of a scene with lights and shadows, or does the artist use light and dark values in a more abstracted way?
4. How has the overall visual effect or mood of the work(s)? Been achieved by the use of elements of art and principles of design.
5. How were the artist’s design tools used to achieve a particular look or focus?
6. Do you think there are things in the artwork that represent other things-symbols?
FORM A JUDGMENT After careful observation, analysis, and interpretation of an artwork, you are ready to make your own judgment. This is your personal evaluation based on the understandings of the work(s). Here are questions you might consider:
1. Why do you think that this work has intrinsic value or worth? What is the value that you find in the work(s)? (For example, it is a beautiful work of art, conveys an important social message, affects the way that I see the world, makes insightful connections, reaffirms a religious belief, etc.)
2. Do you think that the work(s) has a benefit for others? Do you find that the work communicates an idea, feeling or principle that would have value for others?
3. What kind of an effect do you think the work could have for others?
4. Does the work lack value or worth? Why do you think this is so? Could the reason you find the work lacking come from a poor use of the elements of art? Could the subject matter by unappealing, unimaginative, or repulsive?
5. Rather than seeing the work as being very effective or without total value, does the work fall somewhere in-between? Do you think that the work is just O.K.? What do you base this opinion on? The use of elements of art? Lack of personal expression? The work lacks a major focus? Explore your criticism of the work (s) as much as you would any positive perceptions. Realize that your own tastes and prejudices may enter into your criticism. Give your positive and negative perceptions.
SEMIOTIC INTERPRETATIONS: DENOTATIONS AND CONNOTATIONS Complimentary approach to the interpretive formula of Subject Matter+Medium+Form+Contexts=Meaning. Semiotics is an area of study concerned with how the sign means, in any medium, offers an effective means of interpretation.
A sign is an entity that signifies another entity. In semiotics, signs are a combination of signifiers and signified. The words you are reading in this sentence are signifiers, that is, Roman letters that form an English word that mean signify something to you because you read English. The signifieds in this sentence are what the words mean. Sign systems are apparent when we visit a culture with a language foreign to our own; otherwise, in our home cultures, we take signs and their decoding of them to be natural rather than learned. All sign systems however, are learned, and all signs need to be decoded to be understood. Clouds in the sky, for example, signify predictable natural occurrences only to those who understand weather. In the United States we have learned what it meant by a red light, a yellow, and a green light when they are hung over an intersection of streets.
In order to refine our decoding or interpreting visual signs made by people, especially in art. There is a denotative level and a connotative level. Denotations are what we literally see: connotations are the interpretive implications of what we see. To identify denotations is a descriptive process of listing all that we actually see in an artifact; to identify the connotations of what we see is to interpret what lies below the surface. You can use the denotations and connotations to interpret any written text, any object or image, any products made by humans.