Contradiction, form and praxis : anti-cultural and non-cultural influences in visual art practice
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(Published version)
Date
2012
Authors
Hoban, Paul
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Type:
thesis
Citation
Statement of Responsibility
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Abstract
This is a creative research project, the outcome of which will be an exhibition of a body of visual art works with an accompanying exegesis, responding to practical ideas developed through praxis. The exegesis focusses on ideas that are idiosyncratic to my practice as a visual artist, primarily in the area of painting and installation. It centres on two fundamental concerns in my work – the concepts of contradiction and form. My research focus on contradiction locates various attitudes and theories that oppose cultural tendencies that idealise the notion of evolutionary progress in visual art practice and which, in the western paradigm, impose a teleological perspective on that practice. I argue that the contradictory intentions embedded in the cultural artefacts of the makers are often forgotten, absorbed and transformed to become aesthetic affirmations of ideolog(ies).
I propose that factors such as transgression, disaffirmation, practices of negation and contrasting cultural values articulate western art history. I discuss self-conscious predetermination in these terms, making it a locus of critical analysis for contemporary western art production. I examine the history and archaeological prehistory of representation in a search for how contradictions and audacious differences are reconciled. Arguing that cultures in contrast make this history visible, I look at cultural relativism with close attention to Brazil.
In the chapter entitled ‘Praxis’, I demonstrate how these ideas might manifest in practice-led research and how my visual art practice prompts research reflexively. This chapter gives examples of superficial similitude using fundamental forms and demonstrates how they can link two or more cultures and generate ways of going on for visual art practice that are not culturally or ideologically predetermined. I reach the conclusion that practice does not seek conclusion that it is about going on. I draw attention to philosophically important elements of such a practice; the need to illuminate and cast doubt on values of anticipation, expectation, prediction and predetermination and the idea that art is not the exclusive domain of rational consciousness. In casting doubt on the pre-eminence of self-consciousness in art-making, I affirm that art freed from ideology embraces those historically relegated to its margins; intuitives, primitives, isolates and outsiders.
School/Discipline
School of Art, Architecture and Design
Dissertation Note
Thesis (PhDMajorStudioResearchProject)--University of South Australia, 2012.
Provenance
Copyright 2012 Paul Hoban. This work is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Australia 3.0 licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/au/)
Description
vii, 101 pages
Includes bibliographical references (p. 90-99)
Includes bibliographical references (p. 90-99)
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506 0#$fstar $2Unrestricted online access