Academic literature on the topic 'Ephemeral art'

Ephemeral art is usually understood as reflecting a desire to dematerialize the art object in order to evade the demands of the market, or to democratize or challenge art museums. However, in many ephemeral artworks something much more fundamental is involved. In this thesis I explore the hypothesis that the use of ephemerality by some artists is best understood, not solely in terms of art world issues but of the relationship between ephemerality, mourning and loss. I will begin with a refinement of the definition of ephemeral art, which is often confused with temporary works. This definition identifies four characteristics of ephemeral art: time, communicative act, inherent vice and directive intent. Ephemeral art often involves works that do not exist in a steady state, but change or decay slowly. This temporal aspect is examined through a discussion of the boredom they consciously evoke, which can be seen not only as an acute awareness of time but also a form of mouming for lost desire. The different physical state of ephemeral works represents a shift from the art object to communicative act. This shift is exemplified by artists working in the 1960s, particularly those influenced by John Cage. Cage's engagement with Buddhism and the subsequent work he produced demonstrates that the appreciation of transience is a reflection of wider cultural values. The growing interest in Buddhist philosophy and the engagement with transience at that period are discussed, not as cause and effect, but as both stemming from the same desire to find alternative forms of meaning and expression at a time when traditional structures of meaning were in decline. The use of non-traditional, non-durable materials and the incorporation of chance and ephemerality mean that the resulting worlds possess an 'inherent vice' which results in the demise or disappearance of the work. This is a key feature of ephemeral art, which distinguishes it from temporary works. The latter are designed to function for a fixed period, after which they are discarded or destroyed. The conclusions drawn have implications that reach beyond artworld concerns with durable or at least preservable commodities. These works offer insights into the mourning process which are powerful and profound reflections on the human condition. These works can act as a means of engaging with bereavement, disenfranchised grief and ambiguous loss. In a world where many societies may be deemed post-religious traditional myths and rituals that once served to alleviate fear or mortality and the pain of bereavement are no longer viable or effective, this is of immense significance.

This research is based on reflexive practice as a subject librarian for visual art, concerned with representation (of artists) and context (of art practice and its representation) in the academic library, as a heterotopia. My thesis is that the aim to create an ‘alternative’ art space remained operative in London between 1995 and 2005, although the term was decried. The research addresses the problem of documentation of transient contemporary art practices, by collecting and analysing ephemera and developing a resource based upon them. Art ephemera are by-products of institutions, galleries, exhibitions, and curatorialactivities that may be significant in terms of criticality but which are often not recorded adequately and remain un-archived. The strategies of representation that ephemera mobilise take place at an interface of art aims and social structures, an area that has been a vital site of contemporary practice. I review major issues in contemporary criticism of the ‘avant-garde’ and ‘alternative’,showing the discourse of the alternative to be an ethical discourse about practice. Identifying citation as means of interpretation, I draw my account from a reading ofephemera in the chapters: “Citation, marginalia, mockery, fakes and tailpieces” where I identify visual and textual qualities of ephemera, “Artists, spaces and institutions,”where I present the themes of mapping London and self-institutionalisation, and “Counter to ?” where I report a distancing from counter-cultural aims and development of complex alternatives. I evaluate existing collections of art ephemera in libraries, projects to facilitate access to them, and cataloguing and collecting policies. I advocate use of catalogues to recontextualise ephemera. In conclusion, I present a complex notion of ‘alternative space’ in art practice as a space for dialogue with, rather than opposition to established institutions and circuits of contemporary art and I endorse collection of ephemera as a source for diverse histories.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2009.<br>Title from electronic title page (viewed Jun. 26, 2009). "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Art Art History." Discipline: Art; Department/School: Art.

Touching impermanence describes the experiential moment in an art encounter when one senses the enchanted reality of one’s interconnections within the sentient matterflow of existence. All matter in existence is constantly vibrating, changing, assembling and evolving into forms and organisms, cycling through decay and disintegration, then reforming again with diversity and difference; this is the impermanence of sentient matter-flow. Humans are just one form of these reciprocal assemblages; we are within and part of sentient matter-flow. We also co-create with sentient matter-flow, changing these cycles on micro and macro levels, just as they change us. On a macro level human actions have impacted and changed the Earth’s biosphere, altering and polluting sentient matter-flows to the extent that our present time period is becoming known as the Anthropocene, the human age of destruction and disconnection. There are many efforts to readdress our anthropocentric feelings of apathetic disconnection from the Earth; one is found in the arts and correlates with my practice-led research. This doctoral study of sensate experiences of materiality and haptic thinking, which provide both maker and audience with direct palpable experience of time, forms a specific understanding of touching impermanence. My art processes involve working with tactile materials such as beeswax; tree branches, stumps and bark; paper; ash; rocks; ice; snow; charcoal; light and fungi. Engaging with these materials cocreatively involves a methodology of touch, multisensorily following materialities’ sentient matter-flow. Acting with the material, I am present to the material’s own sense of time, interactions, agency, histories, layers of interbeing and interconnections with surrounding matter. This requires being open to the mysteriousness of materials, inviting moments of enchantment within art encounters and the realisation of touching impermanence. This thesis investigates my studio practice and works produced, alongside related practices of Australian and international artists, by drawing on the intersections between New Materialism discourses and Buddhist philosophy to address aspects of phenomenology and eco-philosophy in the complexities of these art practices and artwork encounters.

Expressing grief and engaging in mourning are vital healing processes for those who have experienced loss, trauma or violence. Regardless of whether in the distant past or as an ongoing condition, evidence suggests that the mourning process and the partaking of commemorative rituals are essential to the psychological and emotional wellbeing of the individual. This thesis considers artistic alternatives to the role that monuments and memorials have traditionally played in assisting this process. A range of theorists and philosophers including those in the fields of art criticism, history, and trauma studies are referred to in ascertaining not only how monuments and memorials work, but the role that contemporary art can play in imparting meaningful remembrance and solace. This project tests the proposition that contemporary art, through both public and personal expression, can offer an open- ended re-evaluation of the past, instead of the static nature of traditional commemoration. I contend that this can be realised in the form of actions and ephemeral, temporary and materially challenging artistic means in engaging the viewer empathically. I will advance arguments to challenge fixing memory in place and time while also arguing for the place of smaller, more personal expressions of remembrance. My studio practice incorporates pertinent psychological aspects such as postmemory and trauma-induced forgetting in the form of absence, and considers the work of key artists. This studio work investigates materiality – as both traditionally employed in memorial culture, such as metal and stone - and other forms including textiles and more fugitive examples such as hair and the use of fire. The relevance of time, memory and ritual are also evident in this work as well as in the thesis. Although informed by personal, familial experience – often conveyed through my use of family possessions - my works appeal to broader aspects of memorial culture, engaging in customs and rituals and universal themes of loss and grief.

The dissertation focuses on the magazines published by biennial exhibitions, herein called exhibition magazines. Departing from the analysis of the periodic relationship between magazines and biennials, I look at the two formats in tandem, as temporal constructions— whose existence extends between the past and the future, whilst existing in the present—in a continuous tension between becoming (ephemerality) and unbecoming (institutionalisation), which is, I argue, the very feature that allows them to engage with contemporary art and contemporaneity’s own becoming. Representing the dual drive between becoming and unbecoming, the exhibition magazine serves to disseminate the biennial through space and time, acting not only as a promotional tool, but as a vehicle through which the exhibition’s temporality is narrowed and transformed to engage with contemporaneity and audience. I depart from an historical-chronological perspective to consider the first three exhibition magazines: la biennale published by the Venice Biennale between 1950 and 1971, the documenta journals which have been revived with different formats at every new iteration of the show since 1997, and the Manifesta Journal published by Manifesta between 2003 and 2014. Building on the case studies, alongside a practice-based approach comprising of the development of an art periodical database and the launch of a journal devoted to the study of art’s ostensivity and exhibitions, titled OBOE (On Biennals and Other Exhibitions), I have been able to demonstrate the intricate—at times submissive, at others mutinous—relationship between magazines and biennials and how they both come to define contemporary art and engage with contemporaneity’s demands. Indeed, I argue that while these magazines are a niche within the niche of art periodical studies, they have become exemplary in representing the relation of mutual servitude between magazines and the art system at large.

I have gained control over a whole space through the use of video projections, soundscaping and various other materials including some interactive media, enabling me to give the audience a fuller sensual experience. Multi‐media has made it possible for artists such as myself to create artworks that require more than a visual conversation with the viewer. The manipulation of memory by time became a physical manifestation in the environments that I create with the use of multi‐media installations.