Senior High School

Contemporary Philippine
Arts from the Regions
Contemporary Art Forms Based on the
Elements and Principles
Quarter 1 - Module 5

Department of Education ● Republic of the Philippines

Lesson

1 Contemporary Art Forms Based on

the Elements and Principles

What I Need to Know

The elements and concepts of art — including line, form, color, and texture
— are historically the conceptual building blocks of art and design used by
Western artists to convey ideas or emotions in art.
Besides learning how to use paint or carve stone, by applying concepts
such as balance, repetition, harmony, and symmetry, artists often learn how to
work with those elements.
Just as we need to know how to read the words to understand a novel, so
we also have to learn the language of art to understand a painting or a sculpture.
Art audiences need to grasp the vocabulary of certain elements and
concepts in order to fully appreciate what artists are making. Before the
industrial period (approximately before the mid-19th century) in Europe and the
United States, artists used the elements of art to make their paintings and
sculptures more realistic and express their ideas about their subjects — usually
figures, still life, or landscapes. Generally speaking, they worked to create
compositions which had unity, balance and harmony.
From the 1850s well into the 20th century, modern artists began to use
these artistic elements to create more abstract art. Eventually, many used
elements such as color, line, or shape alone to express feelings, emotions, or
concepts and ideas directly separated from any other subject matter. (Clyfford
Still untitled (1950-C)
At the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries, art historians
and critics noticed a difference in ways that artists worked and the ideas that
interested them. They began to describe this era as postmodern, literally “after
modern.” Postmodernism has been used to categorize widely diverse styles and
concerns about making art. What unifies postmodern art, if anything, is a
reaction to modernism—at times destroying or debunking traditionally held rules
or canons of modern art; at other times copying masterworks of the past in new
ways. Generally, meaning in art became more ambiguous and contradictory.
The traditional elements and principles of art, and their use in the art of the
past, often
seem beside the point or purposefully set aside in the work of postmodern artists.
For much contemporary art or art being made today, the content or meaning is
more important than the materials or forms used to make it. Until very recently,
artists were making art that would engage viewers visually through
subject matter and the composition of elements and principles. Contemporary
artists seem to be more interested in engaging viewers conceptually through
ideas and issues. The elements of art, while still present at times, are often not
adequate to understanding the meaning of contemporary art. (Sigmar Polke,
1991. Frau Herbst und ihre zwei Töchter (Mrs. Autumn and Her Two Daughters)
(Crafted: http://schools.walkerart.org/arttoday/index.wac?id=2362)

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 What’s New

Activity 1: List the opposite words

List some words that are the opposites of the following: Then give the
meaning of these words. Write your answer in a sheet of paper.
a. appropriation
b. performance
c. space
d. hybridity
e. technology

What Is It

What is contemporary art? What are the elements and principles of

contemporary art? How do artistic elements and principles contribute to creating
meaning in art?
How can comprehension of elements and concepts enable us today to understand art?
Contemporary art is an art produced by the artist today. It is not restricted
to individual experience, but it is reflective of the world we live in. The artwork
that is created by today’s contemporary artist has a world view and sensitive to
changing times
Contemporary artists frequently go beyond these elements and values in
their work, using new ideas and techniques, in their attempts to establish
meaning in today's world. The elements and concepts for art are kind of a script.
As writers, artists use phrases, pick, organize and combine lines, forms, colors
and textures in several ways to express themselves and build meaning. Below
are the elements and principles used by the contemporary artists.

Elements and Principles of Contemporary Arts

We live in a community where pictures and objects overflow. From

television to the Internet, from the supermarket to the junkyard, we're
surrounded by cheap, or free, and throwaway words, pictures, and objects. This
is not shocking that today's artists integrate this content into their artistic
expression. In this, the first element and principle of contemporary arts born…
Appropriation. It is the process of making new content by taking from
another source pre-existing image — books on art history, ads, the media — and
incorporating or combining it with new ones. Appropriation is a three-dimensional
variant of using found objects in painting. To appropriate is to borrow. A found
object is an actual object— often a manufactured product of a commonplace
nature — given a new identity as an artwork or part of an art piece.
Some common sources of stolen images are artworks from the distant or
recent past, historical records, media (film and television), or popular culture
(advertisements or products). The source is sometimes unknown, but the artist
may have personal associations. The source of the appropriate image or object
may be politically charged, symbolic, ambiguous, or may push the limits of the
imagery considered to be acceptable to art.
Appropriate imagery can be photographically or carefully imitated,
reproduced by mechanical infers such as an overhead projector, joined of the
time re- create an address or repaint it, changing its scale or design to make
unused meaning. Experts can as well compare differing pictures or objects, layer
them with other pictures, break them into parts, or contextualize them, with
recommends to reconsider pictures or objects by a setting them in a cutting-edge
setting.

Appropriation refers to the act of borrowing or reusing existing components

inside a modern work. Postmodern apportionment craftsmen, counting Barbara
Kruger, are sharp to deny the idea of creativity. They accept that in borrowing
existing symbolism or components of
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symbolism, they are re- contextualizing or appropriating the first symbolism,
permitting the audience to renegotiate the meaning of the initial in distinctive,
more important, or more current.
Images and elements of culture that have been appropriated commonly
involve famous and recognizable works of art, well known literature, and easily
accessible images from the media. The first artist to successfully demonstrate
forms of appropriation within his or her work is widely considered to be Marcel
Duchamp. He devised the concept of the ‘readymade’, which essentially involved
an item being chosen by the artist, signed by the artist and repositioned into a
gallery context. By asking the viewer to consider the object as art, Duchamp was

appropriating it. For Duchamp, the work of the artist was in selecting the object.
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Whilst the beginnings of appropriation can be located to the beginning of the
20th century through the innovations of Duchamp, it is often said that if the art
of the 1980’s could be epitomized by any one technique or practice, it would be
appropriation. (crafted:http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1661/appropriation-in-
contemporary-art)

The modern shape of contemporary art – which risen out of Happenings

and Conceptual art ended up a major frame of avantgarde art amid the late
1960’s and 1970’s – takes as its medium the artist himself: the real work of art
being the artist’s live actions. Presently prevalent with an expanding number of
postmodernist specialists.

PERFORMANCE ART is another element of contemporary art which

regularly increases drama, often acting and development to extremes of
expression and continuity that are not allowed within the theater. It interprets
various human activities such as ordinary activities such as chores, routines, and
rituals, to socially relevant themes such as poverty, commercialism, and war.

Execution events are hosted in several of the most outstanding exhibitions of

modern craftsmanship in the world, as well as conventional ones. Words are
rarely noticeable, while music and commotions of different kinds are regular. A
number of the most outstanding exhibitions of modern craftsmanship in the
world, as well as conventional centers such as the Metropolitan Exhibition Hall of
Art, are being held for performances. Serbian Marina Abramovic (b. 194) is one of
the most popular examples of modern execution craftsmanship.

Although this brand of postmodernist art is not easy to define precisely, one
important feature is the need for an artist to perform or express his 'art' in front
of a live audience. For example, allowing the audience to view an interesting
assemblage or installation would not be considered Performance Art, but it would
be to watch the artist construct the assemblage or installation.
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 Performance art refers to art activities that are presented to a live audience
and can combine music, dance, poetry, theater, visual art and video. Whether
public, private or videotaped, performance art often involves an artist performing
an action that can be planned and scripted, or can emphasize spontaneous,
unpredictable elements of chance. Various types of performance art have
evolved from simple, often private investigations of everyday routines, rituals,
and endurance tests, to larger-scale site-specific environments and public
projects, multimedia productions, and autobiographical cabaret-style solo work.

Below are example of performative art emphasizing the different

characteristics of performance art such as spontaneous and one-off, or rehearsed
and series based. It may consist of a small-scale event, or a massive public
spectacle. It can take place almost anywhere and deliberately thin.

https://www.google.com.ph/search?q=performance+art&sxsrf=ALeKk03wEodbnX5HpNCxjg1iE5wmAlEscg:1593400083395&sourc
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2g7rV21M

The immediate stimulus for Performance art was the series of theatrical
Happenings staged by Allan Kaprow and others in New York in the late 1950s.
Then in 1961, Yves Klein (1928-62) presented three nude models covered in his
trademark blue paint, who rolled around on sheets of white paper. He was also
famous for his "jumps into the void". For more details, see Yves Klein's
Postmodernist art (1956-62). In the early 1960s several other American
conceptual artists such as Robert Morris (b.1931) Bruce Nauman (b.1941) and
Dennis Oppenheim began to include "Performance" in their repertoires.

Many contemporary artists deal with space by concentrating on real space— the
dimensions of a house, the spaces that we travel through in the city or in the
natural world, the boundless spaces of the sky or the virtual space of the
Internet. We work with fine-art or industrial materials— from wood and stone to
steel and plastic— to frame space or to create space- filling work. Materials such
as electrical lighting, film, video, or digital media can also transform, document,
or create space. Viewers may be surrounded by art, or they can contribute to a
concentrated experience or a perception of a real space. When an artist creates a
piece of work for a room or a specific space, it is called installation art. Most
installations are temporary and often require multiple senses, such as sight,
sound and smell.
4
 SPACE is an art transforming space, for example the flash mobs, and art
installations in malls and parks. It also refers
to the distances or areas
surrounding, within, and
within the components of
an item. Space can be
either positive or negative,
open or closed, shallow or
deep, and two-or three-
dimensional. Often space is
not clearly shown in a
piece, but it is an illusion. It
is considered as the breath
of art. Space is found in
almost every piece of art
that has been made.

https://bit.ly/3dBzc2Y

Photographers capture space, sculptors depend on space and shape, and

architects create space. This is a central aspect of every of the visual arts.
Space provides the audience a guide for the presentation of an artwork. For
example, you can draw a larger object than another to suggest that it is closer
to the viewer. Likewise, a piece of environmental art can be installed in a way
that leads the viewer through space.

Negative and Positive Space

Art historians use the term positive

space to refer to the subject of the piece itself
—the flower vase in a painting or the
structure of a sculpture. NEGATIVE SPACE
refers to the empty spaces the artist has
created around, between, and within the
subjects.

Quite often, we think of positive as being light

and negative as being dark. This does not
necessarily apply to every piece of art. For
example, you might paint a black cup on a
white canvas. We wouldn't necessarily call
the cup negative because (https://bit.ly/3iaTFyV) it
is the subject: The black value is negative,
but the space of the cup is positive. In three-
dimensional art, the negative spaces are
typically, the open or relatively empty parts of the piece. For example, a metal
sculpture may have a hole in the middle, which we would call the negative space.
In two-dimensional art, negative space can have a great impact .
(https://www.thoughtco.com/definition-of-space-in-art-182464)

Below is an example of item specific art form that is performed and positioned
in a specific space such as public places.
5
 https://bit.ly/3gbzzTF
As what you have learned above contemporary artists used various mediums and
techniques, applied different elements and principles in their artworks such as
space, appropriation, and performance. But since we are immersed in a
hybridized environment of reality and augmented reality daily. For artists today,
the choice of materials and media for creating art is wide open. Some artists
continue to use traditional media such as paint, clay, or bronze, but others have
selected new or unusual materials for their arts, such as industrial or recycled
materials, and newer technologies such as photography, video, or digital media
offer artists even more ways to express themselves.

Many artists working today

incorporates more than
material or technique in ways
that create hybrid art forms.
Combinations of still image,
moving image, sound, digital
media, and found objects can
create new hybrid art forms
that are beyond what
traditional artists have ever
imagined. HYBRIDITY is
another element and principle
used by contemporary artist in
their artworks. It is a usage of
unconventional materials,
mixing of unlikely materials to
produce and artwork. For
example, coffee for painting,
miniature sculptures from
pencils.
The concept of hybridity
when applied to culture
conveys elements of all of
these definitions, including
positive elements such as
diversity, and cooperation, as
well as negative elements
such as unviable offspring and
unnatural monsters. In this
way the term
hybridity contains conflicting connotations.( https://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/15085/1/
hybridity-in- new-art) . Hybridity, at the most basic level, implies the mixing of two or
more elements to create a third. Beyond this there is some discussion as to what
cultural hybridity means. How could this idea transfer when we use the term hybridity to
describe contemporary art? What do artists use to make art? This hybridity in art
practice is about transcendence, beyond the visual logic of the digital or material.
In the fluid transaction between states of existence, algorithm and human error,
and different forms of media, something metaphysical starts to surface in the
space between. The concept of hybridity can be applied to two aspects of art
today.
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 1. Artists today are comfortable using whatever seems best to fully investigate
and express their ideas or concepts and often move among different media and
techniques to express new things in their work.
2. One approach to understanding art today involves identifying what media and
materials the artists chose and considering why they chose to work with them.

Look at the example below of how contemporary artists apply hybridity in their
craftsmanship.

The first picture shows a product of

mixed media and hybridity obra
maestro by Renee Isaac.
The second picture shows the
creativity of the artists using coffee for
his painting.
https://bit.ly/2AclzJO

https://bit.ly/2NEikxY
What have you observed in their art works? What are the materials they used to
come up with this craftsmanship? How does a technique or medium limit or
expand meaning in art? How do artists make choices about materials and
techniques for their art? Well, whatever the decisions of the artists make
concerning media and materials are often affected by ideas they want to express
about their experiences living
today. Furthermore, humans have created art through the
ages, but various cultures have defined it differently. Throughout the history of
Western culture, the nature of art has been debated, leading to the formation of
an entire branch of philosophical study called aesthetics.
Today, most experts agree that there is not only one definition of art, but that it
encompasses a variety of ideas, approaches, and qualities.
So, in this age of transition in which material and digital experience are in
an unprecedented state of coexistence, our understanding of the physical is
being endlessly reshaped by advancements in technology. Consequently, the
very meaning of physicality and its apparent importance to us has become
subject to questioning.
Since the 1960’s the term new media art was coined and it was used to describe
practices
that apply computer technology as an essential part of the creative process and
production.
Placing the term under a vast umbrella known as new media, computer
production, video art, computer-based installations, and later the Internet and
Post Internet art and exploration of the virtual reality became recognized as
artistic practices. The term, in the contemporary practice, refers to the use of
mass production and the manipulation of the virtual world, its tools

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and programs as what we called TECHNOLOGY ART. The use of technology in
the creation and dissemination of art works.
As such, designers, and artists to produce commercial pieces or for more
elaborate and conceptual works implement many different computer programs,
such as 3D modeling, Illustrator, or Photoshop. (source:
https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/the-serious- relationship-of-art-and-
technology)

https://www.google.com.ph/search?
q=technology+artwork+and+artist&hl=en&sxsrf=ALeKk02U8US6I4pOrYwAyc_sv1z13F3gw:
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