ARTH3101 - CRITICAL ISSUES (Fall 24)

  Shortened Trend Cycles: Their Effects on Art & Fashion Sarah Quanci As we move deeper into the 21st century, we can view a rapid acceleration of trend cycles within fashion and art. As social media's impact grows, it continues to shrink this cycle, nearly eliminating the “20-year” rule. Fast fashion and the mass waste created only become greater as trends speed up. The rapid cycling in the fashion industry has negatively affected artists and led to a growth in AI art. Shortened trend cycles negatively affect us as artists, humans, and the environment we live in. Social media, and the rise of the internet as a whole, have expedited trend cycles and fashion’s lifespan. “Since the pandemic, microtrends have organically popped up on TikTok, with users describing grouped looks or aesthetics” 1 . For my first article, Trends Used to Come Back Round Every 20 Years. Not Anymore. , it explores the rise of social media within the 2020s, and how that rapidly changed pop culture. Mic...

The Art Market and Taxes 1 Within the art market, there are multiple kinds of tax considerations, including sales tax, capital gains tax, and estate tax. Each of these have implications on the art market and its participants. As the art market grows and expands, understanding how these taxes will affect artists, collectors, galleries, and investors is increasingly important. The goal of this blog post is to be able to understand the different types of taxes in the art market and the implications they have. During a normal art transaction, sales tax needs to be considered. When an artwork is sold, the seller is often required to collect sales tax from the buyer, which can vary significantly depending on the jurisdiction. In the United States, sales tax can vary depending on the state (Erskine). In Ohio specifically, sales tax is 5.5% (Erskine). In some cases, sales tax is not collected during a transaction. Sales tax might not be included if the art is seen as a cultural asset tha...

For our Kanopy film pick, we decided to watch Art With A Message: Protest And Propaganda, Satire and Social Comment. In the film, which was two parts together, the narrator discusses how art was and is still used as a tool to sway public opinions. From using it to promote war, to protest groups using it to fight back against government regimes, art has been used in this manner since the early times in history. This included posters promoting heroism in war and building fear of the opposing side, as well as satire pieces making fun of these leaders and those who tried to quell the voice of artists. Of course, the people in power used this strategy as well, hiring artists to combat the negativity that clouded their images, one of these evasive maneuvers being the creation of beautiful portraits of themselves, like Napoleon commissioned. The video detailed examples from as early as medieval times, to as late as the Civil Rights Movement, by showcasing scenes of war, use of satire, and ...

Camilo Velasco-Overson Crit. Issues Joanne Kesten 11/20/2024 Drag as Art and Activism: Every Drag Performer is an Organizer Drag exists at the crossroads of visual art, performance art, and vibrant queer expression. Full of humor, campiness, and often accompanied by sharp political analysis, drag is a crucial artform across the country and world. At its core, drag is an act of resistance through art. It was created by and for queer people. The article I am discussing sums it up nicely in its title: ‘Every Drag Performer is an Organizer”. Though modern-day drag is synonymous with queerness, cross-dressing has existed for centuries as a form of entertainment. Many classic movies show men in drag, though generally as the butt of a joke. Historical theater and opera – specifically Japanese theater called Kabuki – forbade women from performing, and therefore had men play female roles. (“Kabuki Theatre | Silk Roads Programme”). Conservatism and homophobia has long gripped the United States...

Picture of Rosaleen Norton sitting at her alter to the Greek gad Pan, holding her cat.  (Picture found on Johnson's article)   Rosaleen Norton was a female artist in Sydney, Australia creating her works between the 1940’s to the 70’s. Norton is known for her strong and independent personality that came through in her art making. She practiced self exploration through trance and sex magic to raise her consciousness, where she then incorporated the images she saw into her artworks (The Witch of King’s Cross). In these works Norton depicted the spiritual beings she would encounter in these heightened states such as Lilith, Lucifer, and Pan.                 Though Norton faced backlash from media and police intervention, she saw her goal in life as being a catalyst. When the media began labeling her as a witch,  she in return embraced that title by stylizing her physical appearance through clothes and makeup to fit the iconi...

click here for PDF version Ai-Da Robot and the Future of AI “Artists” In February 2019, “the world’s first ultra-realistic artist robot”, named Ai-Da, was created by Aidan Meller. She partially resembles a real person, including realistic skin, hair, and clothes, but her limbs are purely mechanical. The website about her, aidarobot.com, states that she is “a machine with a fusion of electronic/AI/human inputs” that uses cameras in her moving eyes, algorithms, and her robotic arm to draw and paint. Moving independently, Ai-Da creates compelling works of art, one of which was recently sold at auction for $1 million. Although she represents a feat of technology, the implications and future possibilities of AI art since Ai-Da’s debut provoke mixed feelings and an air of uncertainty especially for human artists. Are machines like Ai-Da more ethical than AI image generator programs? It is unclear what data exactly is used to program Ai-Da’s algorithms, but most generators like Stable Diff...