Identify the work by artist, title, material and location.

Art

Topic 1 -Public Art in Tucson

Select one work from the Tucson Pima Arts Council website, and look at the choice of Public Works in this Public Arts Map and discuss it in terms of community, culture, and politics. Use the below prompts as a guide for your response.

Identify the work by artist, title, material and location.

What was the purpose of the work and who funded it?

How was the artist selected?

Describe the work’s form and content.

Did the work elicit negative or positive public and/or art expert response? Why?

How do you believe that the community benefits from this particular work of art?

Late posters beware: You must check to see if any classmate has already written about the same public work. If so, you must select another work.

Topic 2 – Syncretism in Art

As stated in the Lecture and Discussion guidelines “Syncretism represents cultural appropriation of symbols from one culture to be used into another culture.” You are asked to find examples of an original symbol from one culture/religion and show its appropriation/use in another culture/religion. For this Discussion you need to be clear and ready to outline the symbolism within the symbol -what it means/meant- and how this symbolism was borrowed/appropriated.

To clarify, syncretism represents cultural appropriation of symbols from one culture to be used into another culture towards using a similar strong symbolism. Syncretism IS NOT about just the borrowing or visual quoting an aspect of architecture or a work of art. Quoting occurs when one artist takes a symbol and includes it in their work: i.e. “if I include a peace sign in one of my paintings”, please keep in mind that one work of art or one building does not necessarily a culture make/nor represent. There are many instances in the history of art, one of them the previously discussed example in Lecture 6 –about early Christian iconography’s appropriation of Pagan symbols, and syncretism is also found present in many cultures, including examples of Buddhism and Hinduism; Christian and religious iconography; the iconography of American Natives and African slaves as they morfed into another obligated religion, as well as many others throughout history. Research for some interesting examples of syncretism in world art history and share your sources. There are many all around you, symbols that come from other cultures and used in ours -the key is to know what the original symbol was.

Again. If you are using an architectural feature originally used in one culture and then borrowed from another. For example: if I look at the dome in Roman architecture and the dome in government buildings in the US, I would only use them if there was any symbolism related to the Roman dome that is integral to the choice of the dome in US governmental buildings and that the symbolism is the actual reason as to why it was picked, make sure that you have information on the symbolism itself. In other words, IT IS NOT just quoting or borrowing features, we are discussing the using/borrowing of SYMBOLS. And again, if the dome is the symbol, you needed to research and reference the parallel of its old symbolic meaning and its new. (this is an example, I am not implying that there IS any symbol in the use of the dome or not.)

For our Discussion you are asked to:

1- Describe the original symbol or work of art and its original culture, describe its cultural reference or how they were used for and their meaning or iconography in their original use.

2- Describe the way in which the work of art/symbol was appropriated, what culture/religion did the appropriation and what parallels were drawn/used symbolically.

3- Make sure to insert at least one .jpg of the work (not a url, actually inserting the image in the Discussion) Please include one image of the original symbol in its original use and one image of the symbol as it is used in the second culture/religion.

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