Art Through The Years

Art Through The Years

Artworks tell a lot about our history. These pieces often tell stories and trends of a certain period in time. You can also tell what technology is available in those times based on the materials used. Primitive men used sharp rocks to carve out figures on the walls of prehistoric caves. As the years go by and man evolves to become more superior in intellect, the tools they use to express their artistic side also improved.

If you look at popular and well-preserved artworks in most museums today, you can learn a lot not only about the artist but about that period in history. The art also connected people regardless of race, religion or personal differences. Appreciation for the arts is universal. So, find out now how the arts shaped and connected the world through the years.

The Malta Stock Exchange is sponsoring an art exhibition, curated by artist Adrian Scicluna, within the Exchange building at the Garrison Chapel at Castille Place in Valletta.

The exhibition investigates notions of connectivity, with participating artists presenting works that explore the theme not merely from an interest in instruments and infrastructures, but by acknowledging the phenomena of what connectivity says about us.

The exhibition features works by artists, Matthew Attard, Noel Attard, Vince Briffa, Clint Calleja, Glen Calleja and Sandro Spina, Giola Cassar, Valerio Schembri, Adrian Sciculna, Sarah Maria Scicluna and Darren Tanti.

“Clint and Valerio link religion with mo­dern communication technology. Through the use of metaphor Valerio investigates inclusion and exclusion in society; while Clint references the Tower of Babel from the Bible, sending a cautious message that we must be wary of today’s communication technology,” Scicluna explains.

He continues how Darren Tanti’s painting connects two realities, exploring how Eastern and Western contemporary and historical culture influence each other and subsequently merge.

(Via: http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20170402/arts-entertainment/connectivity-through-art.644236)

We learn a lot about our past by looking at old artworks and it gives us a glimpse of what the future also holds for us.

The world is built on binaries: good and evil, war and peace and life and death. The work of Sherin Guirguis, an artist, associate professor and vice dean of faculty at the Roski School of Art and Design, challenges notions of the informal and formal, the structured and chaotic, the arts and the politics.

Even one artist can make a big impact in this world.

Her work focuses on connecting opposites together, both in art and in life.

Her most recent work “One I Call,” which is currently on display at the Desert X exhibit in Palm Springs, is an interactive complex based on the pigeon towers of Egyptian villages. Often used to serve as beacons of the outskirts of civilizations or the ancient mail systems of rural communities, these pigeon towers were central places for communities. “One I Call” aims to do the same by incorporating the natural landscape of the Whitewater Reserve of the Coachella Valley into a beautiful complex with which visitors can interact.

The final piece is a
beehive-esque tower, in which gold leaf circles and sticks align in geometric patterns that collect sunlight in a dazzling way. The landscape of the exhibit — tall mountains where sheep graze, and birds burrow in the boulders — complements the small tower nested in a beautiful desert. When visitors come, they truly are able to interact and experience the history behind the pigeon tower, the
Coachella Valley and the civilizations before it.

“We came to a place, we made a work about that place and then we had people from that place engaged,” Guirguis said. “That felt good.”

(Via: http://dailytrojan.com/2017/03/08/roski-professor-speaks-power-art/)

If you go to the Horror section of your local bookstore today, you won’t find books by Stephen King, Mary Shelley or HP Lovecraft; instead, you’ll find a stack of newspapers from the past couple of years.

Okay, that’s not quite true—let’s just call it an alternative fact—but it may as well be. Because with Trump, Brexit, the refugee crisis, and the rising tides of rightwing populism, nationalism, racism, sexism, homophobia and xenophobia, the real world has become so nightmarish that no amount of snarky online commentary can make a difference. Even this article.

But there may be something that can: art.

We’ve seen millions of protesters standing up for what they believe in, fighting back against the seemingly inevitable fascism and fake tan-tinged future, and now artists are bringing their progressive messages to as wide an audience as they possibly can.

As Paul Gauguin said at the turn of the last century, “Art is either a plagiarist or a revolutionary.” Leo Tolstoy called art “a method of communication between humans about the conditions of life itself.” And as Sam Lewis-Hargreave recently put it, “Don’t worry, I’ll stop quoting old artists and get to the point.”

Historically, art has been about resistance. It’s a tradition that goes further back than Picasso, but let’s start with him anyway. Described with uncertainty on the artist’s own website as “probably Picasso’s most famous work,” the 1937 painting Guernica used Cubism in a way that finally made sense: to portray the tragic, distorting, and downright confusing nature of the suffering of war.

(Via: http://www.thelondoneconomic.com/entertainment/arts/art-last-hope-liberal-future/23/03/)

History teaches us that art played a big role on how we shaped our society today. Artworks have been instrumental in pushing for reforms and changes that were desperately needed by the people of yesteryears. Until now, artists hide messages in their art pieces that let the public know about their stand on certain issues that plague the world today. And it is inspiring to realize that these beautiful and timeless pieces serve a dual purpose that not only pleases the eye but also works for the common good.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *