University of California Irvine Art Culture Dividend Discussion Each task need 250 words. 1 .For this week’s Art Interpretation, please consider images d

University of California Irvine Art Culture Dividend Discussion Each task need 250 words.

1

.For this week’s Art Interpretation, please consider images discussed by Rock Hushka in “Undetectable: The Presence of HIV in Contemporary American Art” or the performance pieces highlighted in either the reading (Links to an external site.) or the lecture about performance art. For Hushka, especially consider either the pieces labeled as (Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.), which are included in the .pdf; or be sure to see the supplement to Hushka, which includes many of the other images mentioned by Hushka during the essay but which appear elsewhere in the original source book.

You need not limit yourself to the images on the weekly art page, if you took the time to google other images associated with those episodes. You may react to one of the prompts below; or, you may react to a post one of your classmates has already written; or, you may post on a topic of your choice as long as you are “reading” the art for this week. (Prompt 1 is the same every week.)

PROMPT 1: Focus your comments on a single work of art that you encountered this week. What aesthetic qualities does the work possess that enable it to capture and hold the viewer’s attention? How does the piece appear to stake out a position in some cultural dispute? What did it make you feel when you looked at it? What did it make you think about when you looked at it?

PROMPT 2: Select one or more of the pieces profiled by Huskha in “Undectable.” (For the ones featured in the .pdf, you may wish to google the name of the piece to see if you can find a full color version of that piece. Don’t forget to peruse the Supplement to Hushka to view some of the other images he discusses.) Explain how the image you selected fits the theme of activism, or chronicles the progress of the disease, or hints at the legacy of the disease.

PROMPT 3: Consider the unique characteristics of performance art as explained in Lecture 11. Select one of the pieces highlighted in the Lecture. (Links to these performances are on the Roadmap.) These pieces were selected specifically because the artist had a political message as well as an aesthetic one. Evaluate how successfully you think the piece combined art and activism. Explain your philosophy for judging art and activism. (For a much wider sampling of performance art pieces, see also The Art Story website (artstory.org)

2.

Directions: For this Forum, you must post an original statement between 150-300 words before Noon on Thursday. You may 1) respond to a prompt made by the professor below, or 2) respond to a post made previously by a classmate, or 3) come up with your own original topic (so long as it deals with one of the readings assigned for this week). Please make clear by title/author/page number, which part of which text you discuss. Responses to these questions don’t have “right” and “wrong,” provided you make a good faith effort to deal with the readings. (These generic instructions will apply every week!) Remember, we looking for reactions here, which means there seldom will be a “right” or a “wrong” answer. Just be thoughtful!

PROMPT ONE: As you interpret Hushka’s discussion, what are the chief characteristics of the art produced before the advent of effective HIV medications? How did the advent of antiretorival therapy in the mid-1990s begin to change the art produced? How did the art change even more recently with the advent of PrEP?

PROMPT TWO: Pick one of the following two passages from Barbara Pollack’s essay about retrospective shows assessing the impact of AIDS on art and explain why it makes sense that the person believes the statement to be true.

a) “’I see AIDS as having produced the first language of global art because it involved artists from all over the planet—Brazil, Japan, Russia, Kenya, Mali, India, South Africa.’” –attributed to curator Dan Cameron.

b) “Now artists and curators are willing to concede that great art did come out of the anger, sorrow, and bafflement in the face of an epidemic….” –Barbara Pollack

PROMPT THREE: What do you make of Trend’s statement that the United States is an “unfinished project”? (299). In answering, consider drawing on material from any week in this course, not merely this week’s or this specific chapter.