Deriving Meaning

Criticism and Analysis

Form & Content

• Form= visual, art elements, principles of art• Content= interpretation of themes, messages

• Subject Matter• Context• Subtext

• Janine AntoniGnaw, 1992six hundred pounds of chocolate before bitingsix hundred pounds of lard before biting

Consider the possible subtext and context of Antoni’s art.

Iconography

• Visual METAPHOR-image or element that is descriptive of something else.

• SYMBOL-image or element that stands for or represents some other entity or concept.

• ICONOGRAPHY-system of symbols that allows artists to refer to complex ideas.

Process

• Is there any METAPHOR, SYMBOL or ICONOGRAPHY present in Gnaw?

Writings about Art

• Art critics, art historians, museum curators• Writing helps develop ideas about art.• Content is not fixed, rather is reevaluated over

time.• Contradictory and opposing viewpoints over one

artwork.

Modernist Criticisms

• Formalist• Idealogical• Psychoanalytic• Structuralism

Postmodern Philosophical Positions

• Post-structuralism• Deconstruction• Feminist

Cindy Sherman

Guerilla Girls

Personal Interpretation• “based on your own ideas, personal

tastes, experiences, and history…emotional response…”, p.102 Meaning often shifts…