Writing Homework Help

Theme Comparison

Throughout this semester, the coursework has been organized and studied through the framework of Themes. Studying artwork by themes allows us to see the connections of many cultures throughout time. Remember, a “Theme” is the subject of the art. There were ten theme groups covered in your textbook, including: “food and shelter,” “reproduction and sexuality,” “deities and places of worship,” “mortality and immortality,” “power and politics,” “social protest and affirmation,” “the mind and body,” “race, gender, clan, and class,” “nature and technology,” and “entertainment and visual culture.”

1. Choose TWO different themes that you have previously studied, and compare them- make sure to provide some connections between them, if applicable. Find and provide visual examples, of each theme, based on the knowledge you have gained throughout the semester.
2. As usual, provide at least one image PER theme!

HERE IS AN EXAMPLE OF INTERPRETING THE “THEMES” OF ART FOR JUST ONE IMAGE:

As you may have already noticed, sometimes artworks can relate to more than one theme group at the same time and that’s OK. For example, an artwork can be political and refer to visual culture simultaneously. The following is an example [you can’t use this one:)] :

Artist: Theirry Guetta (AKA Mr. Brainwash)

Title: “Banksy-Thrower”

Medium: Mixed Media

Date: 2014

In this colorful explosion of American pop-culture, the artist launches a multilayered assault at his detractors. This artwork uses both the themes of visual culture and entertainment and social protest to “call-out” another artist, Banksy (whom Mr. Brainwash has appropriated the central image of the protester from), and to literally throw the book (“Art for Dummies”) at you, the consumer of visual media.

The British artist Banksy made an academy-award-nominated documentary about Theirry Guetta, called “Exit Through the Gift Shop” in 2010, which called into question Guetta’s authenticity and legitimacy as an artist. Arranged on a backdrop of “pop” culture imagery that includes Mickey Mouse overlaid with the word “fragile,” Guetta lays out his own critique. This response, by Guetta, was aimed clearly at Banksy (and his other critics within the graffiti community) on one level, but it also calls attention to the “fragility” of the self-obsessed contemporary art world, which acts like an exclusive club. Here the artist is comparing membership in the “legitimate art crowd” to the cultish empire of Disney, who threatens legal action against any entity that uses the famous Mickey Mouse image without express permission. At the bottom, in the lower left, Tony the Tiger, of Frosted Flakes fame, cheers the protestor on. Both the contemporary art market and Disney are multi-billion dollar industries that sometimes wield power like a club, lavishing attention on their members and squashing those on the outside deemed unworthy. This artwork challenges us to consider who and what constitute the criteria for acceptable “fine art” in contemporary culture.

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