Global Contemporary I Vocabulary

Deconstruction

an analytical strategy developed in the late 20th century according to which all cultural "constructs" (art, architecture, literature) are "texts." People can read these texts in a variety of ways, but they cannot arrive at fixed or uniform meanings. Any interpretation can be valid, and readings differ from time to time, place to place, and person to person. For those employing this approach, _______ means destabilizing established meanings and interpretations while encouraging subjectivity and individual differences.

Happenings

a term coined by American artist Allan Kaprow in the 1960s to describe loosely structured performances whose creators were trying to suggest the aesthetic and dynamic qualities of everyday life; as actions, rather than objects, ___________ incorporate the fourth dimension (time).

Installation

An artwork that creates an artistic environment in a room or gallery.

Performance Art

an American avant-garde art trend of the 1960s that made time an integral element of art. It produced works in which movements, gestures, and sounds of persons communicating with an audience replace physical objects. Documentary photographs are generally the only evidence remaining after these events.

Postmodernism

a reaction against modernist formalism, seen as elitist. Far more encompassing and accepting than the more rigid confines of modernist practice, ________ offers something for everyone by accommodating a wide range of styles, subjects, and formats, from traditional easel painting to installation and from abstraction to illusionistic scenes. this art often includes irony or reveals a self-conscious awareness on the part of the artist of the processes of art making or the workings of the art world.