Narratives in Contemporary Art

Description

The five essays selected for this book offer different approaches to the problem of narratives of contemporary art, based on observation of the central significance of contextual and situational realities and anthropological concreteness of micro-constellations. The singularity of each concrete situation, the authenticity of the specific, contextual meanings intensify the empathic perception of intimacy, fragility, micro-history.
The powerful, poetic effectiveness of the concreteness of singular, situational and contextual realities suffuses authentic narration. This enhances sensitivity to concrete diversities, to anthropological multiplicity and to singularity of lived realities. Contemporary narratives are shaped by immanent relevance of specific contextual or situational meanings. The “concreteness of concrete selves in their immediate societies” described by Arthur C. Danto becomes the core of the narration of our era’s artists.
Their voices are imbued with empathy, sensitivity, openness, tolerance and authenticity, making them poetically effective, even cathartic. The more empathically, sensitively the artist’s message reflects the specific, contextual concreteness and situational realities, the more decisively the artist’s voice manifests resistance against false simplifications. They offer poetic micro-narratives of personal engagement in immediate realities and at the same time redefine the localization of artistic practice in the dense variety of encompassing sociocultural processes.