The National College
of Art & Design
The National College
of Art & Design
Research
My current concerns evolve around the conjunction of the terms 'word and image' and art discourses in which their relation is crucial.
The background may be described thus: Art History has a long history in the study of the image. 'Iconography,' as a branch of the discipline which specialises in the study of the image, literally means 'image writing' after the Greek words for 'image' and 'to write.' Where Iconography, or 'Iconology,' is conventionally a deductive practice of symbol identification, it also involves the more inductive processes of interpretations of images and their meanings on a broader cultural level. The analysis of visual images and artefacts has been invigorated and changed over the past generation by assimilations and incursions from other disciplines such as Linguistic Studies and Philosophy. Prominent authors who have given new, critical self-consciousness to the interpretation of images include J.W.T. Mitchell and Mieke Bal. Now greater attention may be given to, for example, how the word inflects the understanding of the image, and indeed vice versa. Equally, twentieth century philosophy and later twentieth century philosophy in particular laid greater emphasis on language itself as playing a role in the formulations of relations between subject and object, between the person and the world. In this, representations of word and image and how they may connect are often critical.
It is from this latter work that my research emerges. There are three areas for development which are identified as Theory, Criticism, and Art.
Theory: There is much in recent theory and philosophy that inform our understandings of the relation of word and image. Foucault was interested in visual representations and in verisimilitude and his work in and on discourses and on writing are valuable resources. Lyotard is another who saw the figure as disruptive of the smooth contours of rational discourse and who regarded art as conjuring paths through the limits of representation. Here, as in Nancy and Rancière, there is interest in both word and image as interconnected representations, but also in the discourses of art as aesthetically and historically transformative.
Criticism: Emerging alongside modern art, art criticism bequeathed itself the task of interpreting and judging individual works of contemporary art in the wake of the decline of the set conventions applied to earlier European art. Criticism also assumed the task of identifying and advocating trends in contemporary art. The role of criticism is therefore a source of debate: is the language of art criticism appropriate; should criticism act as judge? And, more recently, has criticism become marginal given the pre-eminence of the art market and the rise of new figures such as the curator? Criticism may have morphed into other guises, but the significance of discourse within the artworld —both spoken word and writing—remains central.
Art: Mallarmé is cited as an early example in modernism where text and image are used to imaginative ends. However, from Late Modernism, word and image are used extensively by visual artists. This takes the forms of both critique of art and/or society and forays into part-fictional, part-real worlds. Post-expressionist art recognises the inextricable relationship between thought and vision, and that word and image go hand-in-hand in contemporary art practices.
Diploma and Post-diploma in Fine Art at the Ulster College (University of Ulster) Art Teacher's Post-Diploma at Brighton Polytechnic (University of Sussex) MA in Art Education at Ohio State University Professional Bodies: International Association of Art Critics (AICA)
Is there an Author in the Locker? The difficulty of 'self' in relation to art CIRCA Art Magazine, No.126, Winter 2008, pp.48-55.
Well, Speak of the Devil! Art-World Spectacle from Dubai to Dublin CIRCA Art Magazine, No. 120, Summer 2007, pp.44-52.
