Chosen question: To what extent does aesthetic ‘style’ reflect the context/ audience and/or function of contemporary illustration? I have chosen this question as a start to my research because I’m interested in looking at trends within art and specifically illustration. I have a lot of questions surrounding this topic and also a lot of opinion, how do these trends start? Is it possible to be original anymore when everything has already been done? I also want to link my research into trends and ‘style’, to the hierarchy that is apparent within art schools. I want to research into how established fine art used to be, to how it is now when competing with design subjects such as illustration and how niche cultures within these subjects influence the way they shift and change. I’m interested in how ‘style’ is influenced by subject, and if there is a link between the subcultures created in art schools and the categories and ‘styles’ we fall into. I plan on looking at people like David Shrigley and posing questions like when does fine art become illustration? Where is the crossover? What is the difference between fine art and design? I’m interested in looking at how to be different, how do we find our own voices if there are already a million other voices out there? It’s impossible to ignore trends and not fall into them, without trends how do artists go about getting themselves out there? Trends cause change, however they also cause people to be the same, is there a way to break out of the cycle?
Relevant/related subjects: • • • • • •
Hierarchies within art schools Trends Avant-Garde Fine art & design - What’s the difference? Other people’s perception of the arts Appropriation
Relevant Quotes:
‘Because advertising and marketing is an art, the solution to each new problem or calling should begin with a blank canvas and an open mind, not with the nervous borrowings of other people’s mediocrities. That’s precisely what ‘trends’ are - a search for something ‘safe’ - and why a reliance on them leads to oblivion.’ - George Lois
‘Visual art and writing don't exist on an aesthetic hierarchy that positions one above the other, because each is capable of things the other can't do at all. Sometimes one picture is equal to 30 pages of discourse, just as there are things images are completely incapable of communicating’ - William S Burroughs
'In our liquid modern times the world around us is sliced into poorly coordinated fragments while our individual lives are cut into a succession of ill-connected episodes.’ - Zygmunt Bauman
‘The distinctions of fine art bore me to death’ - Maurice Sendak
‘I am lucky because I do Fine Art, and that is half of my living. And then Illustration provides the other half’
Relevant Books: • • • • •
The Avant - Garde - David Cottington The Theory of the Avant - Garde - Renato Poggioli Ways of Seeing - John Berger Identity - Zygmunt Bauman About Looking - John Berger
Relevant Websites: • • • •
http://www.creativebloq.com It’s Nice That Creative Review Pinterest
Relevant Images: