Art history question!
April 17, 2019 1:15 PM Subscribe
Can someone please explain (in very simple, pared down language) the difference between "technologies of display" and "practices of display" with respect to art history? Any information I can find online just confuses me further.
Could you give a little more context for this question, please? Even just where you're seeing the terms.
posted by AliceBlue at 4:36 PM on April 17, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by AliceBlue at 4:36 PM on April 17, 2019 [2 favorites]
I'm inclined to think of "technologies of display" as tools and "practices of display" as techniques but I agree more context would be helpful.
posted by juliplease at 6:39 PM on April 17, 2019
posted by juliplease at 6:39 PM on April 17, 2019
My art history degree is almost 20 years in the rearview mirror (oofa doofa), but I am not familiar with these terms either, and could use a little context too.
That said, unfamiliarity never stopped an art historian from giving their opinion, so:
The "technologies of display" to me would seem to reference the technical aspects (difficulties and opportunities) of the physical/digital aspects of artmaking. Everything: the development of new pigments, the introduction of pre-mixed portable tubes of paint, the invention of photography, the ubiquity of smartphone filters, etc.
The "practices of display" are the social and artistic conventions that go into artmaking. Stuff like the conventions of idealism in ancient Egyptian portraiture, the allusions of religious iconography, the tropes of film noir, etc.
Both will affect the art created in a given time/place/culture, but the controls they represent come from very different directions and the ways artists are bound by (or, more interestingly, rebel against) those limitations have very different meanings and motivations.
posted by Rock Steady at 4:52 AM on April 18, 2019 [3 favorites]
That said, unfamiliarity never stopped an art historian from giving their opinion, so:
The "technologies of display" to me would seem to reference the technical aspects (difficulties and opportunities) of the physical/digital aspects of artmaking. Everything: the development of new pigments, the introduction of pre-mixed portable tubes of paint, the invention of photography, the ubiquity of smartphone filters, etc.
The "practices of display" are the social and artistic conventions that go into artmaking. Stuff like the conventions of idealism in ancient Egyptian portraiture, the allusions of religious iconography, the tropes of film noir, etc.
Both will affect the art created in a given time/place/culture, but the controls they represent come from very different directions and the ways artists are bound by (or, more interestingly, rebel against) those limitations have very different meanings and motivations.
posted by Rock Steady at 4:52 AM on April 18, 2019 [3 favorites]
You could also wrap economics into it. Technology = patronage (whether the Medicis or Patreon), practices = "selling out" vs. "keeping it real". If it think about this much longer, I'm going to have to write a dissertation and no one wants that.
posted by Rock Steady at 5:38 AM on April 18, 2019
posted by Rock Steady at 5:38 AM on April 18, 2019
This thread is closed to new comments.
Then practices of display is stuff like how high to hang pictures, how bright the light, where labels go, how art is protected from the viewers, how the art is curated long term, for preservation while on display.
posted by Oyéah at 3:27 PM on April 17, 2019 [1 favorite]