Modernism and the arts

Modernism is a term which refers to both a specific period in history and particular impulse.
This is largely considered to have began in the 18th Century, around the same time a the french revolution.
This is a period reflected by revolution, industrialisation, a decrease within the religous belief (in the west) this being the peak edcline of the empire, and the polarisation between political ideal's ( namely: Fascism and communism, demoncracy and totalitariamism: capitalism and socialism).
Between all of these instances we degfined chiefly by a deep held belief in the idea of progress towards a prosperous world.
Believin in this is a utopia led by monumental advances and sacrifices being made in order to capitulate humanity from a cruel and barbaric past.
leading towards a state of harmony and plenitude.

Feminism

Feminism is a belif that all women should have equal rights,such as, political, social, sexual, interlectual and economic rights to men.
There are a number of movements involved, theories, and philosophies, all of which concern gender differences, that orchestrate equality for women and that campaigne for womens rights and interests.
There are three waves in the history of feminism, they are as follows, Nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the second was the 60's and 1970's, the 3rd extending from the 90's.

Feminism has had a very drastic affect on predominant perpectives, changing a wide range of areas within the western society, ranging from culture to law.


Feminist adivist have made it there duty to campaigne for womens legal rights, such as (rights of contact, property rights, voting rights) to enable women rights towards bodily integrity and atomony.
For abortion rights, and for reproduction rights ( this includes access to contraception and quality prenatal care) this would enable protection for women and girls suffering from domestic violence, sexual harassment and rape for workplace rights includingmaternity leave and equal pay and also against other forms of discrimination.
Most feminist movements and theories had leaders who were predominatly middle classwhite women from western europe and North america.
However, since sojourner truths 1852 speech to american feminists, women of other races have proposed alternative feminism.
This trend moved forward drastically during the 60's with civil rights movement in the united states and the capitulationof european colonialism in Africa the caribbean parts of latin America and Southeast Asia.

Semiotics-the beginning

Semiotics can best be decribed,as a study of of signs..as unorthodox as it may sound, they relate in a similar way to linquistics, only difference being semiotics are based on visual actions rather than words.
People usually relate to signs in everyday life, things such as road signs,pub signs and star signs.
Most people will probably relate semiotics to "visual signs", you could prove this hunch by saying they are also drawings, paintings and photographs, and by now you'd probably be directed towards arts & photography sections.
But if you were to be thick-skinned and told am it also includes words, sounds and "body language" they may be sceptical and wonder wonder what these aspects have in common and how anyone could possibly study such a desperate phenomena.Studying semiotics may have you reading "the signs" feeling slightly insane and eccentric when communication has not been ceased.

Semiotics began to become a major approach to cultural studies in the late 1960s, partly as a result of the work of Roland Barthes. The translation into English of his popular essays in a collection entitled Mythologies (Barthes 1957), followed in the 1970s and 1980s by many of his other writings, greatly increased scholarly awareness of this approach. Writing in 1964, Barthes declared that 'semiology aims to take in any system of signs, whatever their substance and limits; images, gestures, musical sounds, objects, and the complex associations of all of these, which form the content of ritual, convention or public entertainment: these constitute, if not languages, at least systems of signification' (Barthes 1967, 9). The adoption of semiotics in Britain was influenced by its prominence in the work of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) at the University of Birmingham whilst the centre was under the direction of the neo-Marxist sociologist Stuart Hall (director 1969-79). Although semiotics may be less central now within cultural and media studies (at least in its earlier, more structuralist form), it remains essential for anyone in the field to understand it. What individual scholars have to assess, of course, is whether and how semiotics may be useful in shedding light on any aspect of their concerns. Note that Saussure's term, 'semiology' is sometimes used to refer to the Saussurean tradition, whilst 'semiotics' sometimes refers to the Peircean tradition, but that nowadays the term 'semiotics' is more likely to be used as an umbrella term to embrace the whole field

Popular Art- Pop art

Pop Art originated in New York in the late 1950’s/early ‘60s, and intentionally subverted critical ideas of what constituted ‘art.’ Household objects and celebrities faces were the subjects:Suddenly, T.V. dinners and canned spaghetti, department store dresses and blue suede shoes, tailfins and tires were the subject of paintings and sculptures gracing the window fronts of art galleries.
Claes Oldenburg, Tom Wesselmann, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, and, most famously Andy Warhol were among the leading names of Pop Art. Most of the Pop Artists had previously worked in commercial advertising and printing. Printing presses were used to quickly produce hundreds of standardised images which could then be mass-distributed. Andy Warhol was one of the first to do this; instead of selling unique pieces of work for a high price, he preferred to produce multiple silk-screened copies which were sold for a low price but which together made up large profits. The ideas of mass and standardisation would be seen therefore both in the fact that one piece of art work contained dozens of cola bottles, and also that that piece was itself reproduced again and again.Therefore art became visible to greater sections of the population and to lower classes, because of its positioning images were seen in conjunction with advertising and printed on clothing and accessories, instead of hidden away in galleries and its content where as traditional fine or ‘high’ art requires some academic learning for the viewer to know the correct ways of appreciating it, tins of baked beans were recognisable to all and needed little interpretation.

Andy Warhol- Early career

Andy warhol demonstrated early artistic skills and studied commercial Art at the School of Fine Arts Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh.In 1949, he moved to New york city and then went on to achieve a very successful career in magazine Illustration & advertisement.
During the 1950's, he came to prominance for his Whimsical ink drawings of shoe Advertisments.
Warhol used a various of techniques, loose,blotted ink style, these figured in some of earliest showings in New York at Bodley Gallery.
with the monumental expansion of Record industrys and the introduction of Vinyl Records, Hi fi, and Sterophonic recordings, RCA Records called upson warhols services hiring him along side another Freelance artist, Sid Maurer, to design Album covers and promotional material.