The essay draws attention to the growing numbers of contemporary artists who are exploring and exploiting the creative protocols of design in their work. It is argued that this trend has become an important theme and pressing issue in contemporary visual art. Though it is an uneven, fragmented, widely dispersed and apparently incoherent phenomenon without any clearly defined, unitary objectives, the essay proceeds from the assumption that the adoption of design as creative idiom by a wide variety of artists is informed by social dynamics and material resources that are coherent enough to be meaningfully identified and described. It therefore sets out to develop and account of this phenomenon by situating it within our contemporary historical context. To this end, the essay first addresses the conceptual resources that are currently available to artists. The author proposes, in this regard, that a gradual mutation in the general epistemological sensibility of Modernity over the last number of decades has come to transform our understanding of the nature of, and relationship between, art, aesthetics, cognition and ethico-political life, and therefore of how art could potentially function in our individual and collective consciousnesses. More particularly, these broad epistemological developments have registered in contemporary art practice through the coagulation of two distinct sets of conceptualist priorities. It is argued that these two sets of priorities both accommodate, if not facilitate, in their own ways, the adoption of design as creative idiom in contemporary art. The essay also addresses the social conditions within which contemporary artists’ creative practices are situated. In order to identify and describe the social conditions and dynamics that may contribute towards the poignancy and currency of design as creative idiom within in art, the author utilizes the insights of a number of prominent scholars from the field of Sociology. These authors’ observations suggests that a significant transformation has taken place in the material basis of social life, over the last number of decades, under the combined influence of a number of important technological and economic developments. Together, these developments have conspired to produce a dynamic and disorientating world full of uncertainty and insecurity. The author suggests that this fluid situation may have contributed, in various ways, not only to the current prominence of design in social life, but also to the apparent willingness of artists to explore design as creative idiom in their work. Arguing that significant relations can be drawn between the work of individual artists based on the shared intellectual climate and social dynamics within which it is developed, the author tries, in the final section, to ground his observations in the concrete singularity of individual artistic practice. To this end, the work and interests of American artist Andrea Zittel is examined and interpreted. Zittel’s work is explored as an example of the complex ways in which personal motives, social forces and intellectual currents meet at the intersection of art and design.

Esta tese propõe um estudo sobre o interesse renovado da arte contemporânea em resgatar e reelaborar a discussão moderna sobre a relação existente entre arte e design. Tal aproximação se diferencia da proposta modernista anterior, já que responde ao singular contexto cultural, social e econômico no qual se desenvolve. Assim, nosso intuito é caracterizar e compreender tanto esse novo contexto quanto as principais questões em torno dessa reaproximação entre arte e design a partir da análise da produção de quatro artistas importantes no cenário contemporâneo: Vito Acconci (1940), Barbara Bloom (1951), Andrea Zittel (1965) e Ana Maria Tavares (1958). Interessa-nos abordar as táticas de intervenção artística dentro do discurso específico do design, que na sociedade regida pelo capitalismo avançado constitui-se como um importante sistema de produção e consumo de imagens, signos, objetos, ambientes e identidades coletivas e individuais. Ao passar por um processo de expansão e difusão, propagando-se e infiltrando-se em várias esferas da vida cotidiana, o campo do design se torna um ponto de partida para a produção de artistas que, através de táticas de ação disruptivas, buscam por possibilidades, mesmo que momentâneas, de intervir em um mundo cada vez mais desenhado e planejado em seus mínimos detalhes / This thesis proposes a study on the renewed interest of contemporary art in rescuing and re-shaping the modern discussion regarding the relationship between art and design. This approach differs from the previous modernist proposal, as it responds to the singular cultural, social and economic context in which it is developed. Therefore, our aim is to characterize and understand both this new context and the main issues concerning this rapprochement between art and design by analysing the production of four important artists in the contemporary scene: Vito Acconci (1940), Barbara Bloom (1951) Andrea Zittel (1965) and Ana Maria Tavares (1958). This research addresses the tactics of artistic intervention within the design discourse field which, in the society governed by advanced capitalism, constitutes one of the main systems of production and consumption of images, signs, objects, environments and individual and collective identities. By going through a process of expansion and diffusion, spreading and infiltrating into various spheres of everyday life, the field of design becomes a starting point for the production of artists who, through disruptive action tactics, seek opportunities, even if temporary, to intervene in a world increasingly designed and planned to the very last detail

Esta tese propõe um estudo sobre o interesse renovado da arte contemporânea em resgatar e reelaborar a discussão moderna sobre a relação existente entre arte e design. Tal aproximação se diferencia da proposta modernista anterior, já que responde ao singular contexto cultural, social e econômico no qual se desenvolve. Assim, nosso intuito é caracterizar e compreender tanto esse novo contexto quanto as principais questões em torno dessa reaproximação entre arte e design a partir da análise da produção de quatro artistas importantes no cenário contemporâneo: Vito Acconci (1940), Barbara Bloom (1951), Andrea Zittel (1965) e Ana Maria Tavares (1958). Interessa-nos abordar as táticas de intervenção artística dentro do discurso específico do design, que na sociedade regida pelo capitalismo avançado constitui-se como um importante sistema de produção e consumo de imagens, signos, objetos, ambientes e identidades coletivas e individuais. Ao passar por um processo de expansão e difusão, propagando-se e infiltrando-se em várias esferas da vida cotidiana, o campo do design se torna um ponto de partida para a produção de artistas que, através de táticas de ação disruptivas, buscam por possibilidades, mesmo que momentâneas, de intervir em um mundo cada vez mais desenhado e planejado em seus mínimos detalhes / This thesis proposes a study on the renewed interest of contemporary art in rescuing and re-shaping the modern discussion regarding the relationship between art and design. This approach differs from the previous modernist proposal, as it responds to the singular cultural, social and economic context in which it is developed. Therefore, our aim is to characterize and understand both this new context and the main issues concerning this rapprochement between art and design by analysing the production of four important artists in the contemporary scene: Vito Acconci (1940), Barbara Bloom (1951) Andrea Zittel (1965) and Ana Maria Tavares (1958). This research addresses the tactics of artistic intervention within the design discourse field which, in the society governed by advanced capitalism, constitutes one of the main systems of production and consumption of images, signs, objects, environments and individual and collective identities. By going through a process of expansion and diffusion, spreading and infiltrating into various spheres of everyday life, the field of design becomes a starting point for the production of artists who, through disruptive action tactics, seek opportunities, even if temporary, to intervene in a world increasingly designed and planned to the very last detail