Art history is riddled with existential questions hiding just beneath the surface of the subject matter, that is, the physical objects being created. This is true for the centuries-old, as well as the contemporary, and picking apart the materiality of works of art can reveal the value of using art as a medium to understand and work through the concept of death in relation to our own human existence. This paper constitutes a thorough, material analysis of three works of art created (or finished) in the last 20 years, specifically focused on the topic of death. The works examined are Roman Opalka’s conceptual lifetime project 1 to Infinity, Morgan Quaintance’s video artwork Efforts of Nature and El Anatsui’s site-specific sculpture Fresh and Fading Memories in Venice, Italy. As well as materiality, contextual aspects of the works are considered for this analysis, this to help make concrete and coherent the narratives and stories that make up the works themselves. These narratives are what this paper is aiming to decipher.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:su-225684 |
| Date | January 2023 |
| Creators | Bäckman Sanne, Alva |
| Publisher | Stockholms universitet, Institutionen för kultur och estetik |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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