Essay Sample on Role of Media in Contemporary Art

Cross-Cultural Perspectives

China has been a major influential eastern country in the art market, and most eastern contemporary artists have mimicked and incorporated aspects of Western art into their works. Chinese arts continue to work on their traditional concepts and combining that with western ideas in a more independent manner (Belting and Buddensieg 35). This gradually places Chinese issues into the more prominent cultural background of the world so that it can become familiar and extensive. But the mixing of both cultural aspects in visual arts has always been undertaken in only one direction, from the West to the East. The incorporation of eastern arts into western arts has always been criticized as a post-colonial attitude or as esoteric (Belting and Buddensieg 35). Thus, it has become difficult for contemporary artists in the West to create artworks with eastern influences. This paper addresses the modes of cross-cultural arts in global history by looking at the Western position and Easter position in the creation and debate of visual arts.

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The Evolution of Contemporary Art

The evolution of contemporary art and global art history and practice has always been based on Western principles. The de-colonial rewriting of art was developed by the West who dictated the post-modern art vocabulary across the globe. For example, the Chinese art history demands expertise in formal concepts and different kinds of source materials, but its interpretive strategies remain Western (Stafford132). This means that the art history has no non-western traditions and this happened through the use and evolution of Western institutions, ideas, and forms.

Another example can be well explained by artists who left China in the 1980s to live abroad and have today returned in their China Cities. These artists came back with a new artistic thinking and an updated practice shaped by the Western residence that in a large extent influenced the art scene within China (Stafford132). Therefore, the contemporary art is primarily a Western construct that is entrenched in the cross-cultural art forms in the world and China has no natural escape to develop its original and modern artwork without incorporating the Western principles.

The role of Media, Networks, and Institutions

It is difficult for Western artists to try and learn the eastern traditions and use the aspects of eastern art into their work if an artist cannot create artwork without the use of western strategies. Asian aesthetics are always difficult for the West to understand and the difficulty makes it challenging to bridge the gap of understanding Chinese art (Wells 87). Thus, the West is always not able to understand the meaning. There are contemporary writers such as Francois Jullien, and Francois Cheng was able to translate Chinese arts from a Western translation that provided alternatives and insights to rethink and compare eastern and western traditions (Wells 102). Francois Jullien is a famous contemporary artist involved in the cross-cultural field between the East and West. Jullien had problems in translation and transformation of cultures, but he was able to reinvigorate western thought with thoughts from the East. He used the perspectives of one culture to understand and gain access to the other culture. Although the Western and Eastern are in opposition, they are founded on different thought patterns and categories that make a direct comparison problematic (Wells 104). On the other hand, Cheng had experience and understanding of both the eastern and western arts, and he developed two languages and methodologies to understand the two worlds. He shows the influence of western arts into the eastern arts and provides best methodologies that explain the best of both systems (Wells 106).

Jullien philosophical approach provides western contemporary artists who struggle with the difficulties in bridging the gap between the Eastern and Western traditions. His thoughts were used in a practice-based project in the video of the west scroll Shan-Shui-Hua that helps to rework Chinese artistic traditions (Wells 106). The video is a response to western artists, and it involves subjective interpretations and artistic freedom. It represents the practical aspects and pictorial concepts of Chinese arts to allow artists to be able to create and take a fresh approach to Western visualization practice. Artists have also used technologies, media and genres to address current issues and to reiterate icons from their cultures (Belting and Buddensieg 54). This allows the artists to remain authentic and contemporary in their context.

Conclusion

The only way cross-cultural transformations can occur is through the assimilation of one culture to another. The cross-cultural art cannot be differentiated from the political and historical background of the western dominance in the 19th and 20th centuries. However, in the contemporary world, individuals transverse across cultures and become assimilated to different cultures. However, the dominance of western art remain regardless of the concept of art is shifting. Therefore, it is important to use visual western art tools to help create world vies and imaginations, and to be aware of the limitations dedicated by culture in arts within our own thinking and practice. It is also important for China to remember its alternative modes, to be able to expand their imagination in art.

Works Cited

Buddensieg, Andrea, and Hans Belting. "The Global Art World. Audiences, Markets, and

Museums." (2009).

Wells, Patrick. Audio commentary to Shan-Shui-Hua. Aspect Magazine-The Chronicle of

New Media Art (Vol. 15). Boston: Aspect Arts Inc (2010).

Stafford, Marley. Another kind of global thinking. In J. Elkins (Ed.). Is art history global? New

York: Routledge (2010).