Did Humans Speak Through Cave Art? Ancient Drawings and Language’s Origins

To find out when and where humans developed language, look deep inside caves, suggests an MIT professor.

Some specific features of cave art may precisely provide clues about how our symbolic, multifaceted language capabilities evolved.

The advent of language in human history is unclear. Our species is estimated to be about 200,000 years old. Human language is often considered to be at least 100,000 years old.

Cave art displays properties of language in that “you have action, objects, and modification.” This parallels some of the universal features of human language — verbs, nouns, and adjectives — and Miyagawa suggests that “acoustically based cave art must have had a hand in forming our cognitive symbolic mind.”

To be sure, the ideas proposed by Miyagawa, Lesure, and Nobrega merely outline a working hypothesis, which is intended to spur additional thinking about language’s origins and point toward new research questions.

Regarding the cave art itself that could mean further scrutiny of the syntax of the visual representations, as it were.

“We’ve got to look at the content” more thoroughly, says Miyagawa. In his view, as a linguist who has looked at images of the famous Lascaux cave art from France, “you see a lot of language in it.” But it remains an open question how much a re-interpretation of cave art images would yield in linguistics terms.

At a minimum, a further consideration of cave art as part of our cognitive development may reduce our tendency to regard art in terms of our own experience, in which it probably plays a more strictly decorative role for more people.

Reference: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180221122923.htm

 

Female Artists Now Remembered by a French Non-profit

It is still obvious that female artists in the industry are still overshadowed by their male counterparts, a situation that has made it very difficult for female artwork to be recognized as is the case for men.  Some have already been forgotten from history completely. For this very reason, a non-profit making organization in France has devoted to change this status quo with a very new archive that is aimed at bringing visibility to female artists.

In the year 2009, Camille Morineau, who was by then a curator at the famous Centre George Pompidou based in Paris had a feeling that it was time for her to come up with an art exhibition which would solely be devoted to women and that it should be the very first for the modern museum.

To be able to achieve this, Camille was really pressed to be able to gather information about female artists who have ever been in the industry together with their work, an exercise that has forced to conduct a lot of research on the same to unveil real work that should be exhibited. She also had to unveil if at all such artists belonged to any movement and if any, to identify them.

One of the greatest motivations that sent Camille into this is because she realized how much female artists had been underrated in the industry of arts. According to her, that was scandalous. This realization was the basis of the birth of a tool that would later be used by anyone who needed access to information about female artists in a very easy way. She, therefore, was able to access information about many female artists that she came to a conclusion that it was a fallacy to declare that there was lack of human artists in the art history because she came across so many.

References

https://m.dw.com/en/uncovering-forgotten-female-artists-french-archive-aims-to-rewrite-art-history/a-47117618

What Art History Needs in Order to Change its Discourse

It is evident and very clear that in the recent past, art history has undergone a lot of contentions and debates of whether it should be included in the academic, professional and other cultural spheres or not. It is, therefore, the only subject among humanities that has faced a challenge of that kind. The noticeable effect it has on culture and everyday life in society is always put on the question making it too hard for the discipline to rise to the top. Many critics of the discipline have it that it is the most impractical and therefore there is no need to include it among others which are highly practical.

Because the discipline seems to be the only tool that will help us to link up, interpret and understand our world better, there is great need to help change its discourse so that the criticism on it will reduce. One of the most important things to be done is to ensure diversification of the art historians of the next generation. Just as many other subjects have been made highly subjective and have a degree and even master’s degree courses for it to be highly competitive in the market just like for the many other disciplines.

Secondly, there is need for the people to tell a story on art history which is more inclusive. No matter how hard the discipline has been underrated, there is a great need for its practitioners to adapt to times or and time stagnation. The story must be positive and convincing for the current generation potential practitioners. Also, it is important to break down the existing divisions of high and low arts. The existing boundary has really derailed the effectiveness of the course.

Reference

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorail-three-ways-art-history-change-2019

A 33 Minute Film Shot by Charlotte Prodger Using an IPhone Takes the Years Turner Prize

The four artists shortlisted for 2018 Turner Prizes did more than film work, they ventured into activism, archeology, exploration of racially motivated police brutality and queer identity. Amongst the nominees was Charlotte Prodger whose film “Bridgit shot with an iPhone. The film is a 33-minute meditation that focuses on Prodger’s experience when coming out as gay in Scotland.

Previous winners of the Turner prizes were Damien Hirst in the year 1955 that had a sculpture of a cow and calf carcasses suspending in formaldehyde. The second was Chris Ofili in 1998 whose portrait was an elephant dung-laden of a mother mourning the death of her son.

Although the choices of the Turner prize have been a source of controversy frequently in the past, this year, the shortlist artists made headlines for political and anti-traditionalist bent. This especially comes after the win of Prodger’s film which shows how she can relay her memories with other experiences. The film managed to focus on psychological and intellectual queries on identity.

The Forensic Architecture was expected to win the price, but that changed when  Prodger was announced at an award ceremony on December 4th. The group worked on various fields such as art, journalism, architecture, and science.

The other final nominees were Naeem Mohaiemen, a London based artist who grew up in Bangladesh. The artist used film, installation, and essay writing to cross-examine the legacy of decolonization. The other nominee was a New Zealand native with a European and Fijian heritage; Luke Willis Thompson focused on violence perpetrated against the black community. However, his work was seen as controversial because he was said to use black death and pain for financial and cultural gain.

References

 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/charlotte-prodger-claims-years-turner-prize-film-shot-iphone-180970962/