THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

The Conceptual

Framework is a way

of analysing. The

four agencies

(artwork, artist,

audience and world)

can be discussed as

a whole, or by

connecting them to

The Frames

(Subjective,

Structural, Cultural

and Postmodern).

THE ARTWORK

• Is a bridge between the artist and the audience.

• Is an artifact that reflects the ideas and beliefs of a time and place.

• Complements or contests the traditions of artmaking.

• Is an object that can be read to interpret meaning or substance.

• Is shaped by the technology of the time.

• Demonstrates the technical resolution of the artist’s ideas and approaches to artmaking.

• Is a unique object that conveys the ideas and views of the artist.

THE ARTIST

• Develops distinctive subjective viewpoints through their artworks.

• Visually communicates their personal experience.

• Visually documents events and ideas that are reflected in their artwork.

• Explores new media and develop new aesthetic conventions.

• Is a critical curator who constantly reflects upon their own artmaking and refines the quality of their work.

• Is a visionary who believes in what they do and how they will represent their ideas and beliefs.

• Has their own idiosyncratic approach to artmaking.

• Is guided by their individual philosophies in artmaking.

THE AUDIENCE

• Includes the general public

responding to artworks, which is

different from the way critics and

curators respond.

• Includes specialised audiences,

such as critics and curators, and

their responses to artworks.

• Also involves historians who place

value on particular artworks

throughout history, suggesting their

importance.

• Includes patrons, who are people

who sponsor the artists by

commissioning them and

requesting particular forms of

representation within the artwork.

• Includes specific critics who

influence and govern the

reception of an artwork in terms

of it’s meaning and value.

• Can be shocked by an artist’s

new forms of representation.

THE WORLD

• Involves historic events that would have influenced the artist’s approach to artmaking.

• Refers to important people who shaped the thinking of the world at the time the artwork was made.

• Encompasses the spirit of the times, such as what was in fashion, how society managed itself, and the dominant political force of the time.

• Includes other links between what was going on in the world and the artworks and artists of the time.

• Involves technical advances, which influence the materials used in the artwork.

• Includes beliefs and conventions of society, for example, the difference between Eastern and Western art, or modern and postmodern artworks.

THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT TO

UNDERSTAND…

What a student should understand

more than anything is the

complexity of the nature of the

Conceptual Framework, that the

relationships between the

agencies of the framework are

interdependent, ever-changing,

and must be understood as both

individual components and a

whole concept at the same time

(much as one might understand

the Holy Trinity, God, Jesus and

the Holy Spirit are separate, but

one in the same).