VISUAL TRANSLATION FOR ART INTERPRETATION. A NEW METHODOLOGY INFORMED BY CRITICAL THEORY

Autores/as

  • Cristina Moraru George Enescu National University of the Arts

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1344/regac2019.1.12

Palabras clave:

teoría crítica, traducción visual, interpretación del arte, nueva metodolcontemporary art, critical theory, visual translation, art interpretation, new methodology, new interpretative instrumentary, rhizomatic theoretical intersection,

Resumen

This paper is concern with investigating a new methodology for art interpretation that operates visual translation in order to understand the work of art in its political, social, historical and cultural context. This new methodology is informed by critical theory ‒in the extended meaning of the term‒, which questions traditional aesthetic approaches over the work of art: concepts as beauty, truth, sensoriality, which had been problematized in the field of aesthetics are now reproblematized in the field of critical theory. Nevertheless, the endeavor intended trough visual translation doesn’t just entail the process of rethinking traditional aesthetics, but also a radicalization of thinking over the artistic practices, as well as over the reception and production of artistic work in the socio-political and cultural context, and over the consequences of its public reception. More and more perspectives on art historicization and art interpretation transgressed the limits of traditional disciplines –as the aesthetics and the history of art– and engages in the exploration of other theories from political science, sociology, psychology, anthropology, urban geography, linguistics or literary theory. In this respect, visual translation could facilitate interdisciplinary conceptual relations, generating hybrid theories that could inform a new methodology of work for interpreting the contemporary artistic phenomenon.

In the field of contemporary art, the application of this hybrid theories can generate interpretative openings from the perspective of a series of critical theories of culture, from critical semiotics to ideological critical theory, from Marxist criticism to feminist critical theory, or from psychoanalytical critical theory to postcolonial theory. Also these interpretative methods, constituted heterogeneously, can be composed combinatorically in a manner in which we can find a Marxist critique psychoanalytically oriented, a psychoanalytic critique semiotically oriented, or various permutations between Marxist and psychoanalytic perspectives, or between Marxist and feminist thoughts. In other words, translation, from a transcultural perspective, opens up a new interpretative instrumentary, unfamiliar to traditional approaches over the work of art, instituting a new conceptual apparatus, informed by critical theory which rethink the old premises of art history, reevaluating the position of art historians within the pre-existing institutional structures and questioning the power dinamics inherent in this field of study.

 

Este artículo propone la investigación de una nueva metodología para la interpretación del arte que, desde la traducción visual - entendida como una forma de mediación entre el lenguaje del arte y el lenguaje de la cultura -, analiza la obra de arte en su contexto político, social, histórico y cultural. Esta nueva metodología se basada en la teoría crítica, en el sentido extendido del término, que cuestiona los enfoques estéticos tradicionales sobre la obra de arte. Así, conceptos como belleza, verdad, sensorialidad, que habían sido problematizados en el campo de la estética, se reproblematizan ahora en el campo de la teoría crítica. Sin embargo, el esfuerzo que se pretende con la traducción visual no solo implica el proceso de replanteamiento de la estética tradicional, sino también una radicalización del pensamiento sobre las prácticas artísticas, así como la recepción y producción de las obras en el contexto sociopolítico y cultural y sobre las consecuencias de su recepción pública. Cada vez más perspectivas sobre la interpretación del arte transgreden los límites de las disciplinas tradicionales como la estética y la historia del arte, involucrándose en la exploración de otras teorías nacidas dentro de las ciencias políticas, la sociología, la psicología, la antropología, la geografía urbana, la lingüística y la teoría literaria. En este sentido, la traducción visual podría facilitar las relaciones conceptuales interdisciplinares, generando teorías híbridas que conformarían una nueva metodología de trabajo para interpretar el fenómeno artístico contemporáneo.

Citas

Bal, Mieke (2007). “Translating Translation”. In Journal of Visual Culture, 6, 1, 109-124. Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore: SAGE Publications.

Bal, Mieke and Morra, Joanne (2007). “Editorial: Acts of Translation”. In Journal of Visual Culture, 6, 1, 5-11. Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore: SAGE Publications.

Berger, Arthur Asa (1995). Cultural Criticism: A Primer of Key Concepts. London: SAGE Publications.

Bishop, Claire (2012). Outsourcing Authenticity? Delegated Performance in Contemporary Art. In:https://monoskop.org/images/f/f3/Bishop_Claire_2012_Delegated_ Performance_Outsourcing_Authenticity.pdf [accessed on 06 May 2019]

Bohman, James (2015). Critical Theory. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spring Edition. In: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2015/entries/critical-theory/ [accessed on 01 May 2019].

Butler, Judith (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. London: Routledge.

Derrida, Jacques (1988). “Afterword: Towards an Ethics of Discussion”. In: Gerald Graff (ed.), Limited Inc. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press.

Derrida Jacques (1993). Memories of the Blind. The Self-Portrait and Other Ruins. Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press.

Derrida, Jacques y Owens, Craig (1979). The Parergon. October, 9. In: http://users.clas.ufl.edu/burt/poescrypts/JacquesDerridaTheParergo n.pdf [accessed on 02 May 2019].

Di Paola, Modesta (2011) “Translation in Visual Art”. In: https://interartive.org/2013/08/translation-in-visual-art.

Emerling, Jae (2005). Theory for Art History. New York, London: Routledge.

Fraser, Andrea (2005). From the Critique of Institutions to an Institution of Critique. Artforum, 44:1. In: http://www.marginalutility.org/wpcontent/uploads/2010/07/Andrea-Fraser_From-the-Critique-ofInstitutions-to-an-Institution-of-Critique.pdf [accessed on 04 May 2019].

Gheorghe Cătălin (2010). Condiţia critică. Iaşi: Institutul European.

Groys, Boris (2010). Marx after Duchamp, or The Artist’s Two Bodies. E flux Journal, 19.

Groys, Boris (2010). The Communist Postscript. London: Verso.

Holly, Michael Ann (2013). The Melancholy Art. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Horkheimer, Max (2002). Critical Theory. Selected Essays. New York: The Continuum Publishing Company.

Nae, Cristian (2013). Ways of seeing. An Introduction to Modern and Contemporary Art Theory. Iaşi: Artes.

Nead, Lynda (1990). Myths of Sexuality: Representations of Women in Victorian Britain. London: Wiley – Blackwell.

Preziosi, Donald y Farago, Claire (2012). Art Is Not What You Think It Is, Sussex: Wiley – Blackwell.

Rancière, Jacques (2010). The Aesthetic Unconscious. Cambridge: Polity Books.

Rose, Gillian (2011). Visual Methodologies. An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials. London: SAGE Publications.

Steyerl, Hito (2011).Digital Debris: Spam and Scam. October, 138. In: https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/OCTO_a_00067 [accessed on 04 May 2019].

Descargas

Publicado

2019-12-09