Preliminary - Frames in Art

1. Frames
Subjective – Cultural – Structural – Post Modern
1

2. The Subjective Frame
 The Subjective Frame refers to a person’s personal perspective or
opinion, particular feelings, beliefs, and desires. It is about looking at
something and deciding if you like it or if you don’t based mostly
on emotion and individual preference. Think about how the artwork
makes you feel when you look at it and consider your own individual
reaction in comparison with others. Everyone likes different things
and that is what makes us unique. When we look through the
Subjective Frame, we are looking from our own point of view.
 Describe what you see in the artwork?
 Describe how you feel?
 What does it remind me of?
 What do others see in the piece?
2

3. The Subjective Frame
This artwork makes people feel excited by it’s bright colours.
• The same colours as coca cola – these canvases evoke the same feelings
of excitement that a consumer feels when purchasing a mass produced
product
3

4. The Cultural Frame
 The Cultural Frame is about the values of the culture in which the
work of art was created. Culture can be understood as ideas that are
held by different groups of people. Through this frame we look at
how artists are influenced by ideas
of nationality, religion, gender, class, art movements, fashion
and politics. Don’t just think about culture as a person’s background
- think about about culture as a group of people who share the
same values or beliefs. If we view an artwork from a cultural point
of view, we are looking at the shared values, attitudes or ideas
behind the artwork
 Can you tell what time period or culture the piece belongs to?
 Describe what the work reveals about that culture or society?
 What style or movement does the work belong to?
 Describe stylistic influences
4

5. The Cultural Frame
The bright colours and use of print media were key features of the 1960s
pop art movement.
• The pop artists valued work that imitated consumer society and played with
ideas of originality and the reproduction.
5

6. The Structural Frame
 Through this frame, wet photography, video and digital imaging may
be thought to be about, and to represent, a visual language as a
symbolic system: a system of relationships between signs and
symbols that are read and understood by artists and audiences who
are able to decode the texts. From this view, meaning is understood
in relation to the social perspective of the community out of which it
grows.
 From this view meaning is understood in terms of the relationships of
 symbols used to refer to the world. Through this system, ideas are
circulated and exchanged.
 Describe the materials and techniques.
 Describe the elements and principles used in the composition.
 Describe the materials and techniques used in the creation of the work?
Elaborate on how this contributes to the meaning of the work
6

7. The Structural Frame
The red and white colours are typical colours of advertising.
• Thirty-two canvases, each measuring 20 inches in height × 16 inches in
width.
• Each canvas is one of the soup varieties available at the time for purchasing
7

8. The Postmodern Frame
 Through this frame, photography, video and digital imaging may be
thought to be about, and to represent, ‘texts’ that reconfigure and
question previous texts and current narratives. These are woven
together through such things as irony, parody and quotation.
 From this view meaning is attained through critique, exposing the
patterns of authority and the assumptions of mainstream values to
reveal inconsistencies, uncertainties and ironies.
 Have any images been appropriated and re-contextualized?
 Elaborate on the meaning the work has today, or in the context of recent
news
8

9. The Postmodern Frame
32 Cans uses the appropriation of a mass produced product to make a
statement about consumer society.
• The work challenges perceptions of fine arts.
9