Jonathan Bentall

This research aims to be an exploratory enquiry into the values held within contemporary aesthetic discourse. The paradigm of art criticism from romanticism to modernism has placed great emphasis on close integration of medium and meaning which constitutes the internal (paradigmatic) dynamics of practice and theory. Writers such as Bourdieu,1984 have however pointed out the socially contingent nature of taste which calls into question traditional art history’s relevance as a paradigm. Counter arguments have stressed the contextual appropriateness of the perceptual philosophy of traditional art theory to the producers of art objects; that is those involved in the act of creation………ma-dissertation

This discussion will explore the notion of landscape within contemporary art practice with reference to the Tacita Dean exhibition at Tate Britain (15 February -6 May 2001.) The case study deals with artistic responses to varying landscapes. Within these varying physical contexts there is a strong narrative or referential framework to the motivation and procedural development of Dean’s works, as if they are rooted in a sense of place…….leisure-landscapes