The Expressionless: Law, Ethics, and the Imagery of Suffering

The essay discusses law’s inability to address the phenomenon of human suffering and, at the same time, investigates a possible theoretical kinship between Walter Benjamin’s notion of ‘the expressionless’ and Emmanuel Levinas’s understanding of suffering as the foundation of an interhuman ethics. The kinship between Levinas and Benjamin is examined with reference to suffering in the visual arts and, more specifically, in Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece and Francis Bacon’s crucifixion triptychs. The essay argues that in the crucifixion scenes of both Grünewald’s medieval altarpiece and Bacon’s triptychs, suffering is what constitutes ‘the expressionless’. After every detail of the image, every element of attribute, motif, composition and colour have been accurately depicted, a residue still remains, an ethical truth that cannot be appropriated into a meaningful unity but that nevertheless calls for a response. While law must always give suffering a utilitarian value in its attempts to assign responsibility for the injury occurred, the essay argues that the fragmentariness in all true art that Benjamin calls ‘the expressionless’ is akin to Levinas’s understanding of the constitutional uselessness of suffering, its essence as ‘for nothing’.

Economic Discussion of Conflict between Public Education Policies and Common Good Arts in the United States

Arts education in the United States, especially in public schools, has been neglected and its public funding has decreased. This is partly due to the difference in the conception of public education policies and the arts. The theory of economic goods and an analysis of two current education policies demonstrate that public education is treated as a public good that is needed by all people, and therefore funded with tax dollars. Because the arts are common goods that different people value in their own terms, education in the arts is treated as nonessential and funded sporadically in public school settings. Based on the theory of the commons, the author suggests that nonprofit arts organizations are equipped to deal with the common good and diverse nature of the arts and can provide sustainable arts education that fills the gap of arts education in public schools.     

孔子领导心理思想初探

孔子关于领导心理的思想颇为广泛,特别是对领导的功能、领导者的心理影响力及领导艺术三个方面进行了较为系统的论述。孔子研究了领导者的行为及其对下属心理和行为的影响问题,领导影响力的心理机制和构成问题,以及由识人心理、用人心理和治人心理组成的领导艺术等问题。     

论公安擒拿格斗术的教学与实战应用

公安擒拿格斗术内容丰富 ,手法多样 ,针对性强 ,选择余地大 ,基本涵盖了公安工作中需要使用擒拿格斗技术的各种情况。因此 ,我们在教学上就应根据不同的任务要求 ,在不同的地形、场所和敌我态势下进行施教 ,针对不同的捕获对象 ,灵活运用不同的技战术 ,以达到最佳的制敌效果。     

论萧红作品对当今文学创作的启示

萧红的作品来源于生活,恰切地表现生活,具有丰厚的内涵;同时,她的作品具有创新性,所以艺术质地优良;她忧国忧民,与人民同呼吸共患难,具有高尚的品格。这些是当今文学创作可借鉴之处。萧红作品对当今文学创作的启示是:恰切地反映客观生活,是文学作品取得成功的主要因素;意识的超前与艺术的创新是文学创作成功的必要因素;好的文品出自好的人品。     

抗日民主根据地革命美术活动及其特点

抗日民主根据地的革命美术工作者,始终坚持为抗战服务和为人民群众服务的政治方向,深入人民群众和抗战生活之中,不断地学习民族传统和探求中国风格,创作了很多具有浓郁民族特色并被人民群众所喜闻乐见的优秀美术作品,充分发挥了美术这一教育人民、打击敌人的艺术武器的作用。他们的美术创作不是在与时代隔绝的象牙塔中完成的,而是直接投身于斗争,投身于群众活动的结晶。他们既是画家,同时也是革命家、对敌斗争的英勇战士。     

Velvet Disillusionment: Czech Performing Arts and Twenty-Five Years of Transition, 1989–2014

ABSTRACT

The performing arts sector of the Czech Republic faces significant challenges twenty-five years after the Velvet Revolution, which ushered in swift and dramatic political, social, and economic change. Early policy decisions, subsequent privatization efforts, and neglect, compounded by the country's foray into the muddy waters of the free market, have left artists and administrators seeking solutions and searching for solvency. Empirical research, primarily in the form of surveys, site visits, and interviews with prominent Czech artists and administrators, significantly informs this article, which explores the state of Czech performing arts twenty-five years after the fall of Communism.     

Means and Ends: A Theory Framework for Understanding Entrepreneurship in the US Arts and Culture Sector

This article provides a framework for the conceptualization of arts entrepreneurship in the US by first examining a range of perspectives on the boundaries of the “arts and culture sector” in the US and then exploring in some depth four theories of entrepreneurship and how such theories may be realized within the arts and culture sector. Theories of firm formation are considered both generally and as potentially applied to the arts and culture sector, with examples of firm formation drawn both from existing literature and the author's direct observation of entrepreneurial activity. Finally, the essay connects these theories in a means and ends framework to provide a context for understanding arts entrepreneurial activity, especially in the US arts and culture sector. The theory that emerges from the examples provided to illustrate the framework is a simple one: artists form firms or otherwise undertake entrepreneurial action toward the end of creating art sustainably and they do so by discovering or creating new connections between their means and that desirable end.     

Adapting Techniques of Studio Critique for Arts Management Pedagogy

Many students in the field of arts management have a background as practicing artists. In that light, it seems promising to explore fine arts pedagogies for the delivery of elements of arts management curricula. Studio critiques are a central pedagogic tool in arts education, allowing for systemic self-reflexivity that emerges from a shared interest in the terms of the conversation itself—critique as a creative technique. Since 2009, the Department of Arts Administration and Policy at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago has integrated critique. Feedback from the first generations of students is assessed in this article.