CPAR G12 CLM5 Q1

CONTEMPORARY PHILIPPINE ARTS

FROM THE REGION

What I Need to Know

A person cannot create art without utilizing at least a few of its elements or principles. The
elements and principles of art are the foundation of language we use to talk about arts. Knowing
these enables us to describe and evaluate what an artist has created or what is going on in a
piece of art. It allows us to communicate our thoughts and findings using a common language.
Hence, this module shall help you understand the different elements or principles of arts that will
lead you to answer the following questions:
▪ What are the new elements or principles of today’s art?
▪ How do artistic elements or principles help artists create meaning in art?
▪ How can understanding elements and principles help us to understand art today?

Aligned with the curriculum, this module is focused on:

➢ Lesson 5 – Elements or Principles of Contemporary Art

After going through this module, you are expected to:

1. identify the elements and principles applied in an art form.

2. describe and evaluate different art forms.
3. create an artwork using any element or principle discussed in this module.
4. recognize the importance of understanding the elements and principles of an
art.

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 What I Know

PRE-TEST

Directions: Read each item carefully to identify what is asked. Choose the letter of your answer
and write it on a separate sheet of paper.

1. This refers to arts made and produced by artists living today.

a. abstract arts c. performing arts
b. digital arts d. contemporary arts
2. It represents how the artist uses the elements of art to create an effect and to help convey the
artist's intent.
a. elements c. style
b. principles d. technique
3. These are the visual tools that the artist uses to create a composition.
a. elements c. style
b. principles d. technique
4. Which of the following is a traditional element of art?
a. line c. hybridity
b. appropriation d. performance
5. Why do viewers of art need to understand the language of arts?
a. to fully appreciate what an artist creates
b. to determine which art has the highest market value
c. to help determine the authenticity of an artwork
d. to identify which artwork will be a big hit in the market
6. Which of the following are considered as the language of arts?
a. elements and principles c. line and color
b. style and technique d. style and principle
7. It is the practice of creating new work by taking a preexisting image from another source and
transforming or combining it with new ones.
a. space c. hybridity
b. appropriation d. performance
8. In some videos, you may see a part where there is slow motion in a particular part or scene.
Which element do you think is used?
a. time c. hybridity
b. space d. performance
9. It refers to art activities that are presented before a live audience and can combine music,
dance, poetry, theater, visual art, and video.
a. time c. hybridity
b. space d. performance

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10. William Shakespeare is well-known in literature and is considered by many to be the greatest
writer in the English language. A shirt that features him, and has a print like this, “SO LIT”
has an element and principle of ________.
a. space c. technology
b. hybridity d. appropriation
11. Group of students performing a flash mob and forming a Philippine flag to celebrate the
Independence Day uses an element and principle of ________.
a. space c. technology
b. hybridity d. appropriation
12. What element and principle is used when crayons are engraved meticulously to create
sculptures with different designs?
a. space c. technology
b. hybridity d. appropriation
13. It involves the use of video and Internet for livestreaming, video posting, sharing and even
recording performance.
a. space c. technology
b. hybridity d. performance
14. What element and principle of art is used by an International Filipino artist playing a dead
person at the Philippine International Art Festival?
a. space c. technology
b. hybridity d. performance
15. It refers to the use of unconventional materials to produce an artwork.
a. time c. hybridity
b. space d. performance

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 Elements or Principles of
5 Contemporary Arts

The elements and principles are considered as language for art. Artists uses the elements
and principles of arts to express themselves and create meaning in art.
Just like how we need to learn to read the words to understand a story, we also often need
to learn the language of art to understand a visual art, a performing art, or other forms of art. As
a student, and one of the viewers of art, this lesson will help you to fully appreciate what the artist
creates and wants to convey.

What’s In

TASK 1: ANALYZE AND CONFIRM

Directions: Read and analyze each statement about contemporary arts. Draw a check (/) if you
agree and an (x) if you disagree.

1. Originality is an issue in contemporary art.

2. Contemporary art uses principles of technology.
3. Contemporary art elements are text, time, and performance.
4. Anyone can express contemporary artwork through internet.
5. Contemporary Architectural art strictly uses geometric lines only.
6. Contemporary arts use combined materials and other objects found everywhere.
7. Contemporary art principles are hybridity, appropriation, space or perspective, technology.
8. Elements and principles of contemporary art serves as its the language for us to
understand it.
9. Contemporary art is not only confined in museums but can also be found in schools,
streets, or public places.
10. Contemporary art is a work of an artist from 19 th century up to the present time which
brings about life, ideas, beliefs, and other things that tackles social issues and define
human life.

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 What’s New

Many artists today often go beyond the traditional elements and principles in their work.
The next activity will help you reveal some of these new concepts and approaches used by the
contemporary artists in art creation.

TASK 2: NAME IT!

Directions: Name some of the elements and principles of contemporary arts. Unscramble the
letters in column 2 using the symbols in column 1 as your clue. Write your answer in the third
column.

Symbol Scrambled Letters Elements or Principles of

Contemporary Arts

NOITAIRPORPPA

MITE

CEMANROFPER

ITYDIRBYH

ACESP

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TASK 3: GUESS WHAT?! IT’S AN ART!
Directions: Classify the following artworks based on its form. Then, evaluate each based on the
elements and principles that you believe is/are used in creating such art. Choose from the options
below. Note: There could be more than one element and principle that is applied in each artwork
and you are tasked to give at least one.

Art Forms: Dance, Music, Painting, Sculpture, Theater, Film

Elements and Principles: Appropriation, Hybridity, Performance, Space, Time

No. Artwork Form of Art Elements or Principles

Applied

1.

Sunrise & Sunset

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQkqavvta7I

2.

3.

4.

5.

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 What is It

Elements and Principles of Today's Art

Traditionally, the elements and principles of art—including line, shape, color, and texture—
are the visual building blocks of art and design used by Western artists to express ideas or
emotions in art. In addition to learning how to use paint or carve stone, artists learn how to work
with these elements by applying principles such as balance, repetition, harmony, and symmetry.
In their efforts to create meaning in today’s world, contemporary artists frequently go beyond
these elements and principles in their work using new concepts and approaches.

For much contemporary art or art being made today, the content or meaning is more
important than the materials or forms used to make it. Contemporary artists seem to be more
interested in engaging viewers conceptually through ideas and issues. The traditional elements
of art, while still present at times, are often not adequate to understanding the meaning of
contemporary art. Hence, it seems necessary to create new elements of art—or new meanings
for the traditional terms—to understand much of the art of today.

These new concepts are not entirely unique to all contemporary artworks, but still,
understanding and examining these terms and ideas can provide us with tools to understand the
art that is being made today.

Elements and Principles of Contemporary Arts

➢ Elements of Arts are the visual tools that the artist uses to create a composition.
➢ Principles of Arts represents how the artist uses the elements of art to create an effect
and to help convey the artist's intent.

1. Appropriation
Have you ever copied an image from a photograph, advertisement, or other source?
When it is OK to do this? When is it not OK?

We live in a culture that overflows with images and objects. From television to the Internet,
from the mall to the junkyard, we are surrounded by words, images, and objects that are cheap,
or free and throwaway. It is not surprising that artists today incorporate this stuff into their creative
expression. This is also the reason why the concepts of originality and of authorship are central
to the debate of appropriation in contemporary art.

To appropriate is to borrow. Appropriation is the practice of creating new work by

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taking a preexisting image from another source—art history books, advertisements, the media—
and transforming or combining it with new ones. The three-dimensional version of appropriation
is the use of found objects in art. A found object is an existing object—often a mundane
manufactured product—given a new identity as an artwork or part of an artwork. In art that uses
appropriation, there are two questions can be explored:

1. What is the source of the image or object that has been appropriated? Why has the artist
chosen this source for images?
Some common sources of appropriated images are works of art from the distant or recent past,
historical documents, media (film and television), or consumer culture (advertisements or
products). Sometimes the source is unknown, but it may have personal associations for the artist.
2. What does the artist do with the appropriated image?
Appropriated imagery can be photographically or digitally reproduced, copied by mechanical
means such as an overhead projector, attached directly onto an artwork, or re-created in a number
of ways. The result can be a deadpan representation or a startling transformation. Artists
sometimes re-create an object or repaint it, altering its scale or style to create new meaning.
Artists can also juxtapose different images or objects, layer them with other images, break them
into fragments, or recontextualize (glossary) them, which means to redefine images or objects by
a placing them in a new context.
Below is a contemporary example of appropriation, a painting which borrows its narrative
and composition from the infamous Les Demoiselles d’Avignon by Picasso.

Left: Robert Colesscott, Les Demoiselles d’Alabama, 1985 / Right: Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907

Source: http://www.northeastern.edu/experimentalgamedesign/?p=1531
Here, Colesscott has developed Picasso’s abstraction and ‘Africanism’ in line with
European influences. Colescott has made this famous image his own, in terms of color and
content, while still making his inspiration clear. The historical reference to Picasso is there, but
this is undeniably the artist’s own work.

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2. Time
How do you know when time has passed? Do you wear a watch? Keep a calendar?
Read the daily news? How much of your daily activities are determined by time? When
does time go fast for you? When does time seem to pass slowly?
Time occupies an important, but invisible, place in human culture. It controls our daily
activity and inspires imaginative scenarios in science fiction. New global technologies such as
satellite TV, cell phones, and the Internet have transformed our conception of time and made the
instantaneous experience of time across distances commonplace. It is not surprising that it has
become a key element in the work of many artists today.

It is not new for artists to choose a specific moment in time for the content of their work. History
paintings documenting important events were considered among the most significant subjects for
artists to explore. Contemporary artists bring the element of time into their work in many different
ways. A specific moment in time can be the subject of an artwork, but artists today can also
manipulate how that moment is experienced. They can choose historically charged moments or
focus on mundane, even boring ones. Some contemporary artists make time their subject matter
by systematically noting its passage . Others employ media such as film and video, which require
us to invest time in order to fully experience it. These media also allow artists to manipulate time—
slow motion, fast forward, rewind, repeat—as an expressive element.

Matt Molloy: stacking time | The Photo Impressionism Project

Source: https://photoimpressionism.ca/2014/04/12/matt-molloy-stacking-time/
See link for additional example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZVdQLn_E5w / Blooming Flowers

3. Performance
What does it mean to perform? What is a performance? Where can performances
happen?

The contemporary artists work with the idea of performance in two ways:
Performance art refers to art activities that are presented before a live audience and can
combine music, dance, poetry, theater, visual art, and video. Whether public, private, or

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videotaped, performance art often involves the artist performing an action that may be planned
and scripted, or may emphasize spontaneous, unpredictable elements of chance. Different types
of performance art have evolved from simple, often private investigations of ordinary routines of
everyday life, rituals, and tests of endurance to larger-scale site-specific environments and public
projects, multimedia productions, and autobiographical cabaret-style solo work.
Left: Shirage Kasuo painting with his feet at the 2nd Gutai Art Exhibition held at the Ohara Kaihan hall, Tokoyo, October 1956.
Right: Kalayaan Festival Street Dancing

Source: http://mariejelly.blogspot.com/2017/07/contemporary-philippine-arts.html

Performative art describes artists’ explorations of the processes, motions, and actions they use
to create art. These acts are often more important to the artists’ practice than the finished art
objects. Some artists transform their bodies into paintbrushes or musical instruments or raw
materials for a finished product. Others create public or private performances, rituals, or
multimedia events in which an artwork is the documentation or by-product.

4. Space
What are different meanings of the term “space”? How is space used in sculpture?
How is space depicted in painting? How is space in art different from space in life?

In traditional drawing or painting, artists have often been concerned with creating the
illusion of space or depth upon a flat surface. They use the effects of one-point perspective and/or
light and shadow to create this illusion—or they may purposely distort these elements to make
abstractions, as in the Cubist style. In traditional sculpture, space is discussed in terms of positive
and negative space.

Many contemporary artists work with space by focusing on real space—the dimensions of a room,
the spaces we move through in the city or in the natural world, even the limitless spaces of the
sky or the virtual space of the Internet. They work with fine-art or industrial materials—from wood
and stone to steel and plastics—to frame space or install a work to fill a space. Materials such as
electric light, film, video, or digital media can also transform, document, or create spaces. Viewers
can be surrounded by art or are led to a focused experience or perception of a real space. When

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an artist creates a work for a room or specific space, it is called installation art. Most installations
are temporary and sometimes engage multiple senses such as sight, smell and hearing.

Source (Left): https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/whats-on/film-news/seven-best-flashmobs-hit-birmingham-9858253

5. Hybridity
In science, a hybrid is created by mixing the characteristic of two different species in
order to create one that is better or stronger. In an automobile, a hybrid combines an electric
motor with a gasoline engine. What are some plants or animals that are hybrids?
How could this idea transfer when we use the term hybridity to describe contemporary
art?
Material Hybridity/Blurring the Boundaries
What do artists use to make art? For artists today, the choice of materials and media for
creating art is wide open. Some artists continue to use traditional media such as paint, clay, or
bronze, but others have selected new or unusual materials for their art, such as industrial or
recycled materials, and newer technologies such as photography, video, or digital media offer
artists even more ways to express themselves. Many artists working today incorporates more
than material or technique in ways that create hybrid art forms. Combinations of still image,
moving image, sound, digital media, and found objects can create new hybrid art forms that are
beyond what traditional artists have ever imagined.

Artists today are comfortable using whatever seems best to fully investigate and
express their ideas or concepts and often move among different media and techniques to
express new things in their work. One approach to understanding art today involves identifying
what media and materials the artists chose and considering why they chose to work with them.

Source: http://schools.walkerart.org/arttoday/index.wac?id=2377

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 What’s More

TASK 4: ART CRITIC 1

Directions: Observe and read the information about the artwork then answer the following guide
questions.

1. APPROPRIATION

Faber - Castell 'The Scream'

Faber - Castell is a famous company that sells colour
pencil for line artists. They created this artwork to
promote their colour pencils. Different part is this 'The
Scream' is created by only using colour pencils that they
sell.
Left: Faber Castell (TheScream)
Right: Edvard Munch (The Scream)

Source: https://padlet.com/rachkirby/Appropriation/wish/47589040

Guide Questions:
a. What is the source of the image or object that has been appropriated? Why has the artist
chosen this source for images?
b. What does the artist do with the appropriated image?

2. TIME
Melting Men: Néle Azevedo
Brazilian artist Néle Azevedo carved thousands of
figures out of ice. She placed them on city steps and left
them in the sun to melt. Although the work was originally
created for a different purpose, Azevedo embraced the
fact that people also saw it as a comment on the issue of
global warming and the melting of the polar ice caps over
the coming years. Without the use of time, and a little
help from the sun,
the piece would not have been so powerful.
Source: https://theartofeducation.edu/2014/04/18/new-ideas-in-art-time-as-an-element/

Guide Questions:
a. What is the subject matter of the artist in this artwork?
b. How did the element of time helped the artwork gain more power and impact to the viewers?

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3. PERFORMANCE
Our Islands, 11°16`58.4” 123°45`07.0”E by Martha Atienza
Video link: https://vimeo.com/240157040
Our Islands, 11°16`58.4” 123°45`07.0” E., shows a traditional Catholic procession from the
Philippines under water. “They are fighting underwater. It shows survival. As they push through
the currents, they themselves destroy what they live off from,” says Atienza. The Ati-Atihan under
the sea sends across a most fundamental message to the fishermen who they themselves took
part in—that life can be the same from above as below, that our rituals resonate throughout parts
where we also tread for our sustenance. And that both sacred and the necessary should attain a
kind of balance.

Guide Questions:
a. How did the artist work with the idea of performance? Is it through performance art or
performative art? Explain.
b. What issue does the artist wants to address through her art?

4. HYBRIDITY
The Mountain is Coming', Palais de Tokyo, Paris 2016
© Patricia Perez Eustaquio / Silverlens Gallery
Eustaquio is an artist who works in various mediums,
experimenting with different materials through installation,
drawing, and painting. Her sculptures are fashioned from
fabric, covering objects with resin-treated silk or crochet.
The object is then removed, to allow the fabric to retain its
position, folds and drapes. Her work examines the ideas of
perception and memory. In 2016, this site-specific
installation was featured in the Palais de Tokyo in Paris.
Source: https://theculturetrip.com/asia/philippines/articles/top-10-filipino-contemporary-artists-where-to-find-them/

Guide Questions:
a. What does artist use to make her art?
b. What idea does the artist want to express through her art?

5. SPACE
Leeroy New's art installation at the Paoay Sand Dunes in time-lapse
Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pygovHxMtak#action=share
This link will lead you to a timelapse video showing 12 days of work (April 20 to May 1, 2012) at
Leeroy New's art installation at the sand dunes of Paoay, Ilocos Norte. It is a large-scale public
art that uses common objects and materials found in everyday environments.

Guide Questions:
a. What materials are used in creating the installation art?
b. How is the space used in the installation art?

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TASK 5: ART CRITIC 2
Directions: Each of the artworks below includes some element or principle of contemporary art.
Look at them closely and evaluate them. Be guided by the questions listed below.

ARTWORK GUIDE QUESTIONS EVALUATION

Source:
https://www.zazzle.com/jose+rizal+clothing
a. What element or principle is
applied in the artwork?
b. What elements of this work
are appropriated?
c. Can you identify the source
of the appropriated image
or object?
d. What did the artist do to it to
create this artwork?
e. What do you think the artist
was trying to express in this
artwork?
f. How does the source
and/or the transformation of
the appropriated image or
object help create the
meaning of this artwork?
a. What element or principle
is/are applied in the
artwork?
b. What is the subject of this
artwork?
c. Can you identify the source
of the image formed?
d. What do you think the artist
was trying to express in this
artwork?
e. How does the source
and/or the material used
help create the meaning of
this artwork?

Source:https://time.com/91593/crayola-
crayon-sculptures/

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 What I Can Do

Task 6: Time Titles Activity

Directions: Using iMovie or a similar program, a video camera, or photography, create a still
or moving image artwork that utilizes the idea of time.

• Select a phrase from the list below as the title for your piece. Your work may either interpret
this phrase literally or metaphorically. Your piece should manipulate time in some way (speed it
up, slow it down, change the order of time, etc.)

Time Flies Time to Spare Playtime

Time Is Money Downtime Time on Your Hands
Just in Time Your Time Is Up From Time to Time

• Once the piece is complete, write an artist’s statement that answers the following guide
questions:
1. Why did you select your title?
2. How did you interpret this phrase?
3. How does your piece manipulate time?
4. What message or idea about time does your piece express?

Source: http://schools.walkerart.org/arttoday/index.wac?id=2382

What I Have Learned

TASK 7: MIND MAP

Directions: Fill the map with the important concepts that you have learned about the elements
or principles of contemporary artwork. You may use a word or group of words to express your
idea.

Additional Activities

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References
https://wifd.in/coffee_painting; https://ph.asiatatler.com/life/martha-atienza-takes-home-the-
baloise-art-prize
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQkqavvta7I
http://www.northeastern.edu/experimentalgamedesign/?p=1531
https://photoimpressionism.ca/2014/04/12/matt-molloy-stacking-time/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZVdQLn_E5w
http://mariejelly.blogspot.com/2017/07/contemporary-philippine-arts.html
http://mariejelly.blogspot.com/2017/07/contemporary-philippine-arts.html
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/whats-on/film-news/seven-best-flashmobs-hit-birmingham-
9858253
http://schools.walkerart.org/arttoday/index.wac?id=2377
https://padlet.com/rachkirby/Appropriation/wish/47589040
https://theartofeducation.edu/2014/04/18/new-ideas-in-art-time-as-an-element/
https://vimeo.com/240157040
https://ph.asiatatler.com/life/martha-atienza-takes-home-the-baloise-art-prize
https://theculturetrip.com/asia/philippines/articles/top-10-filipino-contemporary-artists-where-to-
find-them/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pygovHxMtak#action=share
https://www.zazzle.com/jose+rizal+clothing; https://time.com/91593/crayola-crayon-sculptures/
http://schools.walkerart.org/arttoday/index.wac?id=2382
http://schools.walkerart.org/arttoday/index.wac?id=2378

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