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Art Terms

Find definitions of over 400 terms, including art movements, styles and techniques

Diaspora Surrealism Land art Photography Installation art Hyper-realism Photogram Collage Site-specific Feminist art Sound art Collective Modernism
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Donald Rodney, ‘In the House of My Father’ 1996–7

Diaspora

Diaspora is a term used to describe movements in population from one country to another and is often cited in discussions about identity
Salvador Dalí, ‘Metamorphosis of Narcissus’ 1937

Surrealism

A twentieth-century literary, philosophical and artistic movement that explored the workings of the mind, championing the irrational, the poetic and the revolutionary
Richard Long, ‘Sahara Circle’ 1988

Land art

Land art or earth art is art that is made directly in the landscape, sculpting the land itself into earthworks or making structures in the landscape using natural materials such as rocks or twigs
Francesca Woodman, ‘Space², Providence, Rhode Island’ 1976

Photography

Photography refers to the process or practice of creating a photograph – an image produced by the action of light on a light-sensitive material
Cornelia Parker, ‘Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View’ 1991

Installation art

The term installation art is used to describe large-scale, mixed-media constructions, often designed for a specific place or for a temporary period of time
Ron Mueck, ‘Spooning Couple’ 2005

Hyper-realism

The term hyper-realism appeared in the early 1970s to describe a resurgence of particularly high fidelity realism in sculpture and painting at that time
György Kepes, ‘Hand on Black Ground’ c.1939–40

Photogram

A photogram is a photographic print made by laying objects onto photographic paper and exposing it to light
Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, ‘Meet the People’ 1948

Collage

Collage describes both the technique and the resulting work of art in which pieces of paper, photographs, fabric and other ephemera are arranged and stuck down onto a supporting surface
Adam Chodzko, ‘Better Scenery’ 1999

Site-specific

The term site-specific refers to a work of art designed specifically for a particular location and that has an interrelationship with the location
Guerrilla Girls, ‘Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into the Met. Museum?’ 1989

Feminist art

Feminist art is art by artists made consciously in the light of developments in feminist art theory in the early 1970s
Gary Webb, ‘Sound of the Blue Light’ 2002

Sound art

Art which uses sound both as its medium (what it is made out of) and as its subject (what it is about)

Collective

Loosely defined, an art collective is a group of artists working together to achieve a common objective
Ben Nicholson OM, ‘1934 project for Massine for Beethoven 7th Symphony Ballet’ 1934

Modernism

Modernism refers to a global movement in society and culture that from the early decades of the twentieth century sought a new alignment with the experience and values of modern industrial life. Building on late nineteenth-century precedents, artists around the world used new imagery, materials and techniques to create artworks that they felt better reflected the realities and hopes of modern societies.

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  • Chris Ofili, ‘No Woman, No Cry’ 1998

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