Browsing by Author "Rodriguez (Haarlammert), Miryam"

This thesis demonstrates how the semiotic framework, with an emphasis on cultural context, can be applied to selected visual works of art by contemporary Cuban artists Abel Barroso, Lázaro Saavedra, Fernando Rodríguez, and Sandra Ramos in order to broaden the understanding of Cuban art and culture. The semiotic framework and cultural approach are both interdisciplinary methods that enliven the discussion of two key aspects of contemporary Cuban art and culture—humor and narrative. Humor does not generally enter the realm of art criticism, but is an important part of Cuban society, which operates in daily life through language and images. Understanding Cuban humor, choteo, enables an insightful interpretation of the signs and symbols present in visual art. Narratives likewise characterize daily interactions. Telling jokes and sharing stories are common ways of relating with others within the Cuban community. In this thesis, an artwork is a collection of signs, which refer to customs and symbols outside of itself, for viewers to interpret. By combining and investigating aspects of contemporary Cuban visual art that are not discussed at length because humor is generally outside the scope of art criticism and narrative has generally been applied to literary analyses or comic arts, this thesis encourages the disruption of utilizing historically prescribed methodologies. Though the artists’ intentions will be addressed, semiotics is ‘reader oriented.’ Emphasizing how audiences process signs and how they interpret them to create meaning will be the focuses of the analysis. Key concepts include sign competence, cultural context, Peirce’s definitions of sign and symbol, visual narrative, and choteo. Examples of key questions to keep in mind are: How can or does the audience’s interpretation of an artwork change in relation to location or time? How do signs come to be interpreted as humorous or as narrative? These types of questions give attention to the process of seeing art and of deriving meaning from it.