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A Performance-Theory Revisit of the Conflict Scene at the Ventershoek (2927CA1) Rock Art Site
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Rock Art and Social Memory in the Deseado Massif: An Approach from the Study of Superimpositions in Cueva 2, Los Toldos, Santa Cruz Province, Argentina
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Framing the Calendar of the Sacramentary of Messina (BNE, Ms. 52): Patronage and Byzantine Topics in Late 12th-Century Sicilian Art
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Outside the Palaces: About Material Culture in the Almoravid Era
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Mexico, Myth, Politics, Pollock: The Birth of an American Art
Journal Description
Arts
Arts
is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal promoting significant research on all aspects of the visual and performing arts, published bimonthly online by MDPI.
- Open Access— free for readers, with article processing charges (APC) paid by authors or their institutions.
- High Visibility: indexed within ESCI (Web of Science), and other databases.
- Rapid Publication: manuscripts are peer-reviewed and a first decision is provided to authors approximately 37.3 days after submission; acceptance to publication is undertaken in 6.8 days (median values for papers published in this journal in the first half of 2025).
- Recognition of Reviewers: reviewers who provide timely, thorough peer-review reports receive vouchers entitling them to a discount on the APC of their next publication in any MDPI journal, in appreciation of the work done.
Impact Factor:
0.3 (2024)
Latest Articles
From Painting to Cinema: Archetypes of the European Woman as a Cultural Mediator in the Western genre
Arts 2025, 14(4), 83; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040083 - 23 Jul 2025
Abstract
The Western genre has traditionally been associated with American identity and male-dominated narratives. However, recent decades have seen increasing attention to female protagonists, particularly the European woman as a cultural mediator within the frontier context. This study aims to identify the archetypes of
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The Western genre has traditionally been associated with American identity and male-dominated narratives. However, recent decades have seen increasing attention to female protagonists, particularly the European woman as a cultural mediator within the frontier context. This study aims to identify the archetypes of the European woman in the Western genre through a diachronic and comparative analysis of the visual language found in European painting from the late 17th to early 19th centuries and in 20th–21st century cinema. The research methodology combines narrative, visual, and semiotic analysis, with a focus on intermedial and intertextual parallels between visual art and film. The study identifies nine archetypal models corresponding to goddesses of the Greek pantheon and traces their transformation across different aesthetic systems. These archetypes, rooted in artistic traditions such as Baroque, Classicism, Romanticism, and others, reappear in Western films through compositional, symbolic, and iconographic strategies, demonstrating their persistence and ability to transcend temporal, medial, and geographical boundaries. The findings suggest that the woman in the Western genre is not merely a central character, but a visual sign that activates cultural memory and engages with deep archetypal structures embedded in the collective unconscious.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue What is ‘Art’ Cinema?)
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Ancient Earth Births: Compelling Convergences of Geology, Orality, and Rock Art in California and the Great Basin
by
Alex K. Ruuska
Arts 2025, 14(4), 82; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040082 - 22 Jul 2025
Abstract
This article critically considers sample multigenerational oral traditions of Numic-speaking communities known as the Nüümü (Northern Paiute), Nuwu (Southern Paiute), and Newe (Western Shoshone), written down over the last 151 years. Utilizing the GOAT! phenomenological method to compare the onto-epistemologies of Numic peoples
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This article critically considers sample multigenerational oral traditions of Numic-speaking communities known as the Nüümü (Northern Paiute), Nuwu (Southern Paiute), and Newe (Western Shoshone), written down over the last 151 years. Utilizing the GOAT! phenomenological method to compare the onto-epistemologies of Numic peoples with a wide range of data from (G)eology, (O)ral traditions, (A)rchaeology and (A)nthropology, and (T)raditional knowledge, the author analyzed 824 multigenerational ancestral teachings. These descriptions encode multigenerational memories of potential geological, climatic, and ecological observations and interpretations of multiple locations and earth processes throughout the Numic Aboriginal homelands within California and the Great Basin. Through this layered and comparative analysis, the author identified potential convergences of oral traditions, ethnography, ethnohistory, rock art, and geological processes in the regions of California, the Great Basin, and the Colorado Plateau, indicative of large-scale earth changes, cognized by Numic Indigenous communities as earth birthing events, occurring during the Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene to Middle and Late Holocene, including the Late Dry Period, Medieval Climatic Anomaly, and Little Ice Age.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Rock Art Studies)
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Territorial Ambiguities and Hesitant Identity: A Critical Reading of the Fishing Neighbourhood of Paramos Through Photography
by
Jorge Marum and Maria Neto
Arts 2025, 14(4), 81; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040081 - 22 Jul 2025
Abstract
This article offers a critical reading of the fishing neighbourhood of Paramos, located on the northern coast of Portugal, through a methodological approach that combines documentary photography and cognitive cartography. The study investigates the relationships between identity, landscape, and power within a territory
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This article offers a critical reading of the fishing neighbourhood of Paramos, located on the northern coast of Portugal, through a methodological approach that combines documentary photography and cognitive cartography. The study investigates the relationships between identity, landscape, and power within a territory marked by spatial fragmentation, symbolic exclusion, and functional indeterminacy. By means of a structured visual essay supported by field observation and interpretive maps, Paramos is examined as a liminal urban enclave whose ambiguities reveal tensions between memory, informal appropriation, and control devices. Drawing on authors such as Lefebvre, Augé, Hayden, Domingues, Foucault, and Latour, the article argues that the photographic image, used as a critical tool, can unveil hidden territorial logics and contribute to a more inclusive and situated spatial discourse.
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(This article belongs to the Section Visual Arts)
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The Buades Gallery: A Tube of Oil Paint Open to the World Mercedes Buades and Her Support for Spanish Conceptualism, 1973–1978
by
Sergio Rodríguez Beltrán
Arts 2025, 14(4), 80; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040080 - 21 Jul 2025
Abstract
The Buades Gallery (1973–2003) was not merely a commercial space in Madrid. In the history of art in Spain, it served as a professional and political node for Spanish conceptualism, an art form which, due to its idiosyncrasies, required its own channels of
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The Buades Gallery (1973–2003) was not merely a commercial space in Madrid. In the history of art in Spain, it served as a professional and political node for Spanish conceptualism, an art form which, due to its idiosyncrasies, required its own channels of distribution. This article seeks to examine the trajectory of Mercedes Buades in alignment with this movement, re-evaluating her role from a feminist perspective and highlighting the importance of certain agents who have traditionally been invisibilised. To this end, a theoretical approach is adopted, following the sociology of art and the social history of art, paying particular attention to the contributions of Enrico Castelnuovo, Pierre Bourdieu and Núria Peist. These frameworks enable an analysis of the role of the gallerist as a structuring agent within the artistic field, capable of generating symbolic capital and establishing dynamics of production, circulation and consumption in the context of post-Franco Spain, a country that lacked a consolidated museum infrastructure at the time. Even so, Mercedes Buades established a model of gallery practice that, beyond its commercial dimension, contributed decisively to the symbolic configuration of contemporary art in Spain and formed part of a network of artistic visibility that promoted experimental art.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Active Women in the Art Market: 1950–2020. Mapping Gallerists, Collectors, Maecenas, Auctioneers, Curators in Emerging Markets)
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Difficulties of Difference
by
Rachel Cecília de Oliveira
Arts 2025, 14(4), 79; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040079 - 21 Jul 2025
Abstract
This article examines the persistent conceptual and structural obstacles that pluralism faces within the Euro-American art system, particularly in the fields of criticism, art history, and aesthetics. The study situates its inquiry within broader debates around the politics of difference and the decolonization
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This article examines the persistent conceptual and structural obstacles that pluralism faces within the Euro-American art system, particularly in the fields of criticism, art history, and aesthetics. The study situates its inquiry within broader debates around the politics of difference and the decolonization of knowledge, aiming to understand how theoretical frameworks historically incorporated plurality in ways that ultimately neutralize its disruptive potential. Methodologically, the article combines philosophical analysis with a critical rereading of canonical texts by figures such as Clement Greenberg and Arthur Danto, juxtaposed with insights from Indigenous, Black, and decolonial thinkers. The findings suggest that pluralism, while rhetorically embraced, is frequently rendered compatible with a teleological and universalizing narrative that privileges Western aesthetic trajectories. As a result, forms of difference are tolerated only insofar as they can be translated into hegemonic terms. The article concludes by advocating for critical practices that sustain rather than resolve difference, calling for frameworks capable of embracing dissonance, incommensurability, and multiple ontologies without collapsing them into sameness. In doing so, it repositions the contemporary struggle over meaning in art not as a problem to be overcome, but as a necessary symptom of epistemic plurality.
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(This article belongs to the Section Visual Arts)
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Conversations with the Ancestors: Pursuing an Understanding of Klamath Basin Rock Art Through the Use of Myth, the Ethnographic Record, and Local Artistic Conventions
by
Robert James David
Arts 2025, 14(4), 78; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040078 - 17 Jul 2025
Abstract
Past archaeological practices have resulted in a distorted history of Native American cultures based upon western-biased research. This has been especially apparent in the rock art of the Klamath Basin in southern Oregon and northern California. In response to this, Native and non-Native
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Past archaeological practices have resulted in a distorted history of Native American cultures based upon western-biased research. This has been especially apparent in the rock art of the Klamath Basin in southern Oregon and northern California. In response to this, Native and non-Native scholars are striving to develop a counter-discourse that both challenges and replaces western constructs in research on Native American communities. The result of this approach is a growing trend within the discipline that has come to be called “Indigenous Archaeology.” Critical to this approach is that Native voices are transported from the margins of the research to its center, where they are intended to replace the Western colonialist narrative. Unfortunately, Native American tribal communities have been the targets of federal assimilation policies for the past few centuries, and as a result, much of their cultural knowledge unwittingly carries forward this distorted past. In this paper I explore a framework built upon ethnographic accounts of shamanism and rock art, along with a robust familiarity with local myth, and how this provides a foundation of traditional cultural knowledge against which to compare and evaluate the interpretive statements made in contemporary tribal members about rock art and other sacred material culture.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Rock Art Studies)
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Mural Painting Across Eras: From Prehistoric Caves to Contemporary Street Art
by
Anna Maria Martyka, Agata Rościecha-Kanownik and Ignacio Fernández Torres
Arts 2025, 14(4), 77; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040077 - 16 Jul 2025
Abstract
This article traces the historical evolution of mural painting as a medium of cultural expression from prehistoric cave art to contemporary street interventions. Adopting a diachronic and interdisciplinary approach, it investigates how muralism has developed across civilizations in relation to techniques, symbolic systems,
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This article traces the historical evolution of mural painting as a medium of cultural expression from prehistoric cave art to contemporary street interventions. Adopting a diachronic and interdisciplinary approach, it investigates how muralism has developed across civilizations in relation to techniques, symbolic systems, social function, and its embeddedness in architectural and urban contexts. The analysis is structured around key historical periods using emblematic case studies to examine the interplay between materiality, iconography, and socio-political meaning. From sacred enclosures and civic monuments to post-industrial walls and digital projections, murals reflect shifting cultural paradigms and spatial dynamics. This study emphasizes how mural painting, once integrated into sacred and imperial architecture, has become a tool for public participation, protests, and urban storytelling. Particular attention is paid to the evolving relationship between wall painting and the spaces it inhabits, highlighting the transition from permanence to ephemerality and from monumentality to immediacy. This article contributes to mural studies by offering a comprehensive framework for understanding the technical and symbolic transformations of the medium while proposing new directions for research in the context of digital urbanism and cultural memory.
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(This article belongs to the Section Applied Arts)
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An Analysis of Audio Information Streaming in Georg Philipp Telemann’s Sonata in C Major for Recorder and Basso Continuo, Allegro (TWV 41:C2)
by
Adam Rosiński
Arts 2025, 14(4), 76; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040076 - 14 Jul 2025
Abstract
This paper presents an analysis of G. P. Telemann’s Sonata in C Major for Recorder and Basso Continuo (TWV 41:C2, Allegro), with the aim of investigating the occurrence of perceptual streams. The presence of perceptual streams in musical works helps to organise
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This paper presents an analysis of G. P. Telemann’s Sonata in C Major for Recorder and Basso Continuo (TWV 41:C2, Allegro), with the aim of investigating the occurrence of perceptual streams. The presence of perceptual streams in musical works helps to organise the sound stimuli received by the listener in a specific manner. This enables each listener to perceive the piece in an individual and distinctive manner, granting primacy to selected sounds over others. Directing the listener’s attention to particular elements of the auditory image leads to the formation of specific mental representations. This, in turn, results in distinctive interpretations of the acoustic stimuli. All of these processes are explored and illustrated in this analysis.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sound, Space, and Creativity in Performing Arts)
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Кoнец фильма: Ruins, Remnants, and Remains of the USSR Army in Borne Sulinowo as an Inspiration for Performance Artists
by
Małgorzata Kaźmierczak
Arts 2025, 14(4), 75; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040075 - 11 Jul 2025
Abstract
This article analyzes the significance of the ruins and remnants of the Soviet Army in Borne Sulinowo, a former secret Soviet military base in Western Pomerania (Poland), as a source of inspiration for performance artists. This study draws from a variety of theoretical
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This article analyzes the significance of the ruins and remnants of the Soviet Army in Borne Sulinowo, a former secret Soviet military base in Western Pomerania (Poland), as a source of inspiration for performance artists. This study draws from a variety of theoretical frameworks, including performance art theory, new materialism, and the thing theory. Additionally, it draws from the ideas of Carl Lavery, Richard Gough, Ann Laura Stoler, and Georg Simmel. This text delves into the notion that the transient character of performance art mirrors the fleeting nature of power, particularly in the context of the dissolution of the Soviet regime. Following the Polish reacquisition of the site in the early 1990s, artists such as Władysław Kaźmierczak and Brian Connolly transformed found objects and the decaying environment into performance art. This article analyzes performances such as Kaźmierczak’s кoнец фильма (The End of the Movie) and Connolly’s Frieze Frame. It discusses how these works captured the emotional and intellectual responses to the remnants of military occupation. The performances demonstrate the interplay between decay, memory, and historical consciousness, employing the ruins as a medium for reflecting on the collapse of Soviet influence in Poland and the shifting geopolitical landscape.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Contemporary Visual Culture in Conflict Zones and Contested Territories)
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Spinners as Signifiers: Eve, Mary, Sardanapalus, and Hercules
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Carlee A. Bradbury
Arts 2025, 14(4), 74; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040074 - 10 Jul 2025
Abstract
Analyzing how spinners are represented in art is a way to understand the role of women’s work in the medieval and premodern periods. What do spinners signify? How is this work depicted? Who are spinners? Using a selection of imagery from northern European
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Analyzing how spinners are represented in art is a way to understand the role of women’s work in the medieval and premodern periods. What do spinners signify? How is this work depicted? Who are spinners? Using a selection of imagery from northern European medieval manuscripts and premodern prints from the 14th to the 17th centuries allows us to see how pervasive the spinner was as a symbolic device. Characters such as Eve, Mary, Sardanapalus, and Hercules are unified by their spinning. As they work with the spindle and distaff, they are makers in addition to being religious or mythological figures. Though spinning does not always (if at all) appear in their textual narratives, it is part of the established iconography for each and persisted as a way to communicate or demean the value of women’s domestic enterprises.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Early Modern Global Materials, Materiality, and Material Culture)
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The American Centaur: The Afterlives of a Modern Myth
by
Tom Peotto
Arts 2025, 14(4), 73; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040073 - 30 Jun 2025
Abstract
Sixteenth-century Spanish accounts of the invasions of the Americas claimed that Indigenous peoples found horseback riding so shocking that they mistook cavalry for centaurs. Drawing a one-to-one connection between sixteenth-century Mesoamericans and ancient Europeans, a nineteenth-century historian claimed that this must have happened
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Sixteenth-century Spanish accounts of the invasions of the Americas claimed that Indigenous peoples found horseback riding so shocking that they mistook cavalry for centaurs. Drawing a one-to-one connection between sixteenth-century Mesoamericans and ancient Europeans, a nineteenth-century historian claimed that this must have happened in ancient Greece also, inspiring the centaur myth in the first place. A closer examination of Classical textual and archaeological sources and of the ethnohistory of the contact-era Americas shows this to be wishful thinking by Iberian writers desirous to believe that awestruck American societies saw them as gods or monsters. However, a closer examination of the centaur myth and the responses by contact-era American societies to horses reveals a more complicated reality behind a simple mythology of conquest.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Artistic Imagination and Social Imaginaries–Polysemous Readings of Historical Travelling Accounts)
Open AccessArticle
Audiovisual Inclusivity: Configuration and Structure of LGBTQIA+ Production on Streaming Platforms in Spain
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Julio Moreno-Díaz, Nerea Cuenca-Orellana and Natalia Martínez-Pérez
Arts 2025, 14(4), 72; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040072 - 26 Jun 2025
Abstract
This study presents an exhaustive analysis of LGBTQIA+ audiovisual production available on the main streaming platforms in Spain, covering both Spanish and international content. Using a sample of 1490 works from ten video-on-demand services (Apple TV+, Disney+, Filmin, FlixOlé, Max, Movistar Plus+, Netflix,
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This study presents an exhaustive analysis of LGBTQIA+ audiovisual production available on the main streaming platforms in Spain, covering both Spanish and international content. Using a sample of 1490 works from ten video-on-demand services (Apple TV+, Disney+, Filmin, FlixOlé, Max, Movistar Plus+, Netflix, Prime Video, Rakuten, and SkyShowtime), this study examines how the offered catalogues are configured and structured in response to the commercial dynamics of the LGBTQIA+ production market. Using quantitative methodology, the research addresses the industrial production models, the agents involved and the characteristics of the most widely offered narrative genres and formats, highlighting distribution patterns and visibility in the catalogues. The findings include a marked international abundance, a reflection of the global market guidelines and the hegemony of narratives aimed at transnational audiences. National productions, although less numerous, are a significant contribution to the audiovisual landscape, incorporating cultural identities with an LGBTQIA+ representation that is more aligned with local realities. The central role of independent producers is observed in production models where international agreements are outlined as a key strategy. In addition, it highlights the prevalence of genres such as drama and comedy, together with that of the film format. The visibility and representation of sexual and gender diversity indicates a positive commercial response, although with considerable challenges.
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(This article belongs to the Section Film and New Media)
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Producing Feminist Discourses in the Debris of Destruction: Maria Kulikovska’s Response to War in Let Me Say: It’s Not Forgotten
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Kalyna Somchynsky
Arts 2025, 14(4), 71; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040071 - 26 Jun 2025
Abstract
The Ukrainian–Crimean artist Maria Kulikovska’s artistic practice has addressed war in Ukraine since the Annexation of Crimea and outbreak of war in the Donbas regions of Ukraine in 2014. In 2019 she created the video-performance Let Me Say: It Will Not Be Forgotten
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The Ukrainian–Crimean artist Maria Kulikovska’s artistic practice has addressed war in Ukraine since the Annexation of Crimea and outbreak of war in the Donbas regions of Ukraine in 2014. In 2019 she created the video-performance Let Me Say: It Will Not Be Forgotten that responds to the ways artworks and women’s bodies are targeted by derisive retaliation and physical attacks during periods of political instability. Informed by explorations of feminism in post-Soviet countries, theories of prosthetic memory, and destruction art of the 1960s, I argue that Kulikovska does not let the destruction of her artwork silence her, but, rather, she uses destruction as a strategy to take control of oppressive forces. In their place, I argue that Let Me Say: It’s Not Forgotten demonstrates subjective and complex ways of building resilient feminist presents and futures that overcome oppressive violence and testify to continual perseverance.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ukraine Under Fire: The Visual Arts in Ukraine and Abroad Since 2014)
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What Does Street Art in Florence, Depicting Women, Aim to Convey to Its Residents and Tourists?
by
Aleksander Cywiński and Michał Parchimowicz
Arts 2025, 14(4), 70; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040070 - 25 Jun 2025
Abstract
The article analyzes the meanings embedded in street art in Florence that portrays women, likely created by female artists. Between 18 May and 27 May 2024, during the Communities and Artistic Participation in Hybrid Environment (CAPHE) project, we observed a significant number of
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The article analyzes the meanings embedded in street art in Florence that portrays women, likely created by female artists. Between 18 May and 27 May 2024, during the Communities and Artistic Participation in Hybrid Environment (CAPHE) project, we observed a significant number of feminist street art pieces in Florence’s historic center. Using qualitative content analysis based on Gillian Rose’s methodology (2016), we interpreted the collected visual materials through semiotic and socio-cultural lenses. The findings revealed the deliberately interventionist nature of the analyzed works, addressing themes such as gender inequality, human rights, violence against women, and cultural stereotypes. This street art serves as a social manifesto and a means of activating both the local community and tourists, aligning with global feminist discourse while addressing Florence’s local issues. We conclude that Florence’s street art provides a space for visual resistance, education, and the promotion of gender equality and women’s emancipation in the context of contemporary social challenges.
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(This article belongs to the Section Visual Arts)
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Virtual Archaeology and Medieval Art History: Fundamentals and Applications
by
Jaime García Carpintero López de Mota
Arts 2025, 14(4), 69; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040069 - 21 Jun 2025
Abstract
Virtual Archaeology is defined as ‘the scientific discipline that seeks to research and develop ways of using computer-based visualizations for the comprehensive management of archaeological heritage’. In essence, it involves the creation of virtual models of various types whose purpose is to represent
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Virtual Archaeology is defined as ‘the scientific discipline that seeks to research and develop ways of using computer-based visualizations for the comprehensive management of archaeological heritage’. In essence, it involves the creation of virtual models of various types whose purpose is to represent elements of the past based on historical data obtained from research. It is a discipline that has experienced a boom in recent years, thanks to the democratization of both technology and training, and has become one of the most fruitful branches of what is known as Digital Humanities. However, despite its name, it has applications beyond the field of archaeology, notably in Art History. In this sense, it allows recovering the original likeness of lost or altered works, the formulation of research hypotheses, or the generation of resources with great didactic and dissemination potential. This study aims to offer an overview of the fundamentals of the discipline and explore the possibilities it offers to Medieval Art History. Furthermore, this study serves as a starting point for new projects.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue History of Medieval Art)
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Sounding Identity: A Technical Analysis of Singing Styles in the Traditional Music of Sub-Saharan Africa
by
Alfred Patrick Addaquay
Arts 2025, 14(3), 68; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14030068 - 16 Jun 2025
Abstract
This article presents an in-depth examination of the technical and cultural dimensions of singing practices within the traditional music of sub-Saharan Africa. Utilizing an extensive body of theoretical and ethnomusicological research, comparative transcription, and culturally situated observation, it presents a comprehensive framework for
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This article presents an in-depth examination of the technical and cultural dimensions of singing practices within the traditional music of sub-Saharan Africa. Utilizing an extensive body of theoretical and ethnomusicological research, comparative transcription, and culturally situated observation, it presents a comprehensive framework for understanding the significance of the human voice in various performance contexts. The study revolves around a tripartite model—auditory clarity, ambiguous auditory clarity, and occlusion—that delineates the varying levels of audibility of vocal lines amidst intricate instrumental arrangements. The article examines case studies from West, East, and Southern Africa, highlighting essential vocal techniques such as straight tone, nasal resonance, ululation, and controlled (or delayed) vibrato. It underscores the complex interplay between language, melody, and rhythm in tonal languages. The analysis delves into the influence of sound reinforcement technologies on vocal presence and cultural authenticity, positing that PA systems have the capacity to either enhance or disrupt the equilibrium between traditional aesthetics and modern requirements. This research is firmly rooted in a blend of African and Western theoretical frameworks, drawing upon the contributions of Nketia, Agawu, Chernoff, and Kubik. It proposes a nuanced methodology that integrates technical analysis with cultural significance. It posits that singing in African traditional music transcends mere expression, serving as a vessel for collective memory, identity, and the socio-musical framework. The article concludes by emphasizing the enduring strength and flexibility of African vocal traditions, illustrating their capacity for evolution while preserving fundamental communicative and artistic values.
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Perspectives on Generative Sound Design: A Generative Soundscapes Showcase
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Grzegorz Samson
Arts 2025, 14(3), 67; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14030067 - 12 Jun 2025
Abstract
Recent advancements in generative neural networks, particularly transformer-based models, have introduced novel possibilities for sound design. This study explores the use of generative pre-trained transformers (GPT) to create complex, multilayered soundscapes from textual and visual prompts. A custom pipeline is proposed, featuring modules
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Recent advancements in generative neural networks, particularly transformer-based models, have introduced novel possibilities for sound design. This study explores the use of generative pre-trained transformers (GPT) to create complex, multilayered soundscapes from textual and visual prompts. A custom pipeline is proposed, featuring modules for converting the source input into structured sound descriptions and subsequently generating cohesive auditory outputs. As a complementary solution, a granular synthesizer prototype was developed to enhance the usability of generative audio samples by enabling their recombination into seamless and non-repetitive soundscapes. The integration of GPT models with granular synthesis demonstrates significant potential for innovative audio production, paving the way for advancements in professional sound-design workflows and immersive audio applications.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sound, Space, and Creativity in Performing Arts)
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Ephemeral Art as Political Commentary: Russia’s Financial Woes and French Satirical Postcards, 1905–1907
by
Alison Rowley
Arts 2025, 14(3), 66; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14030066 - 6 Jun 2025
Abstract
This article looks at the ways in which satirical postcards provided political commentary at a pivotal moment in the Franco-Russian alliance. Often overlooked as a medium of communication, turn-of-the-20th-century postcards reflected contemporary cultural values and were an important art form. Here, the focus
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This article looks at the ways in which satirical postcards provided political commentary at a pivotal moment in the Franco-Russian alliance. Often overlooked as a medium of communication, turn-of-the-20th-century postcards reflected contemporary cultural values and were an important art form. Here, the focus is on postcards created by Orens and Mille, two of the best caricaturists of the day, as their work offered scathing critiques of Russia’s constant need for financial assistance from its ally and point to the ways in which the public was growing weary of these demands. Closely examining some of their postcards shows how such sentiments were expressed in visual form while also revealing the power of ephemeral materials as historical sources.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue In the Center and on the Periphery: Russian and Soviet Art and Visual Culture)
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Museums in Dispute: Artificial Intelligence, Digital Culture, and Critical Curation
by
Priscila Arantes
Arts 2025, 14(3), 65; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14030065 - 4 Jun 2025
Abstract
Museums in Dispute: Artificial Intelligence, Digital Culture, and Critical Curation analyzes contemporary debates in the museum field through the lens of tensions between technology, digital culture, and political and epistemological disputes. Structured in three parts, the article develops a critical approach that, in
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Museums in Dispute: Artificial Intelligence, Digital Culture, and Critical Curation analyzes contemporary debates in the museum field through the lens of tensions between technology, digital culture, and political and epistemological disputes. Structured in three parts, the article develops a critical approach that, in the first section, revisits critiques of the modernist museum model, highlighting how discourses from New Museology, institutional critique, and decolonial perspectives challenge the idea of neutral, universal, and Eurocentric museums. The second part explores the shift from temple-like museums to interface-museums, focusing on the analysis of practices such as digitization, immersive exhibitions, and gamification. It argues that while these technologies may expand access, their uncritical use can reproduce inequalities and render plural and inclusive narratives invisible. The third part addresses the emergence of hyperconnected museums and the application of artificial intelligence (AI) in curatorial, mediating, and reconstructive processes, analyzing collaborative and artistic projects such as Demonumenta and Curationist that critically reinterpret collections. Throughout the article, the concept of meta-algorithmic curation is developed, which is understood as a practice that makes algorithms visible, open to critique, and reconfigurable as cultural and political devices. Methodologically, the article combines critical theoretical review with analysis of institutional and artistic case studies, highlighting practices that appropriate the supposed neutrality of data to develop a critical pesrpective and advocate for more inclusive, distributed, and politically engaged curatorial narratives.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Role of Museums in the Digital Age)
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Signalling and Mobility: Understanding Stylistic Diversity in the Rock Art of a Great Basin Cultural Landscape
by
Jo McDonald
Arts 2025, 14(3), 64; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14030064 - 31 May 2025
Abstract
This paper explores Great Basin arid-zone hunter–forager rock art as signalling behaviour. The rock art in Lincoln County, Nevada, is the focus, and this symbolic repertoire is analysed within its broader archaeological and ethnographic contexts. This paper mobilises an explicitly theoretical approach which
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This paper explores Great Basin arid-zone hunter–forager rock art as signalling behaviour. The rock art in Lincoln County, Nevada, is the focus, and this symbolic repertoire is analysed within its broader archaeological and ethnographic contexts. This paper mobilises an explicitly theoretical approach which integrates human behavioural ecology (HBE) and the precepts of information exchange theory (IET), generating assumptions about style and signalling behaviour based on hunter–forager mobility patterns. An archaeological approach is deployed to contextualise two characteristic regional motifs—the Pahranagat solid-bodied and patterned-bodied anthropomorphs. Contemporary Great Basin Native American communities see Great Basin rock writing through a shamanistic ritual explanatory framework, and these figures are understood to be a powerful spirit figure, the Water Baby, and their attendant shamans’ helpers. This analysis proposes an integrated model to understand Great Basin symbolic behaviours through the Holocene: taking a dialogical approach to travel backward from the present to meet the archaeological past. The recursive nature of rock art imagery and its iterative activation by following generations allows for multiple interpretive frameworks to explain Great Basin hunter–forager and subsequent horticulturalist signalling behaviours over the past ca. 15,000 years.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Rock Art Studies)
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