Art

Art is a diverse range of human activities in creating visual, auditory or performing artifacts – artworks, expressing the author's imaginative or technical skill, intended to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power. In their most general form these activities include the production of works of art, the criticism of art, the study of the history of art, and the aesthetic dissemination of art.

The oldest form of art are visual arts, which include creation of images or objects in fields including painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and other visual media. Architecture is often included as one of the visual arts; however, like the decorative arts, it involves the creation of objects where the practical considerations of use are essential—in a way that they usually are not in a painting, for example. Music, theatre, film, dance, and other performing arts, as well as literature and other media such as interactive media, are included in a broader definition of art or the arts. Until the 17th century, art referred to any skill or mastery and was not differentiated from crafts or sciences. In modern usage after the 17th century, where aesthetic considerations are paramount, the fine arts are separated and distinguished from acquired skills in general, such as the decorative or applied arts.

Bogotá

Bogotá (/ˌbɒɡəˈtɑː/, /ˌboʊɡəˈtɑː/; Spanish pronunciation: [boɣoˈta]) officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C (during the time of Spanish rule and from 1991-2000 called Santafé de Bogotá) is the capital of Colombia and the department of Cundinamarca. It is administered as Capital District, and has autonomy in the management of its interests within the limits of the Constitution and the law. Bogotá is a territorial entity of the first order, with administrative powers that the law gives to the departments. It consists of 20 localities and is the political, economic, administrative, industrial, artistic, cultural, sports and tourist epicenter of the country.

It is located in the center of Colombia, in the natural region known as the Bogotá savanna, which is part of Altiplano Cundiboyacense formation located in the Eastern Cordillera of the Andes. It is the third highest capital in South America (after La Paz and Quito), at an average 2625 meters above sea level.

It has a length of 33 km (21 mi) from south to north, and 16 km (10 mi) from east to west. As the capital, home to senior agencies of the executive branch (President's Office), legislative (Congress of Colombia) and judicial (Supreme Court, Constitutional Court, Council of State and the Superior Council of the Judiciary).

Doris Salcedo

Doris Salcedo (born 1958) is a Colombian-born sculptor who lives and works in Bogotá. Salcedo completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Universidad de Bogotá, Jorge Tadeo Lozano in 1980, before traveling to New York, where she completed a Master of Fine Arts degree at New York University. She then returned to Bogotá to teach at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Her work is influenced by her experiences of life in Colombia, and is generally composed of commonplace items such as wooden furniture, clothing, concrete, grass, and rose petals.

Salcedo’s work gives form to pain, trauma, and loss, while creating space for individual and collective mourning. These themes stem from her own personal history. Members of her own family were among the many people who have disappeared in politically troubled Colombia. Much of her work deals with the fact that, while the death of a loved one can be mourned, their disappearance leaves an unbearable emptiness.

Doris Salcedo is the eighth artist to have been commissioned to produce work for the turbine hall of the Tate Modern gallery in London. Her piece, Shibboleth (2007), is a 167-metre-long crack in the hall's floor that Salcedo says "represents borders, the experience of immigrants, the experience of segregation, the experience of racial hatred. It is the experience of a Third World person coming into the heart of Europe".

The Guardian

The Guardian is a British national daily newspaper. Founded in 1821 as a local paper replacing the radical Manchester Observer, it was known as The Manchester Guardian until 1959. It has grown into a national paper, and forms part of a media group with international and online offshoots. Its sister papers include The Observer (a British Sunday paper) and The Guardian Weekly (an international roundup of articles from various papers). In addition to its UK online edition theguardian.com, the paper has two international web sites, Guardian Australia and Guardian US. The Guardian is influential in the design and publishing arena, sponsoring many awards in these areas. Other media projects include GuardianFilm. The Guardian was edited by Alan Rusbridger from 1995 to 2015, when Katharine Viner succeeded him.

The Guardian is a part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by The Scott Trust Limited. The Trust was created in 1936 "to secure the financial and editorial independence of the Guardian in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of the Guardian free from commercial or political interference." The Scott Trust became a limited company in 2008, with a constitution containing the same protections for the Guardian. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than to the benefit an owner or shareholders.

Street art

Street art is visual art created in public locations, usually unsanctioned artwork executed outside of the context of traditional art venues. The term gained popularity during the graffiti art boom of the early 1980s and continues to be applied to subsequent incarnations. Stencil graffiti, wheatpasted poster art or sticker art, and street installation or sculpture are common forms of modern street art. Video projection, yarn bombing and Lock On sculpture became popularized at the turn of the 21st century.

The terms "urban art", "guerrilla art", "post-graffiti" and "neo-graffiti" are also sometimes used when referring to artwork created in these contexts. Traditional spray-painted graffiti artwork itself is often included in this category, excluding territorial graffiti or pure vandalism.

Street art is often motivated by a preference on the part of the artist to communicate directly with the public at large, free from perceived confines of the formal art world. Street artists sometimes present socially relevant content infused with esthetic value, to attract attention to a cause or as a form of "art provocation".