Contemporary Art Review

I focus on analyzing the column of Art in The New York Times in this essay. As we all know, New York Times is a well-known American newspaper headquartered in New York, and has a great influence and a large number of readers in the world. It contains live news, surveys, opinions, photos and videos from journalists from more than 150 countries around the world. The content involves the politics, business, technology, science, health, sports, art, food, travel, and so on. In terms of the column of Arts of New York Times, it consists of the news and information about art and design, books, dance, movies, music, television, theater, and pop culture around the world.

“Inspired by Miniature Paintings, Shahzia Sikander Goes Big” is a news report written by Hilarie M. Sheets published on The New York Times Art on 23 October, 2020. This report mainly introduces a contemporary artist, Shahzia Sikander, and her art works inspired by miniature paintings, meanwhile, it conveys the significance of art in people’s life and spreads the feminist perspective in the art around the world. All the title, introduction, theme, language, typesetting, structure, and the content combine by this report perfectly reflect the characteristics of authenticity and interest of the news and effectively attract the audience’s reading pleasure, at the same time, they commonly highlight and spread the artist and her art works.

The title summarizing the character and event in the news simply and directly tells the art lovers that the main content of this news report is about Shahzia Sikander and her miniature paintings. Next, the description of the introduction concisely introduces the subject of the report that art has strong power for people even living in dark world. Then, the author refers to the artist’s name, background, and the theme of her art works. Meanwhile, she leads to the following content relying on Shahzia Sikander’s upcoming exhibition. All of the beginning information has successfully allowed the reader to obtain a general understanding of the content and main idea of the article.

In terms of the language in this report, it is obvious that the author applies a wide variety of direct and indirect speeches of Shahzia Sikander, which makes a series of contributions to the effects of this report. First, all of the direct and indirect speeches from Shahzia Sikander create a strong appeal to the readers who are able to feel the real feelings of the speaker during reading news, thus it determines the broadcast effect of this news report to a certain extent. Second, direct and indirect speeches enhance the authenticity of the news to a great extent. Because the quotation of the original words of the news figure can help the audience create a sense of being on the scene, which is beneficial to make the audience feel the news is true. Third, directly quoting Shahzia Sikander’s words make her live and full of personality, this vivid personality is more easy to be accepted by the audience during the reading. In addition, these direct and indirect speeches play an important role in highlighting the news theme. From the words of Shahzia Sikander in this news, the audiences are able to understand that her exploration of colonialism, immigration, gender and connected identity, and her contributions to the contemporary art. Last but not least, the abundant direct and indirect speeches in this news contribute to optimize the text structure and relieve the visual pressure of readers. Besides, the typesetting of this news makes the original dull news page colorful through combination of text and pictures. The whole article is more lively and the connotation becomes greatly enriched. It is helpful for the audience to clearly understand the story and artistic theme of the news.

This selected news report from the Art of The New York Times is an outstanding art news report highlighting the news characteristics fairness, authenticity and accuracy. The author insists on the objectivity of news report and applies a variety of direct and indirect speeches of the news figure to state the facts. The language style and typesetting are vivid to attract the art loving readers’ interest and conveys the theme of the news. It effectively allows more contemporary art lovers to understand the content of news and the creation of artists, so as to achieve the best effect of news broadcast.

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