Re-imagining Artists’ Relationships with the Past: Recreation, Attention, Transformation

This article explores the potentialities of relationships between artist-researchers and the artworks/artists that inform their research. Seeking approaches to optimize artists’ engagement with works from the past, including recreative practice, it considers experiences of researchers in relation to emerging patterns and themes. The challenges and joys of engaging with the work of previous artists are illustrated. Finally, researchers’ approaches to artworks are considered in relation to aesthetic attentiveness in Hans-Georg Gadamer’s aesthetic hermeneutics to suggest synchronicities. When considered as examples of aesthetic hermeneutics, these experiences may prompt, illuminate, and enrich practices of future artist-researchers and further understanding of Gadamer’s aesthetics.