Popular culture American and Europen art Mass culture theory

The Matrix paints the picture of a monopolistic superpower, like we see today, and then collaborates in its refraction. Basically, its dissemination on a world scale is complicit with the film itself. On this point it is worth recalling Marshall McLuhan: the medium is the message. The message of The Matrix is its own diffusion by an uncontrollable and proliferating contamination. European and American Painting, Sculpture and Decorative Art.
While the Gallery acquired European art from the beginning, the collection was developed systematically from the 1910s with the goal of representing the continent’s diverse traditions. Thomas Gainsborough’s Ignatius Sancho (1768) was the first Old Master bought for the nation; this portrait of a former slave who became a celebrated musician and man of letters is also a testament to the Gallery’s long-standing interest in British art. At the same time, the Gallery was purchasing contemporary pieces, such as Claude Monet’s Waterloo Bridge: Effect of Sunlight in the Fog (1903). Today, the collection encompasses some 2,000 works from the Renaissance through the 20th century. Painting and sculpture form its core, rounded out by film, video and installation art, and complemented by a small group of decorative art.
The largest number of works comes from Britain, France and Italy, but important and characteristic pieces by Dutch, Flemish, German and Spanish artists, among others, are also on view. Aside from a representative group of works from the early Renaissance, this material dates from the 16th century onwards. In the 1970s the Gallery began to develop its collection of American art, which is strongest in post-1945 painting and sculpture, particularly Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism.
Curators and conservators work together to study and preserve the collection, and new discoveries are published regularly. By organizing exhibitions around these artworks, we are able to better understand these complex objects and enrich our visitors’ experience. We are also committed to examining the provenances of the works in our care, particularly those that may have changed hands between 1933 and 1946. To learn more, please visit our Provenance Research Project.
Mass culture has been defined in many ways, by many different theorists in sociology, since Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer created the term.
According to Adorno and Horkheimer, who were both members o
the Frankfurt School of sociology, mass culture was the widespread American 'low' culture that had developed during industrialisation. It is often said to have replaced agricultural, pre-industrial folk culture.

Some sociologists claim that mass culture was rep

There are many different views around mass culture within sociology. Most sociologists in the 20th century were critical of it, seeing it as a danger to ‘real’ authentic art and high culture as well as to the consumers, who are manipulated through it. Their ideas are collected within mass culture theory.
Mass culture theory argues that industrialisation and capitalism have transformed society. Previously, people used to be closely connected through meaningful common mythologies, cultural practices, music, and clothing traditions. Now, they are all consumers of the same, manufactured, pre-packaged culture, yet unrelated to and disintegrated from each other.
This theory of mass culture has been criticised by many for its el
s elitist views of art, culture, and society. Others produced their own approaches to mass culture and its role in society.