I learned a new art word today! While I hate the over-complicated explanations and often absurd vocabulary that seem to be signatures of art history — so much so that I’ve created this publication to break things down into digestible bites — this one is a keeper. Gesamtkunstwerk. Have you ever heard it? Gesamtkunstwerk is a German term meaning “total artwork” which for our purposes (because of course there were many iterations of its meaning) encapsulated the idea that everything in the environment has been carefully selected, created, and placed there to create a cohesive whole, an immersive aesthetic experience.
Reading about today’s artist, Bari Ziperstein, and her inspiration sent me down the Gesamtkunstwerk rabbit hole and you’ll soon see why. First, though, let’s see some artwork!
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