Acknowledging the making of artworks does not require a detailed, technical knowledge ...

[GoldfishLord]

To appreciate something as an artwork is, most basically, to appreciate it as a certain kind of work, something that is the result of directed activity. We appreciate a painting, novel, or video game as an artifact — rather than as a natural object — made according to certain intentions, which are broadly artistic in nature. Why is it important to emphasize the "work" in "artwork"? The reason is that then we recognize how appreciation always involves an acknowledgment, implicit or explicit, of what went into making a work. This is a matter of how the artist used certain artistic materials and tools to convey artistic content. Thus an artwork's history of making is always a history of making in a certain medium. Acknowledging the making of artworks does not require a detailed, technical knowledge of, say, how painters mix different kinds of paint, or how an image editing tool works. All that is required is a general sense of a significant difference between working with paints and working with an imaging application. This sense might involve a basic familiarity with paints and paintbrushes as well as a basic familiarity with how we use computers, perhaps including how we use consumer imaging apps.
Source: Image in the Making: Digital Innovation and the Visual Arts - By Katherine Thomson Jones · 2021

What does "acknowledging" mean? It seems to me that it means roughly "understanding".

 

[jutfrank]

It's knowing that rather than knowing how.

The idea here is that when you look at an artwork, you recognise that the artist did some work to make it. You don't have to understand how he made it but you do have to understand that he worked to make it.

 

[GoldfishLord]

Does "acknowledging" literally mean "to accept that somebody/something has a particular status"?

 

[Tarheel]

I think it's used here in the sense of understanding the work that goes into it.

 

[jutfrank]

Does "acknowledging" literally mean "to accept that somebody/something has a particular status"?

Sometimes but that doesn't really get at the core sense. (It depends what is meant by 'status'.)

I'd say it means to 'know the existence of a thing, or the truth of a fact, and to know that you know it'. It often means also that you make it known to other people that you know it.

 

[GoldfishLord]

Thus an artwork's history of making is always a history of making in a certain medium

---

What's the role of "in"?
What's the reason "in" is used there rather than "using"?

 

[jutfrank]

What's the role of "in"?

What do you mean by 'the role'?

What's the reason "in" is used there rather than "using"?

It focuses more on the medium itself rather than on the process.

He paints in oil. [Oil is the medium.]
He paints using oil. [He uses oil to paint.]

 

[GoldfishLord]

What's the role of "in"? = What's the reason "in" is used there rather than "using"?

The reason is that then we recognize how appreciation always involves an acknowledgment, implicit or explicit, of what went into making a work. This is a matter of how the artist used certain artistic materials and tools to convey artistic content.

What exactly does "this" refer to?

 

[jutfrank]

The reason is that then we recognize how appreciation always involves an acknowledgment, implicit or explicit, of what went into making a work. This is a matter of how the artist used certain artistic materials and tools to convey artistic content.

What's this? Who or what wrote it?

 

[GoldfishLord]

That is a part of the excerpt in post #1

 

[jutfrank]

Ah, yes.

The reference word This refers to the content of the previous sentence. Look:

The reason is that then we recognize how appreciation always involves an acknowledgment, implicit or explicit, of what went into making a work.

This is a matter of how the artist used certain artistic materials and tools to convey artistic content.