There are many meanings to the word art, yet to me art can be defined as anything shaped my human hands in order to represent something. A memorable experience I have had with a piece of art was in Chicago where I saw Andy Warhol's famous tomato soup can. I spent about 10 minutes staring at this piece. I found it memorable because it astonished me that this simplistic representation of an everyday item was deemed so famous. This is memorable because it was at this instant that I realized that I did not understand anything about art. It was distinguished from other art works because it is so simple and understated, and supposedly made a statement about American life. When I saw this piece I felt confused because I didnt understand all the fuss about the painting. After careful reflection I believe the artist's intention was to illustrate the 1950's, the era of conformity with his tomato soup can. I dont know why, because I am not good at analyzing art, but it seems to be stating that this tomato soup can has become an irreplaceable part of American life. I do think the artist was successful in capturing this intent because it has become one of the most famous paintings in American history.
The essay about art by de Duve was an interesting piece of writing. I realize it is just a small part of a much larger book, yet it was still kind of difficult to understand. For the most part it seemed to be about what the definition of art truly is. After careful reading, and a lot of thinking, it seems that my definition of art nearly parallels the one laid down by de Duve. In reality, everything is art, or everything has the potential to become art. My thoughts about art is that any artistic expression makes something art. When the artist sculptes or creates something in their own image then it is art. The one piece of art that was repeatedly mentioned in de Duve's essay was "The Fountain". This "readymade" as they are called, revolutionized the art world because it was simply a urinal that the artist chose to put their name on. Yet, this is the essence of art. One person sees a urinal, others see the linear patterns and the formation of the urinal: not seeing it as a urinal but rather intricate sculpture. Henceforth, everything is art, it just might not be created yet.
1 comment:
Mike,
You worked to address most of the questions I posed in the assignment, and this makes for a good first blog entry.
Could you make any connections between Duchamp's readymades and Andy Warhol's use of everyday objects like soup cans? Even though he was making 2D images of them, the subject matter is still similar: a mass manufactured object. The thing to remember is that Warhol's soup can prints came in the 60's, many years after Duchamp's. Among other things, it was Duchamp's work that set the precedent, that made is permissable for artists to depict such objects as the subject matter of their work. How was Warhol able to expand upon what Duchamp started? What did Warhol do in addition, or differently?
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