I totally, completely agree with your point and with the parent post ("I could have created this", "but you didn't"), but...
...you can still, after all of this, conclude that the piece of art is snobbish, artless garbage. In fact I reserve the right to do so. I agree with your premise and still think "Fountain" is worthless as art. I could indeed have done this -- and yes, I see the irony, "but you didn't" -- and didn't because I didn't think it's the kind of art I want to make or celebrate. It's Duchamp's right to create it but I'm not a mean or ignorant person if I dislike it or consider it snobbish and not worth my time (or even "not art").
I don't know if Fountain is or isn't art. I "know" it's worthless to me. This is a discussion we must still be able to have, otherwise we can't say anything about artistic endeavors unless it's positive...
That's the entire point. The fact is so many people discuss this one thing from 1917- it provokes a good discussion on what is and isn't art. I don't see how this is viewed as snobbish. There is no reason one is obligated to make "traditional" art.
> and didn't because I didn't think it's the kind of art I want to make or celebrate
Celebrate isn't really the right term here. It's an art piece that's displayed at a museum. The discussion around it is noted as important.
> still think "Fountain" is worthless as art
"Fountain" is not only art, but it has immense value as comme. Art shouldn't be looked at in terms of "worth". It comes down to human expression, which in turn has a specific context. Art doesn't exist in a social vacuum. Just because it isn't prototypical "beautiful" art doesn't mean it's not worth anything at all.
I think considering Fountain snobbish is my right. I don't think something that fosters discussion is valuable for that alone. Not in all cases anyway. I don't consider all art valuable (not in the sense of money, in case I'm unclear). I rebel against the notion I must acknowledge all forms of art as valuable. I don't and I won't. I've no wish to impose my will on others, of course.
I understand art doesn't mean beauty and beauty doesn't mean art. I'm not artistically naive; in fact I consider myself artistic in the sense I can both create and appreciate art.
After all these words, I still consider Fountain "something that happened and that people acknowledge and discuss", but not good art (good in the sense "it has artistic merit", not in the sense of pretty). That's not good enough for me.
Not all art should inspire wonder. Not all art should be of any kind of quality. I am not a big fan of that piece, myself; but one wonders if perhaps, the very intent of creating that piece was to evoke those kinds of feelings, that kind of reaction?
I listen to a fair amount of noise music. Not all of it is even very listenable. A lot of it evokes feelings of dread, discomfort, pain, anxiety. Of course it sounds terrible - that’s the point. It’s a vehicle for emotional catharsis. It’s a thing that makes you feel something, even if they aren’t feelings that most people enjoy. Even if wanting to experience those feelings is not something that most people could relate to.
Just a perspective. I agree with you, that we should be able to speak freely about art, and that it has nothing to do with how you should be perceived as a person if you do not consider certain pieces to have any sort of artistic merit.
>I "know" it's worthless to me.
So long as one understands the "to me" is implicit, and so long as one understands that POV to be one of countless POV's, I don't see any issue with criticism.
For myself, if something doesn't work, and I see that it's not the work of a novice, I tend to default to, "It's not for me right now," rather than, "It's garbage." I can still discuss the reasons it doesn't work, but I find this perspective to be more helpful. It makes me more curious about the opinions of people who like it, which gives me more access to more perspectives. When something doesn't work for me, I want to know why it works for others. I don't mean this to come off as a game of semantics.
Note I will, however, make a mental judgment of someone who finds "Fountain" very moving or noteworthy. Again, this is my personal judgment and I think I'm entitled to it.
edit:
> "It's not for me right now"
This has definitely happened to me, but with books and movies.
I didn't mean to say you do. I was talking about perspective, because it impacts how we experience things and can help or undermine our ability to enjoy and understand.
>This has definitely happened to me, but with books and movies.
Same - also happens a lot with music.
Sometimes snobbery finds you even when you don't seek it. This can apply to the spectators of Duchamp's work even more than to Duchamp himself!
I don't even know how I truly feel about "Fountain" either; all I know is that it is quite thought provoking for me and has taught me a lot about how I think about and digest the world. To me, even if the art is ugly and snobbish, it still has merit if it helps us better explore our world. The art piece's mere existence allows us to have this conversation about the relative merits of different forms of art, which I believe to be meritorious in and of itself.
I think this has led us to an interesting, if for now rhetorical question: what is art for? Well, at least I'll have something to think about for the rest of the day :)
> I dislike it or consider it snobbish and not worth my time (or even "not art").
Sounds like you had a reaction to the piece or at least the performance art of signing it off as art.
So, what is art? Is it restricted to the common categories - a painting, a poem, a sculpture, a cliche 5 minute film played in a loop on a wall of a gallery? Can new categories of art be created? Are there one-off things that are art, while similar things would not be? What's the criteria? Does it have to be technically brilliant, or intentionally created as art? If I see something as art, but the creator made it by accident or for a practical purpose, who is right? What if we can't ask the creator why they made it? "I know it when I see it" might be the only criteria, but that obviously implies that others might see differently.
And finally: does it matter? If the word "art" has indeed lost all meaning, does that change the way we interact with the world, or communicate with each other? How often does the average person communicate about "art" in a general sense, rather than simply what they enjoy, anyway?
It does for me. If "art" and "everything" become synonyms, I feel I've lost a valuable concept, and one I definitely use frequently.
Your anecdote about the "don't hack this" label is indeed clever and funny, and it's making a statement I can relate to. It's like hacking the event, in a way.
I don't see that anyone so far has argued that only a poem, a sculpture or a painting can be art. I'm surprised so many people in this conversation have made a logical connection between "I don't like snobbery like the Fountain/I don't think it's art" and "art must be pretty and only poetry/painting/music are acceptable". Why do people assume it's binary instead of a continuum between art and not-art?
I took away something entirely different from it (I took it as a given that the vending machine was indeed art because someone had proclaimed it to be so, and proceeded to think about what it might have to say within the context of the space and the event), but there you go.
The thing is that simply saying that something is "artless" isn't interesting - someone claimed it is art, and they did it for artistic purpose, and people are thinking about it as if it were art, so why isn't it? There's a big difference between saying that it's a stupid reaction to its context or that it's snobbish, and that it's artless.
I really enjoy witnessing the tagging and graffiti around the railways in the cities I've lived in, and feel there's definitely art in claiming the space in that way, but others feel it's spoiling the view and artless. Which of us is right?
I think I'm as entitled to claiming something is not art as the author who claims it is. For some creations, the consensus will side with one or the other. Nobody can put pigeon feces on display in a museum and force me to think of them as art, no matter what they think.
A lot of people don't consider found objects "real" art, by the way. I'm not alone in this.
Also, the time in 2006 when an artist sent a sculpture to be displayed in a gallery, with a tiny plinth to prop it up: the gallery rejected the sculpture and displayed the plinth: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/jun/15/arts.artsnews
I'm not saying you don't have a point, but where do you draw the line? Do you draw a line at all? I know I do.
When you see an upside down toilet in a museum and art enthusiasts in awe and say "I could have done that" you express you incomprehension : why is something so trivial admired? I thought I had to do something exceptionnal to get admired. The answer you get is "But you didn't", yeah because I didn't think a toilet had value.
You feel mocked by the artiste. Cheated.
So yeah, creating is hard and it's pretty hard to understand how hard before you tried it yourself but still people should be able to express their total incomprehension of the enthusiastic response de see around them for weird stuff without getting dismissed by a "but you didn't".
When someone can take a toilet, say it's art, and then it sells for >$10 million, it feels to a lot of people like some parts of society are just deliberately mocking them, rubbing their face in it. They're so rich they can flush $10 million on what looks like trying to grab some brief attention, or be what we now call a social influencer, whilst many other people who work hard every day to develop some truly difficult craft end up with far less or nothing.
Nobody who hates Fountain hates it because it's "not art". They hate it because someone managed to convince a whole lot of rich people to pay them way over the odds for a toilet. It looks and feels like some sort of long con.
Damien Hirst takes this mockery you mention and makes it the very focus of his "art". He took a skull and coated it in diamonds and called it "For the love of god". Even the title seems to say "jesus, how far can I push this?"
It's 103 years old and today you are taking the time to discuss it in public. There, at least, is a demonstration that this piece made a dent in the universe.
My very standard toilet has caught my attention -- and discourse, dare I say -- way more than Duchamp's urinal. Would most people consider my toilet art? Or would it need to be put on display in a museum?
Can you think of any man-made things older than a century that you wouldn't consider art? I sure can!
I assure you my toilet made an impact in my choices today of far greater import than Duchamp's found object.
Looking at art from the perspective of a century after it was introduced and its effects have become incorporated into mainstream culture just not that useful.
I find the best museums and exhibits help you get into this mindset; I'm reminded of an exhibit I saw at the Tate Modern about Picasso in 1932. It provided not only the context to his art, but to him as a person. I was able to better understand how his art was shifting at the time due to the nature of the world around him and his personal relationships. It really allowed me to see the artist through the art and the art in its context. https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/ey-e...
I hope that I can take this idea to domains outside of art as well; considering the context of everything we encounter is important for a better understanding of our shared world.
I mean, I can look at art created thousands of years before "Fountain" and appreciate it, but still consider Fountain snobbery, can't I?
For centuries artists have tried their best to create the most beautiful artworks possible. This lead to an association of beauty with art. Art must be beautiful. You challenge this idea by making something that is not beautiful but people will still consider as art.
Otherwise, if everything is art as long as someone tells me it must be so, the concept of "art" becomes meaningless to me.
I dunno. The aesthetics of contemporary art place no value on skill or craft. Minus the idea, anyone really could have created this piece. That's the point... or anything and everything is art, or quality doesn't matter so nothing is good or bad or better or worse, or art doesn't live in some sacred realm (we would be pissing on it in any other context), or "interesting!?" as a principal aesthetic... So sure, we can recognize (works of post modernism) both as art and culturally significant/important, but at the same time, they tend to be profoundly un-engaging. They are more fun to talk about than to experience in person which is deeply weird for the visual arts! They may as well be a post on /r/hmmm/ because "hmmm" is all they are really going for. "look at me, I'm a urinal, but I'm still art!". hmmm...
* Fountain is technically Dada and dates to 1917
Ironically the "missing of the point" seems to have become a point in itself even without the historic context. Weird accidental statements by society in its reaction like ignoring the virtuoso playing the Strativius in the subway station because they don't recognize the quality without the trappings. A mere portrayal would be a ham handed allegory but if it really happens a lesson can be learned instead of an expression of another's opinion.
> the simple fact of calling this art was a profound statement,
A statement of what? Why is it profound?
> one worth considering within its context.
Why is it worth considering? Why is it worth doing so within its context? Its context is its siting within an art gallery, so does the re-siting it into an art gallery de-facto make it art? If so that's a pathetically shallow achievement.
> Maybe this piece of art had so much to teach me about perspective, context and expression
What effing perspective? What context particularly? What expression - what does 'expression' even mean here?
This trademark nebulousity characterises self indulgent bullshit that props up 'art' and the people who 'consume'[0] art.
(not knocking art, far from it, but lack of rigorous thinking is dangerous. Think for yourself, don't let others do it for you).
[0] Damn, I hate that word.
Yes it is art. There is no barrier to turning into something into art. You don't need to go to a government office and license your work as art. You don't need to go to an established committee of artists to approve your work as art. Art can be bad, otherwise good art couldn't exist. Every good artist started out as a bad artist. People started to think all art must be good because that's the only form of art they see and the only way to counteract that is by showing them bad or ugly art.
Then what divides art from not-art? Is there even a difference?
> Art can be bad
Then why do people look at it? Are you saying they can't distinguish good art from bad?
Isn't at least one of the purposes of an art gallery to exhibit good art and not bad? If not, what is an art gallery for?
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_%28Duchamp%29 it was made in 1917. If it was bad art as you imply, it's been over a century and no-one's officially dismissed it as bad (or is it described officially as bad art?). What does that say.
"Fountain was not rejected by the committee, since Society rules stated that all works would be accepted from artists who paid the fee" - ah,. so money changing hands was a requirement for it to be treated as art.
"The work is regarded by art historians and theorists of the avant-garde as a major landmark in 20th-century art."
Apparently it's good art then. I guess. AFAICT. Who can say?
It's like nobody's even thinking about this, just "it's art so it's art", whereas "am I being suckered" doesn't come into it.
I view it as part of the wider conversation at the time, where many artists were challenging the standards of art. The Fountain is a little more on the nose than - say - Paul Klee intentionally using imperfect lines to give his art more feeling (which brings to mind J Dilla's slightly off-beat drum patterns). On the nose works better for some people.
> Sloppy thinking gets people killed. That's why I get upset.
We are discussing a urinal on a platform in an art museum.
I remember the first time I saw "Fountain" by Duchamps, which, for the uninitiated, is a urinal, on its side, signed and dated by the artist. For years, decades, I cast it aside in my mind as something silly, something artsy, something that wasn't for me. It was ugly, vulgar, and above all, obvious. For years, seeing replica after replica in modern and contemporary art museums, I continued to breeze past the installation, laughing quietly to myself like I knew something these art people didn't.
Then I had a similar situation happen. While continually saying "anyone could have done that" and "this isn't art" someone finally said to me "yes it is art, you didn't think of this, and without this, you lack the basis for many other contemporary forms of art." It then started to occur to me that this art was anything but obvious; if I so easily cast this aside as "not art," the simple fact of calling this art was a profound statement, one worth considering within its context. Maybe this piece of art had so much to teach me about perspective, context and expression that it was just too much to swallow for years.