Duchamp's urinal was not historically significant.
Bruce Attah
The committee to which Duchamp submitted that famous urinal did not accept
it as art. What happened was that the submission rules of the exhibition
were that ANYTHING submitted would be accepted, on a
first-come-first-served basis. Despite this, the committee were unwilling
to accommodate the object. Duchamp, who was on the committee, and alone
championed the "work", kicked up a fuss, so a compromise was worked out so
that the rules would not be broken. The object was "displayed" where it
would not be seen. There is no record of what happened to the object
after the show, but it was probably thrown away.
So,
1. Nobody saw the urinal when it was first "exhibited".
2. It was "lost" after the exhibition, and no longer exists.
3. For the duration of its existence, it was not accepted as art.
So, it was not historically significant, since it had no impact on anyone.
Any further discussion of Duchamp's "art", should not neglect this fact.
As Ehud Tal says:
> Duchamp's work is therefore an essay in art history, but not art.
The urinal was ALWAYS history and NEVER art.
More to the point, it was always a story told by Duchamp, and it was the
STORY that became important to some art historians, NOT THE OBJECT.
When we reflect on this, we realize how fundamentally different talk about
this sort of "art" is from talk about real art. In the discussion of
Duchampian pseudo-art, the object may as well not exist. In the case of
real art, it is the story, rather than the object, that is contingent.
wsparker
Bruce Attah wrote:
> 3. For the duration of its existence, it was not accepted as art.
It exists and has always existed since R Mutt signed it as the artist!
It HAS been accepted as art!
However I advise you to just walk right by it!
>
> So, it was not historically significant, since it had no impact on anyone.
What are you smoking? Please get help. You used to make some good sense!
> More to the point, it was always a story told by Duchamp, and it was the
> STORY that became important to some art historians, NOT THE OBJECT.
It is impossible to have the story without its object **pushed right
into your face!** Have you seen the "Etant Donnes" in person? It would
make no sense otherwise. perhaps it is better for you to walk by it. I
don't want to start another impossible issue here.
>
> When we reflect on this, we realize how fundamentally different talk about
> this sort of "art" is from talk about real art. In the discussion of
> Duchampian pseudo-art, the object may as well not exist. In the case of
> real art, it is the story, rather than the object, that is contingent.
Please walk right by it in the museum! Go to the "Museum of Real Art."
The ones with no other kinds of art in them!
Please don't pay any attention to other forms of art which are unreal or
have no physical object.
Also restrict all forms of significant aesthetic experience to only
those gained from "real" art.
Satterlee
Bruce Attah wrote:
>
> The committee to which Duchamp submitted that famous urinal did not accept
> it as art. What happened was that the submission rules of the exhibition
> were that ANYTHING submitted would be accepted, on a
> first-come-first-served basis. Despite this, the committee were unwilling
> to accommodate the object. Duchamp, who was on the committee, and alone
> championed the "work", kicked up a fuss, so a compromise was worked out so
> that the rules would not be broken. The object was "displayed" where it
> would not be seen. There is no record of what happened to the object
> after the show, but it was probably thrown away.
>
> So,
>
> 1. Nobody saw the urinal when it was first "exhibited".
This is not entirely true. The urinal was exhibited behind a screen so
that only the most *adventurous* would seek it out.
>
> 2. It was "lost" after the exhibition, and no longer exists.
>
> 3. For the duration of its existence, it was not accepted as art.
Again, not quite accurate. That the *mainstream* did not accept it as
art does not mean that it was universally rejected. This gets us into
the nature of the avante garde.
> So, it was not historically significant, since it had no impact on anyone.
>
I don't think this string would be so long and vehement if it had no
impact.
> Any further discussion of Duchamp's "art", should not neglect this fact.
>
> As Ehud Tal says:
>
> > Duchamp's work is therefore an essay in art history, but not art.
>
I'm not sure I understand this point. As I understand your point about
real art, there is an historical tradition of *proper* art and that this
modern stuff does not fall into that tradition, therefore it ain't real
art. Isnn't, then, real art more about the history of art than it is
about the art?
<snip>
amos
Euphemism
Bruce...@insignia.co.uk (Bruce Attah) wrote:
> [Duchamp's "Fountain"] was not historically significant, since it had no
impact on anyone.
>
I think I've stumbled into a portal to a parallel universe.
If you are serious about this, please define "historically significant."
Charles Eicher
In article
<Bruce.Attah-28...@support-saturn.isltd.insignia.com>,
Bruce...@insignia.co.uk (Bruce Attah) wrote:
> The committee to which Duchamp submitted that famous urinal did not accept
> it as art. What happened was that the submission rules of the exhibition
> were that ANYTHING submitted would be accepted, on a
> first-come-first-served basis. Despite this, the committee were unwilling
> to accommodate the object. Duchamp, who was on the committee, and alone
> championed the "work", kicked up a fuss, so a compromise was worked out so
> that the rules would not be broken. The object was "displayed" where it
> would not be seen. There is no record of what happened to the object
> after the show, but it was probably thrown away.
That is about the WORST synopsis of the "R Mutt Case" (as MD described it)
that I've ever read. Full of errors and mistatements, so I will merely make
a few short remarks:
Since Dadaism began, and particularly under MD's influence, the subject of
art is Art. Showing a urinal on the pretext of appreciating its aesthetic
qualities is NOT what MD was interested in.
> So,
>
> 1. Nobody saw the urinal when it was first "exhibited".
The urinal was widely published in newspapers and Dadaist magazines.
Editorial debates raged in magazines, with lengthy essays by Duchamp. Go do
your research, you're flat out wrong.
[snip of other windy mis-statements]
> So, it was not historically significant, since it had no impact on anyone.
Which is why you chose to write about it? It seems to have had more impact
on YOU than on anyone else here.
> Any further discussion of Duchamp's "art", should not neglect this fact.
Yes, let us not neglect the facts. Please let us know when you learn the
facts of this situation.
| Charles Eicher |
| -=- |
| cei...@inav.net |
wsparker
Bruce Attah wrote:
> 3. For the duration of its existence, it was not accepted as art.
It exists and has always existed since R Mutt signed it as the artist!
It HAS been accepted as art!
However I advise you to just walk right by it!
>
> So, it was not historically significant, since it had no impact on anyone.
Satterlee
Bruce Attah wrote:
>
> The committee to which Duchamp submitted that famous urinal did not accept
> it as art. What happened was that the submission rules of the exhibition
> were that ANYTHING submitted would be accepted, on a
> first-come-first-served basis. Despite this, the committee were unwilling
> to accommodate the object. Duchamp, who was on the committee, and alone
> championed the "work", kicked up a fuss, so a compromise was worked out so
> that the rules would not be broken. The object was "displayed" where it
> would not be seen. There is no record of what happened to the object
> after the show, but it was probably thrown away.
>
>
> 1. Nobody saw the urinal when it was first "exhibited".
This is not entirely true. The urinal was exhibited behind a screen so
that only the most *adventurous* would seek it out.
>
> 2. It was "lost" after the exhibition, and no longer exists.
>
> 3. For the duration of its existence, it was not accepted as art.
Again, not quite accurate. That the *mainstream* did not accept it as
art does not mean that it was universally rejected. This gets us into
the nature of the avante garde.
> So, it was not historically significant, since it had no impact on anyone.
>
I don't think this string would be so long and vehement if it had no
impact.
> Any further discussion of Duchamp's "art", should not neglect this fact.
>
G*rd*n
The problem of Duchamp's urinal is not one of aesthetics but
one of economics. If found objects can be designated as
art, then there will not be sufficient scarcity to maintain
art economically in a market situation, except at maybe a
fairly low level. (The mall store where the frames cost
more than the prints, for example.) In an industrial
society where people have to work a lot to make a living, or
think they do, art then becomes the domain of amateurs,
part-timers, and workers under industrial pressures (time is
money). This situation, while attractively anarchic, also
precludes most large and ambitious works from being
constructed; you're not going to see any more Sistine Chapel
ceilings. I suppose Duchamp might not have been opposed to
such an outcome.
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ gcf @ panix.com }"{
wsparker
G*rd*n wrote:
>
> The problem of Duchamp's urinal is not one of aesthetics but
> one of economics. If found objects can be designated as
> art, then there will not be sufficient scarcity to maintain
> art economically in a market situation, except at maybe a
> fairly low level. (The mall store where the frames cost
> more than the prints, for example.)
cut out a bit here
>. I suppose Duchamp might not have been opposed to
> such an outcome.
> --
> }"{ G*rd*n }"{ gcf @ panix.com }"{
Duchamp and the young Motherwell were at lunch one day and Motherwell
sees a little cheap realistic landscape painting over Duchamp's shoulder
on the wall.
Motherwell says something like, "what crap! Why do they do that?"
Duchamp spends the rest of the lunch espousing and explaining to him the
positive attributes the painting embodies.
Motherwell learned something significant that day. Also Duchamp was
working on the "Etant Donnes" in secret at the time.
G*rd*n
G*rd*n wrote:
| > The problem of Duchamp's urinal is not one of aesthetics but
| > one of economics. If found objects can be designated as
| > art, then there will not be sufficient scarcity to maintain
| > art economically in a market situation, except at maybe a
| > fairly low level. (The mall store where the frames cost
| > more than the prints, for example.)
|
| cut out a bit here
|
| >. I suppose Duchamp might not have been opposed to
| > such an outcome.
| > --
| Duchamp and the young Motherwell were at lunch one day and Motherwell
| sees a little cheap realistic landscape painting over Duchamp's shoulder
| on the wall.
|
| Motherwell says something like, "what crap! Why do they do that?"
|
| Duchamp spends the rest of the lunch espousing and explaining to him the
| positive attributes the painting embodies.
|
| Motherwell learned something significant that day. Also Duchamp was
| working on the "Etant Donnes" in secret at the time.
Too bad Andy Warhol wasn't there....
drookes
Now that we've kicked "drawing" in the pants and sneered at much that
has come before us, (save for Duchamps ever lovin' URINAL) where do we
go? Do we keep seeking higher ground? Look for the even more obscure?
Continue to be today's pseudo-intellectual (a redundant expression)?
We all end up being an endless line of imitators, inbred to the max.
Everyone building up a sweat trying to do their own thang. Forging and
impressing one and all. With superficial abilities comes big time doses
of insecurity. The insecurity is evident from many quarters of the art
nation. Defensive. Bitter. Envious. Back Biting. All these
conditions take energy. The energy that could be used to develop.
Of course we will have dozens of thoughts on how one should develop.
But then, that's part of the game. HB
Bruce Attah
In article <ceicher-ya0230800...@news.inav.net>,
cei...@inav.net (Charles Eicher) wrote:
> Since Dadaism began, and particularly under MD's influence, the subject of
> art is Art.
No. The subject of SOME art is art. There is plenty of art being made
now that is no more concerned with the subject of art than was pre-Dada
art. It is also true to say that before Dada, there was plenty of art
made whose subject was art.
> Showing a urinal on the pretext of appreciating its aesthetic
> qualities is NOT what MD was interested in.
I never said it was. Duchamp was interested in perpetrating a hoax,
upsetting his fellow "moderns", and mocking their conception of what could
and could not be art.
> > 1. Nobody saw the urinal when it was first "exhibited".
>
> The urinal was widely published in newspapers and Dadaist magazines.
Urinals do not get published. What was published was the story of the urinal.
> Editorial debates raged in magazines, with lengthy essays by Duchamp. Go do
> your research, you're flat out wrong.
Ho, ho, ho. Did you have a nice Christmas?
> > So, it was not historically significant, since it had no impact on anyone.
>
> Which is why you chose to write about it? It seems to have had more impact
> on YOU than on anyone else here.
Allow me to repeat myself for the sake of clarity: THE OBJECT ITSELF was
not historically significant. What was significant was the story. The
object might as well not have existed at all. To add: it might also have
been any of a thousand different objects with no formal properties in
common with the one that (we are told) was actually presented.
Bruce Attah
In article <32C50C...@olympus.net>, w...@olympus.net wrote:
> Bruce Attah wrote:
>
>
> > 3. For the duration of its existence, it was not accepted as art.
>
> It exists and has always existed since R Mutt signed it as the artist!
> It HAS been accepted as art!
>
> However I advise you to just walk right by it!
The object you are thinking of is a replica.
Bruce Attah
In article <euphemite-281...@comserv-d-38.usc.edu>,
euph...@aol.com (Euphemism) wrote:
> Bruce...@insignia.co.uk (Bruce Attah) wrote:
>
>
> > [Duchamp's "Fountain"] was not historically significant, since it had no
> impact on anyone.
> >
> I think I've stumbled into a portal to a parallel universe.
>
> If you are serious about this, please define "historically significant."
John Constable's landscapes were historically significant, in the sense
that direct contact with the works had lasting impact on many artists.
They changed the way they painted to imitate desirable qualities they
found in those paintings. The same is true of the works of Michelangelo,
David, Grosz, Gericault, Monet, Cezanne, and a numerous others.
Duchamp's urinal is different. Artists who claim to be influenced by
Duchamp do not desire to imitate the objects; they desire to imitate
Duchamp. They want to copy his attitude, not his objects. There are not
thousands of urinal-like sculptures in the museums today, though there are
thousands of objects that stake their claim to artistic merit on the basis
that their presentation as art resembles in its manner or purposes or
consequences Duchamp's presentation of a urinal as art. What is imitated
is the story, not the object.
So, unlike Constable's Hay Wain, Duchamp's urinal (it remains untitled in
my mention of it) was never an important object in the history either of
art or of Dada.
Bruce Attah
> of the urinal, I wrote:
>
> > So, it was not historically significant, since it had no impact on anyone.
>
> Which is why you chose to write about it? It seems to have had more impact
> on YOU than on anyone else here.
Nope. Some people here have made it apparent that Duchamp's definition of
"Art" not only guides them, but, in their belief should guide the
production of all art in the future -- Duchamp's definition of art being
gleaned from the interpretation of his Dada antics, the most famous of
which was the submission to an open exhibition of a urinal as a sculpture.
Duchamp's definition of art, so understood, is nonsensical, in my
opinion. Granted, there is a degree of subtlety to that nonsense, but
nonsense is what it is. Of that, I am sure.
Speaking personally, the "sculpture" has never had any strong impact on me
directly. The sight of it (as replica or photograph) has never created in
me a sensation of deep pleasure or great offense. It is simply not very
interesting. The notion that someone presented it as art and got away
with it is amusing, but not greatly so. I see far more entertaining
stories in the papers almost every day.
In any case, it is not really the object I have been writing about,
anyway, but its reputation -- there has been no mention of the quality of
the glaze, or the sinuous curves or the mass of the thing -- because none
of these matters are of any importance to anyone who talks about Duchamp's
urinal. What I am talking about, precisely, is the slightness of the role
the object has played in its reputation: the object is nothing, its
reputation, everything.
If you are a fan of Duchamp, you ought to agree with me on this. You
ought to be saying, "Yes, indeed, the urinal is of no significance at
all. What is significant is the story." After all, that is pretty close
to what Duchamp himself claimed to believe. Where you would disagree with
me, though, is that you (if you are a Du-champion) would believe that the
moral of the story is that ordinary, mass-produced objects can become art
by virtue of their being presented as art, while I would aver that the
moral of the story is that this is not possible. In my opinion, Duchamp's
urinal NEVER BECAME A WORK OF ART.
Bruce Attah.
wsparker
So is every book and poem you walk by or read!
Neal Weiss
In article
<Bruce.Attah-30...@support-neptune.isltd.insignia.com>,
Bruce...@insignia.co.uk (Bruce Attah) wrote:
> Allow me to repeat myself for the sake of clarity: THE OBJECT ITSELF was
> not historically significant.
Allowed.
Objects are not themselves.
-N
-----------------------------------------
Neal Weiss
Founder: L' Ecole De Fromage.
Originator of a Greater Shoe of Mud.
Finder of the Country Blue Squeak-Out.
WYNNK
That may be your life; I find artists supportive of their peers,
cooperative and willing to share experience as well as opportunities.
Perhaps we live in different universes!
wynn k
Neal Weiss
Again with the overeaction with drawing. I am sensing that drawing stands
for a littler to much in your work.
I always want to be certain that drawing is not overrated,because it can
easily degenerate and go downhill from there to insipid, weak, and little
understood pictorialism. The finest drawing skill in the world will not
substitute for limp pictorialism.
I don't find anything obscure in any of this.
In addition, I feel my life blooming like a garden. Nor can I recall the
need to impress anyone (quite the opposite, I have been pretty mush in
artistic seclusion for about 5 years, not much concerned with originality,
but do confess that I like to "do my own thang". I never took my talents
or abilities to be superficial(even though I know that the surface is
where everything of any worth happens in this culture. The myth of "depth"
is over in the good ol' USA. Significant meaning happens on the
superficial layers. The most valuable and meaningful thing about
"MARLBORO" cigarettes is not the tobacco, the factories, or the people who
work for the company, but the corporate logo...whoever controls that has
the real meaning and value. we as a culture consume images. I wonder if
this kind of thinking gets the turnaround and is itself called
superficial? Citizens don't want depth, especially after living their
entire lives on the surface...depth is underated. If you take a look at
yourself, and eliminate all the meanings that are superficial: remove the
kind of car and it's meaning your car, neighborhood you live in, job, bank
account balance, haircut, clothing...and turn them inside out...dress
cross gender, move nto a shanty shack ECTECT., the "REAL" you would have a
very hard time convincng itself of itself as you walked down the street
(yeah right, as if a "real" you exists...your as much a Fountain as
anything else). The culture lives upon the surface. The surface is "Hot",
because that is where all the action is.
I first buzzed this group a week ago, to see if there was any native
artistic intelligence on the Web. I have not honestly encountered any
views that aren't a rehash (sometimes not very good even, and some are
downright...to evoke the blind pig, rather sorry) of anything that I
crossed 10 years ago. But I'll hold out a little while longer in case
something gets interesting.
Perhaps your just having a bad day?
Cheers
Euphemism
Thanks for elaborating. I hope you don't mind me asking for more.
Before I argue, let me see whether I understand you. Please correct me
where I go astray.
As I read it, your point is this:
Whatever the influence of Duchamp's "Fountain," it was not the unique
design or appearance of that particular urinal that was persuasive.
Rather, the "story" (could we say the idea?) of presenting an
"indifferent" object in the context of an art show, and the possibilities
or doubts raised by that gesture, is the significant aspect.
In other words, the readymade influenced artists' attitude toward art
production rather than their graphic style, imagery, or production
technique.
Art history is the history of objects. The particular physical properties
of the object that Duchamp signed "R. Mutt" and displayed as "Fountain"
were unremarkable. Therefore, the urinal was not significant to art
history. Therefore, "Fountain" is an insignificant work of art.
-------------
Have I got it? Does this last sentence go too far? Am I omitting
something important?
Please advise,
E.
drookes
Neal,
That you haven't found anything on the forum that is up to your
standards speaks volumes. Reading your writings makes it doubly
puzzling.
Let's leave drawing alone. It is obviously not understood by
yourself as well as others. It is not the simple (nor insipid) thing
you describe. It truly has a broad function. Those who understand will
need no further convincing and those who don't can go their merry way.
When discussing art, the people on this forum speak, for the most
part, with great sincerity. It may not be the Neal way of looking at
things in so many words, but if one reads between the lines, there is
some good pickings here.
I have no personal battle with you. Our egos seem to force us to
imply that, yes, we should have the last word. Luckily art doesn't work
that way. Your profundities are just the thing for many on the
Internet. As you have been able to surmise, I'm not in that group. Most
of what I say agrivates, you and vice versa. But no harm done.
Yet your blatant assertion of having intellectual superiority in the
forum discussions is the final kicker. You are not as rare a breed as
you would think. Sad for you and sad for others of like mind.
By the way, in response to your concern with my having a "bad day:"
I've hardly felt better. Still cordially, HB
drookes
Wynnk,
Where does it say that I'm not supportive of my peers. To have
discussion, to speak one's mind, to find problems in certain areas of
the art world: must we all smile at one another, and pat each other on
the back and act like everythings coming up roses. Sure, I mix it up
with other artists. And yes, many of them think I'm full of it. And we
still respect and enjoy each other's company. You stick to your
universe where ever it may be. HB
drookes
Neal Weiss wrote:
>
> In article <32C7BE...@direct.ca>, drookes <dro...@direct.ca> wrote:
>
> > Let's leave drawing alone. It is obviously not understood by
> > yourself as well as others. It is not the simple (nor insipid) thing
> > you describe.
>
> practioner and continuing to be one. I am in for the long haul with
> respect to drawing.
> I still maintain you are simplifying my assertions of drawing. In fact, I
> hold drawing in the highest esteem, I do not recall knocking it. I have
> perspective to realize that other artists will construct art, using
> different manifestations of drawing, others eliminating it entirely or
> introducing novel innovations to it. I want to allow for all of that.
> Academic figure drawing included.
> But, I also want to see powerfull pictorial statements: I think drawing
> can make that happen (figure drawing or otherwise) and I think that an
> uncritical application of drawing can weaken pictorial power.
> We will need to discuss what pictorial power is at some point.
>
>
> >but if one reads between the lines, there is some good pickings here.
>
> Your profundities are just the thing for many on the
> > Internet. As you have been able to surmise, I'm not in that group.
>
> > Most of what I say agrivates, you and vice versa. But no harm done.
>
> impassioned writer (to good or bad effect), but I am not aggravated.
> Indeed, I enjoy the interchange, the lively give and take.
>
> > Yet your blatant assertion of having intellectual superiority in the
> > forum discussions is the final kicker.
>
> unfamiliar to me, I didn't state "intellectual superiority", you are
> putting those words in my mouth (as indeed I feel you are putting ideas
> into my views of drawing that I didn't express....perhaps they are
> emotional responses to the ideas, rather than reasonerd ones?)
>
> >You are not as rare a breed as you would think. Sad for you and sad for
> others >of like mind.
>
> like to encounter working artists, painters in particular, who are
> thinking about their works and the works of others with a different
> critical paradigm (semiotics wouldn't be a bad place to start. I would
> love to see the painter's formal vocabulary seriously considered in view
> of that paradigm and others that I am even less familiar with).
> Consider this a request: you say I am not a rare breed; can you direct me
> to other Web resources that i might find others of my herd?
>
> The Lost Sheep
> -N
>
> -----------------------------------------
> Neal Weiss
> Founder: L' Ecole De Fromage.
> Originator of a Greater Shoe of Mud.
> Finder of the Country Blue Squeak-Out.
Neal,
These few days have been a delightful ball for me. Shortly, I will
resume my rightful spot in front of an easel.
If I have thrown spurious remarks your way, my abject apologies. You
are right, I don't know you from Adam. We have given one another barbs
under the belief that we knew what the other was thinking. Crude table
manners for sure. Your temper has been well checked and my compliments.
I suppose I came in swinging because of my love for areas of art that
I'm defending. Not myself mind you, but art. I have a good sense of
humor about myself and know my weaknesses only too well. My art, I do
take seriously.
I try to make what is called art every day and have done so for fifty
years. Since I was seven. My passion is the human figure. The human
face. Everything human. It is an all consuming lifetime project that
just won't quit. I would prefer to do nothing else till I can no longer
hold a brush. After that, I'll use my teeth.
Luckily, I have been successful in that I do nothing else for a
living. This is how it has been since they kicked me out of art school
many years ago. (A favor to me.)
There are theories that I utilize but they are far removed from those
that have been appearing here. My theories are equally complex but they
are explained better with "hands on" and when artists are gathered
together.
We are all, diverse as we are, on the same large boat. And paddle we
must. HB
Mdeli
When Dada ideas were new some were interesting. However
the major practitioners of Dada except for perhaps
Duchamp, had no artistic talent and even less skill.
The work they produced is for the most part minor
garbage.
Our Modern Academic Art fans can't distinguish between
the merits of the physical art object and merits of the
idea behind it.
If the producer of the physical work is incompetent his
work is worthless no mater how interesting the idea.
I quote Dali, "The supreme tragedy is when ones
abilities do not live up to one's aspirations." Or, an
idea is worthless unless you have the skill to
execute it.
Dada is essentially nihilism. It stems from the
mistaken older idea that all art is just pure self
expression and that technique was of no importance. I
personally prefer to label Modern Academic Art as
Anti-Art. Dada codified its precepts but the
deterioration began earlier.
By the beginning of this century most of the avant
garde painters never really mastered technique. By now,
after many generations of utter incompetence, the
our average Academic Modern Master and artschool
instructor talks endlessly about ideas but is totally
unable to use or teach technique on any necessary
level. Even the ideas that these failures talk about
and think are original, are really utterly antiquated.
The only impress those who know little art history.
Dada is 80 years past, even its follow up Bauhaus, is
Outhouse.
Our latest avant garde master does the equivalent of
farting in crowded elevators and thinks the shock value
of his act is art. He might even get the
artzy-fartzies to discuss this in postmodern terms. He
then feels offended when hardly anyone cares to posses
his work.
Mani DeLi
... No skill no art.
Neal Weiss
In article <euphemite-301...@comserv-b-55.usc.edu>,
euph...@aol.com (Euphemism) wrote:
Interesting here to note that objects and ideas do not exist independent
of each other. Ideas of art kep old masters in the Art temple as equally
as they keep Fountain, and there is no discrimination. Objects are infused
with ideas and ideas are penetrated by objects. They inhere within one
another. For a start, refer to my post entitled, "PERCEPTO". Even certain
Modernist myths tried to develop an idea that Art could be 'pure',
uncontaminated by words or theories: that a work of art could be in and of
itself alone, without reference to ideas or theory. This was basically a
THEORY furthered by folks who didn't want to believe in THEORIES! Sense
the contradiction? Sense the enormous blind spot, in embracing and
practicing what they denounced and detested, then repressing the knowledge
of what they were doing? Fascinating.
Neal Weiss
The Lost Sheep
-N
-----------------------------------------
Neal Weiss
It stems from the
> mistaken older idea that all art is just pure self
> expression and that technique was of no importance.
>
> By the beginning of this century most of the avant
> garde painters never really mastered technique. By now,
> after many generations of utter incompetence, the
> our average Academic Modern Master and artschool
> instructor talks endlessly about ideas but is totally
> unable to use or teach technique on any necessary
> level.
I would be curious if ANY schools contnue to practice simply traditional
technique, and that in accordance perhaps with your criterion of good
academic art. It seems that with specific techniques, one also has
specific materials. But I would venture to say that for the most part, the
materials that, the old masters used, for example, are little availible or
even known of today.
I am pretty conversant with the researches in art techniques that the old
masters were using, but also one must understand the innovation that took
place even amongst them.
The difference that were developed when oils came as opposed to tempera
are vital. There is major differences betwen the Bellini and the works
that followed on their heels by Titian. One can track this, examine
Rembrant, etc, see the twists in materials that the masters used ...and
will find that in the 18th and 19th century many of these earlier
traditional materials were in disuse.
I have even studied theories that claimed the state of painting was in
disrepair starting a couple of centuries agian, due soley to the forgotten
secret techniques of the masters.
I've even curiosly enough researched and explored painting with the
techniques of various old masters, to the best of my abilities as a
chemist and researcher.
I would say that the secrets of the great Masters of painting, lie in
their pictorial conception, not in the tools or materials they used, not
in minor technics, although the materials and technics did play a part.
Impasto demands a certain mixture of the paint, or of ground, or perhaps
both....but the power of the paintings come from more than impastoed
highlights...or, the abilty to draw a foreshortened toe.
....see "Pictorialism Post"
Bruce Attah
You have a point, but an irrelevant one, I'm afraid. In the "discourse"
of sculpture, a replica of Michelangelo's David is not Michelangelo's
David, and, if "R. Mutt's" so-called Fountain is admitted into this
discourse, the replicas are not the original, and the original no longer
exists.
We could, of course, launch from here into a discussion of the ontology of
works of art in the "plastic arts" as contrasted with the ontology of
literary works, but that would be a MAJOR digression, now, wouldn't it?
I hope you were not being disingenuous again.
Bruce Attah.
wsparker
Bruce Attah wrote:
>
> In article <32C78B...@olympus.net>, w...@olympus.net wrote:
>
> > Bruce Attah wrote:
> > >
> > > In article <32C50C...@olympus.net>, w...@olympus.net wrote:
> > >
> > > > Bruce Attah wrote:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > 3. For the duration of its existence, it was not accepted as art.
> > > >
> > > > It exists and has always existed since R Mutt signed it as the artist!
> > > > It HAS been accepted as art!
> > > >
> > > > However I advise you to just walk right by it!
> > >
> > > The object you are thinking of is a replica.
> >
> >
> >
> > So is every book and poem you walk by or read!
>
> works of art in the "plastic arts" as contrasted with the ontology of
> literary works, but that would be a MAJOR digression, now, wouldn't it?
Don't try to obscure the issue! Good move though, but I don't fall for
it.
I'm not going to go into this splitting hairs I am getting bored.
As far as the plastic arts are concernbed: That's the end of photography
as a fine art for you! The end of any photomechanically based art. The
end of etching, engraving, whatever else there is.
As far you are concerned there is some mysterious quintessence that only
the original possesses and nothing else matters. Very small world I
think!
Our conversation is over.
Bruce Attah
> Thanks for elaborating. I hope you don't mind me asking for more.
>
> Before I argue, let me see whether I understand you. Please correct me
> where I go astray.
>
> As I read it, your point is this:
>
> Whatever the influence of Duchamp's "Fountain," it was not the unique
> design or appearance of that particular urinal that was persuasive.
> Rather, the "story" (could we say the idea?) of presenting an
> "indifferent" object in the context of an art show, and the possibilities
> or doubts raised by that gesture, is the significant aspect.
>
> In other words, the readymade influenced artists' attitude toward art
> production rather than their graphic style, imagery, or production
> technique.
So far, so good.
> Art history is the history of objects. The particular physical properties
> of the object that Duchamp signed "R. Mutt" and displayed as "Fountain"
> were unremarkable. Therefore, the urinal was not significant to art
> history. Therefore, "Fountain" is an insignificant work of art.
This bit is wrong. Art history is the history of art. That is to say,
while its main focus is the objects, it may bring into its scope any
causes or consequences or circumstances of the objects that serve to
clarify their nature from a chosen point of view.
The reason the object is not historically significant is that the shape,
weight, size, texture, colour etc. of the object had no bearing on
history. It did not even matter that the object was three-dimentional and
presented as a sculpture -- a two dimensional object presented as a
painting would have served just as well.
Euphemite
(Bruce Attah) wrote:
>Art history is the history of art. [...] it may bring into its scope any
> causes or consequences or circumstances of the objects that serve to
> clarify their nature from a chosen point of view.
>
> The reason the object [M.D's urinal] is not historically significant is
that the shape,
> weight, size, texture, colour etc. of the object had no bearing on
> history. It did not even matter that the object was three-dimentional
and
> presented as a sculpture -- a two dimensional object presented as a
> painting would have served just as well.
Even if another object might have served the same function, another object
didn't. We're talking about one specific physical object that has a place
in art history by virtue of the conditions in which it appeared as a work
of art. (Duchamp confused the issue a bit by "reconstructing" the urinal,
but I think this is tangetial to the present discussion.) Your comment
that art history is the history of art (as opposed to the history of
objects) seems to grant, as N.Weiss said in another post, that "objects
and ideas do not exist independent of each other, " at least in art
historical terms. But you insist on separating the physically measurable
aspects of the object from its function as art, in order to make an
outrageous sounding claim about this famous piece. I don't understand why
you do this.
It seems that your point boils down to this (again, I invite your
clarification): the shape, weight, size, texture, color, etc. of the
urinal did not beget a school of artworks of similar shape, weight, etc.
Why does this matter? If we grant the truth of this observation (although
therork by Robert Gober and Rachel Lachowitz, not to metion Duchamp's own
reproductions of the thing), the fact remains that Duchamp's readymades
have powerfully influenced a wide range of critical discussion and art
making since their original appearance. Whether this influence was for
the good is an independent question that has no bearing on the issue of
whether the influence was--and is--felt.
It sounds as if, to visit one of your earlier examples, you would declare
it "historically significant" if artists looked at George Grosz's drawings
and imitated his quality of line. But if artists looked at the same
drawings and imitated his use of art to criticize capitalist fatcats, this
would not be "historically significant, " especially if the resulting
works were, say, photo collages or clay sculptures (or written stories!)
that had little formal resemblance to the Grosz drawings. Grosz's
drawings influenced artists in both scenarios. I can't find a motive or
justification for witholding " historical significance" from the second
type of influence, unless you are trying to wish away any aspect of art
that is not fabrication technique. Could that really be your aim?
Obviously, Duchamp's work had the effect of raising doubts and questions
about the nature of art objects and aesthetic value. Are you trying to
illuminate that somehow? Are you trying to deny that these concerns are
significant to art history? I am at a loss as to how your object/artwork
dichotomy helps us to think about art history, or Duchamp, or anything
else.
Here's to a healthy and clearheaded 1997.
Euphemism
(Bruce Attah) wrote:
there actually have been a number of works that refer to "Fountain" by
recapitulating some part of its form, e.g. work by Robert Gober and Rachel
Neal Weiss
In article
<Bruce.Attah-30...@support-neptune.isltd.insignia.com>,
Bruce...@insignia.co.uk (Bruce Attah) wrote:
>
> John Constable's landscapes were historically significant, in the sense
> that direct contact with the works had lasting impact on many artists.
> They changed the way they painted to imitate desirable qualities they
> found in those paintings. The same is true of the works of Michelangelo,
> David, Grosz, Gericault, Monet, Cezanne, and a numerous others.
Why should WE bother with 'historical significance'? Does this mean that I
have also to desire to paint like Constable's Haywain; after all, it was
'historically significant'. Should I desire to paint Hay Wain? Should
anyone?
I much prefer to work from the potent motivations of personal significance.
> Duchamp's urinal is different. Artists who claim to be influenced by
> Duchamp do not desire to imitate the objects; they desire to imitate
> Duchamp. They want to copy his attitude, not his objects. There are not
> thousands of urinal-like sculptures in the museums today, though there are
> thousands of objects that stake their claim to artistic merit on the basis
> that their presentation as art resembles in its manner or purposes or
> consequences Duchamp's presentation of a urinal as art. What is imitated
> is the story, not the object.
Nor are there dozens of Constable imitations by Delacroix.
Delacroix copped an attitude, he got inspired. Had it been any less, he
would have become one of hundreds who just 'emmulated the object', in
this case Constable's...he would have become a hack imitater and we
wouldn't have the rich body of 'Delacroix' works. He pulled attitude and
inspiration and ideas from many sources and became the painter he was
because of that.
>
> So, unlike Constable's Hay Wain, Duchamp's urinal (it remains untitled in
> my mention of it) was never an important object in the history either of
> art or of Dada.
"What I've learned from Duchamp is that you have to accept everything, the
silliest kind of juxtaposition, the absurdist kind of rhyme. He has an
openness that you don't really find in an awful lot of artists. Think
about his brother, who dedicated a life to sculpting horses, and they're
incredibly beautiful horses, but then there's a point, if your an artist,
when you look at one of these horses and ask yourself if thinking about
horses and trying to sculpt them is something you'd want to pass the
entirety of a lifetime doing. That's not the kind of thing that gives you
any energy, or that's constantly able to call you into question and to
force your values into a state of crisis; what forces you into crisis is a
man who's capable of lifting one idea here, another there, then some minor
notion from Roussel, then some inspiration out of nowhere, somebody who
follows his whims. And that's the lesson he left us with; it's not at all
that he dedicated himself to making beautiful pictures of Deer Beetles;
it's not that sort of thing at all. Duchamp gives authorization to do
whatever you want, anything at all, just so long as you really like it,
just so long as it really makes sense to you. He allows you to work on
just that kind of desire, just that kind of libido, he teaches you the
fertility of trying to work on the basis of living through these odd kinds
of experience, which is an entirely different thing from the pleasure of
living the ordinary facts of daily existence."
"He was the first great master as an impresario of the bizarre, and the
possibility he has given us is that we to can be just as free floating
too, just as honest and just as inconsistent and with just as much license
to do first one thing and then another in an entirely different, even an
entirely contradictory direction."
"In terms of use value, he turns out to be his own greatest work of art.
or at least that's what he has turned out to be so far--use value, I mean,
in the sense of a work of art that gives inspiration for the production of
other work; that after all, is what art is all about, it's about the
perpetuation of the impulse to art."
"Another way of putting it would be to say that he presented himself with
a manifesto of indifference that ends up by creating its opposite extreme,
which is a sense of scandal. He was preaching indifference, and he in fact
put that kind of indifference into practice, but the result he achieved,
and perhaps intended to achieve, was for the people who received his
message not to be indifferent at all. That really, is the heart of the
matter. His indifference becomes scandalous, and rather than indifferent,
we find ourselves tremendously intrigued. What he does is to catalyze you
into accepting his challenge, and his lesson is something you end up by
inventing for yourself. He's just sort of there, always dressed in his
habit as the empêcheur, and somehow or other you anchor yourself into
that; there's nowhere else to find anchorage; of all the possibilities,
he's the most attractive, the most sympathetic, the most skeptical, the
most available, and the one too, who's the fullest of contradictions. He's
not, after all, Lenin holding a discourse from the roof of an armored
truck and a constant, implacable enemy of the capitalist structure and
economy of the world; he's only artist and he has the kinds of coherence,
the kinds of consistency that you can expect from an artist, that you want
to expect from an artist, and that's a consistency that's full of
contradictions, a consistency where everything, finally, is possible."
-Baruchello & Martin
Mdeli
nwe...@tiac.com (Neal Weiss) wrote:
>I would be curious if ANY schools contnue to practice simply traditional
>technique, and that in accordance perhaps with your criterion of good
>academic art.
Technique in the craft sense is not art it is
information. It is taught today, depending on the
teacher.
> It seems that with specific techniques, one also has
>specific materials. But I would venture to say that for the most part, the
>materials that, the old masters used, for example, are little availible or
>even known of today.
There is a wide range of opinions on this. I’ll give
mine.
Just about all the materials of the past are known. It
is the methods of using them that make the difference.
If there are secrets it is not with the materials of
the masters but the methods of the masters. This
combines craft, science and creativity.
>I am pretty conversant with the researches in art techniques that the old
>masters were using, but also one must understand the innovation that took
>place even amongst them.
>The difference that were developed when oils came as opposed to tempera
>are vital. There is major differences betwen the Bellini and the works
>that followed on their heels by Titian. One can track this, examine
>Rembrant, etc, see the twists in materials that the masters used ...and
>will find that in the 18th and 19th century many of these earlier
>traditional materials were in disuse.
The use of materials is a creative, inventive act. It
greatly influences the final result.
>I have even studied theories that claimed the state of painting was in
>disrepair starting a couple of centuries agian, due soley to the forgotten
>secret techniques of the masters.
I do not believe that there are totally forgotten
techniques of the masters. Although few can do it, most
techniques of the past can be copied and imitated..
Imitating the other aspects of the artists work is
another matter.
All artists start out by imitating someone and go on
to do their individual creation. Today for some reason
many deny this but evidence shows otherwise. For better
or worse, every artist innovates with the techniques he
learns.
The reason for learning technique is simple. The only
other choice is to attempt to rediscover it on ones own
which would be a huge waste of time and effort. One
doesn’t go to school to rediscover calculus or try to
figure out the scales or harmony in music. Invention is
adding to what is known and sometimes changing it. You
can’t break the rules if you don’t know them.
>I've even curiosly enough researched and explored painting with the
>techniques of various old masters, to the best of my abilities as a
>chemist and researcher.
Very few artists knew chemistry. It is a help but
things like drying and wetting properties, viscosity
and covering power etc. are more important(I started in
chemistry). Having a knowledgeable teachers is a
greater help.
>I would say that the secrets of the great Masters of painting, lie in
>their pictorial conception, not in the tools or materials they used, not
>in minor technics, although the materials and technics did play a part.
I agree with this.
However one has to have the ability to carry out one’s
conception and this is where technique comes in. Skill
is the ability to use technique to convey one’s
conceptions to the viewer and by this means convince
him to like the result.
Technique can be taught. Skill less so. Conception can
be hinted at.
So: interesting conception yes, but no skill no art.
Or as Dali put it "the supreme tragedy is when ones
abilities do not life up to ones aspirations.
>Impasto demands a certain mixture of the paint, or of ground, or perhaps
>both....but the power of the paintings come from more than impastoed
>highlights...or, the abilty to draw a foreshortened toe.
Many who make the effort to learn to using impastos
glazes and blending etc. (techniques) combined with the
knowledge and technique needed to draw a foreshortened
toe (speaking a bit aphoristically) attain a lifelong
profession.
Most of those who don’t have to resort to cult worship,
excuses, Artspeak and a lot of luck in order to do so.
"Begin by learning to draw and paint like the masters.
After that you can do as you like; everyone will
respect you." S. Dali
Perhaps you share the silly idea that if one learns
classical methods one is destined to do nothing more
than repeat the past. This is Modern Academic nonsense
propagated by five generations of teachers who because
they lack knowledge and ability are forced to teach a
creed instead of a craft.
Mani DeLi
Bruce Attah
In article <nweiss-0101...@nweiss.tiac.net>, nwe...@tiac.com
(Neal Weiss) wrote:
> Why should WE bother with 'historical significance'? Does this mean that I
> have also to desire to paint like Constable's Haywain; after all, it was
> 'historically significant'. Should I desire to paint Hay Wain? Should
> anyone?
If by WE, you mean practising artists, I agree that we do not need to
worry ourselves about such things -- at least, not as far as our own art
goes, though, if we are interested in the history or the philosophy of
art, we have as much right as anyone to "bother" with such questions.
> Nor are there dozens of Constable imitations by Delacroix.
That is not because Delacroix did not imitate Constable, but because
Delacroix did not imitate ONLY Constable. Eugene Delacroix arrived at his
style by a process of thoughtful eclecticism. The one artist he most
imitated was Rubens, though of course, he could not draw half as well as
the earlier painter.
You yourself realize that Delacroix was an imitator:
> ... He pulled attitude and
> inspiration and ideas from many sources and became the painter he was
> because of that.
Not all imitators are "hack" imitators.
> "What I've learned from Duchamp is that you have to accept everything, the
> silliest kind of juxtaposition, the absurdist kind of rhyme. He has an
> openness that you don't really find in an awful lot of artists. Think
> about his brother, who dedicated a life to sculpting horses, and they're
> incredibly beautiful horses, but then there's a point, if your an artist,
> when you look at one of these horses and ask yourself if thinking about
> horses and trying to sculpt them is something you'd want to pass the
> entirety of a lifetime doing.
Openness to a wide range of sources is good, I agree, but such openness
does not by itself an artists make. Also, specializing is good, if it
suits you, and the specialism is not absurdly narrow, and you get the
payback of specialization which is that, what you do, you do exceptionally
well. As to whether horses are a poor thing to specialize in. I think it
is a perfectly reasonable choice: horses are interesting, sculpturally --
every bit as much as human beings. And I'd far rather spend my days
painting horses than rectangles a la Mondrian or Rothko.
> That's not the kind of thing that gives you
> any energy, or that's constantly able to call you into question and to
> force your values into a state of crisis;
Art does not need to "force your values into a state of crisis". Even if
an artist sets him or herself up as a moral teacher (and there is no
reason why one _must_ do so), the best way to teach values through art is
not necessarily through precipitating crises.
> Duchamp gives authorization to do
> whatever you want, anything at all, just so long as you really like it,
> just so long as it really makes sense to you.
The artists of the Aesthetic movement in the nineteenth century did not
require Duchamp's permission to do precisely that.
The rest of your lengthy quotation is just tedious Duchampolatry; like
most hagiography, it is entirely devoid of ideas. It contains nothing
that I feel compelled to answer.
Bruce Attah.
Neal Weiss
In article
<Bruce.Attah-02...@support-neptune.isltd.insignia.com>,
Bruce...@insignia.co.uk (Bruce Attah) wrote:
> In article <nweiss-0101...@nweiss.tiac.net>, nwe...@tiac.com
> (Neal Weiss) wrote:
>
> > Why should WE bother with 'historical significance'? Does this mean that I
> > have also to desire to paint like Constable's Haywain; after all, it was
> > 'historically significant'. Should I desire to paint Hay Wain? Should
> > anyone?
>
> If by WE, you mean practising artists, I agree that we do not need to
> worry ourselves about such things -- at least, not as far as our own art
> goes, though, if we are interested in the history or the philosophy of
> art, we have as much right as anyone to "bother" with such questions.
>
>
> > Nor are there dozens of Constable imitations by Delacroix.
>
> That is not because Delacroix did not imitate Constable, but because
> Delacroix did not imitate ONLY Constable. Eugene Delacroix arrived at his
> style by a process of thoughtful eclecticism.
€This sounds to me like a good case of "not imitating". It sounds like he
was influenced: In a not dissimilar fashion that artists were and are
influenced by Duchamp...and not making Urinals (but other works) and
Delacroix not making Haywains (but other works).
>
> You yourself realize that Delacroix was an imitator:
€ Hardly. Your putting your words into my mouth and they don't sit well.
I'll spit them back out.
> > ... He pulled attitude and
> > inspiration and ideas from many sources and became the painter he was
> > because of that.
>
> Not all imitators are "hack" imitators.
>
>
> > "What I've learned from Duchamp is that you have to accept everything, the
> > silliest kind of juxtaposition, the absurdist kind of rhyme. He has an
> > openness that you don't really find in an awful lot of artists. Think
> > about his brother, who dedicated a life to sculpting horses, and they're
> > incredibly beautiful horses, but then there's a point, if your an artist,
> > when you look at one of these horses and ask yourself if thinking about
> > horses and trying to sculpt them is something you'd want to pass the
> > entirety of a lifetime doing.
>
> Openness to a wide range of sources is good, I agree, but such openness
> does not by itself an artists make. Also, specializing is good, if it
> suits you, and the specialism is not absurdly narrow,
€ What would be an example of absurdly narrow specialization, as opposed
to that of painting of horses, for instance?
> > That's not the kind of thing that gives you
> > any energy, or that's constantly able to call you into question and to
> > force your values into a state of crisis;
>
> Art does not need to "force your values into a state of crisis". Even if
> an artist sets him or herself up as a moral teacher (and there is no
> reason why one _must_ do so), the best way to teach values through art is
> not necessarily through precipitating crises.
>
€ There is a tradition in the arts of art being a more direct avenue to
philosophical and metaphysical speculation and experimentation. (Likewise,
I suppose in painting, some artists could never identify crisis or nudge
their work towards a reckoning...although that does not change the fact
for me that the most exciting and innovative painters have forced their
works into and through pictorial crisis...).It is more a case, if you had
read the full quote, you would have had access to the notion, of art being
ductile and receptive to the artists passions and needs. Once your on your
horse track how do you become responsive to other demands? Say, to use a
reduced example, you wanted to paint a human likeness, or woke up with a
passion to do another manifestation in your art....but had made a
limitation of your art in it's specialization? You have shut a door then
to certain possibilities. Duchamp "legitimises insurrection".
>
> > Duchamp gives authorization to do
> > whatever you want, anything at all, just so long as you really like it,
> > just so long as it really makes sense to you.
> The artists of the Aesthetic movement in the nineteenth century did not
> require Duchamp's permission to do precisely that.
(?)
> The rest of your lengthy quotation is just tedious Duchampolatry; like
> most hagiography, it is entirely devoid of ideas. It contains nothing
> that I feel compelled to answer.
€...the transaction is different with Duchamp. Were one to write a
biography for example, it would consist of inventive collaboration with
Duchamp, as an equal.
...as long as you understand that it is your tedium and void, not that of
others. And not all tedium and voids are the same. I have duly noted your
tedium and void, and have moved on. I have quite a large inspired world,
thanks in part to Duchamp, and I am not alone, nor unique in this...the
artists of this century who have been inspired to collaborate with Duchamp
are legion...
-N
Bruce Attah
In article <euphemite-010...@comserv-j-18.usc.edu>,
euph...@aol.com (Euphemism) wrote:
> I am at a loss as to how your object/artwork
> dichotomy helps us to think about art history, or Duchamp, or anything
> else.
>
> Here's to a healthy and clearheaded 1997.
You said, "art history is the history of objects", characterising that as
my view. I did not like that characterisation, because a history of the
art objects themselves (their provenance and their fate) would be, in my
view, nothing more than a specialized area within art history. I'm not
saying that, ultimately, the objects are not at the centre of all art
history.
The semantic distinction between art and art objects, in my view, is that
"art" is a quality that art objects have. Therefore, art and art objects
are inseparable in fact. To speak of art and art objects as if they might
have any sort of existence independent of one another is, in my opinion,
an example of what Gilbert Ryle would call a "category mistake".
In my opinion, none of the following things is capable of transforming an
object into art: a signature, a title, fiat, consensus, "discourse", a
frame, a plinth, or an auction. The a thing becomes art WHEN IT IS MADE,
not before and not after, just as chairs become chairs when they are made,
and motor cars become motor cars when they are made, and not as a result
of any subsequent "discourse" or "context". Obviously, there is a sense
in which it is a matter of convention or consensus to call some objects
art, and others not, but this is a trivial sense, irrelevant to
aesthetics, and of concern only to linguist: this is the same sense in
which it is a matter of convention and consensus that we call spades
spades, chairs chairs and automobiles automobiles.
Given this view that I hold, objects like Duchamp's "readymades" are not
art at all, and cannot possibly be art -- they were never MADE into art.
Also, even Duchamp's urinal (his most notorious readymade) were art, I
claim that it would not be an art object that had much significance in the
history of art (cf. my earlier post).
When I say that Duchamp's urinal would not be a historically significant
object, even if it were art, I am not saying that the quality of art in
the object is significant while the object itself is insignificant.
Rather, I am saying that an entirely distinct thing, the _story_, is
significant. It may well be that the story is art (stories can be art,
after all), but whether it is or not, it is NOT THE URINAL.
Bruce Attah.
Bruce Attah
In article <19970101113...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
euph...@aol.com (Euphemite) wrote:
> It sounds as if, to visit one of your earlier examples, you would declare
> it "historically significant" if artists looked at George Grosz's drawings
> and imitated his quality of line. But if artists looked at the same
> drawings and imitated his use of art to criticize capitalist fatcats, this
> would not be "historically significant, " especially if the resulting
> works were, say, photo collages or clay sculptures (or written stories!)
> that had little formal resemblance to the Grosz drawings.
In both ways, the objects (Grosz's drawings) would be historically
significant, because it is the objects themselves that contain both the
formal properties you describe and the criticism of Weimar decadence.
Conversely, Duchamp's object contains neither the critique of art nor any
particular formal properties that have been very influential. The story,
though, has been influential, both regarding the sorts of objects that are
presented as art, and the manner of their presentation.
Bruce Attah.
wsparker
Bruce Attah wrote:
> Conversely, Duchamp's object contains neither the critique of art nor any
> particular formal properties that have been very influential. The story,
> though, has been influential, both regarding the sorts of objects that are
> presented as art, and the manner of their presentation.
Gee, why not separate the "story" from the "art" for us. Keeping in mind
that all we do as human beings is tell stories, visually, verbally,
whatever other mode you can identify, and yet they all rest upon this
giant thing called "language."
So why don't you see you can't separate out the "story" of the art from
the art itself? What a folly. Do you think it is possible? Language is
heavily intertwined in all the modalities of perception (language is not
exclusive to any one of them) and afterall "language" resides in art!
Smeli why don't you jump in there and call what I just said "farty
artspeak?" never mind I did your stinky thing for you.
Mdeli
>Bruce Attah wrote:
>> Conversely, Duchamp's object contains neither the critique of art nor any
>> particular formal properties that have been very influential. The story,
>> though, has been influential, both regarding the sorts of objects that are
>> presented as art, and the manner of their presentation.
Parker answers:
>Gee, why not separate the "story" from the "art" for us. Keeping in mind
>that all we do as human beings is tell stories, visually, verbally,
>whatever other mode you can identify, and yet they all rest upon this
>giant thing called "language."
A story may be interesting but artwork isn't valued
because of its story. Judgment in art is based on the
qualities of the artwork..
>So why don't you see you can't separate out the "story" of the art from
>the art itself? What a folly. Do you think it is possible? Language is
>heavily intertwined in all the modalities of perception (language is not
>exclusive to any one of them) and afterall "language" resides in art!
The "story" is about all there is to most Modern
Academic Art because the object is of almost no
interest whatever. However, most worthwhile art has no
story of any interest. Vermeer is a good example.
> Language is
>heavily intertwined in all the modalities of perception (language is not
>exclusive to any one of them) and afterall "language" resides in art!
Modern Academic art depends almost entirely on a
language; ARTSPEAK. As to its story, it was told long
ago in "The Emperor’s New Cloths."
>Smeli why don't you jump in there and call what I just said "farty
>artspeak?" never mind I did your stinky thing for you.
BTW the last time we started to call each other names
you had conniptions. If you wish to continue I will
answer you in kind.
Mani DeLi
...no skill no art
Mdeli
euph...@aol.com (Euphemite) wrote:
>the fact remains that Duchamp's readymades
>have powerfully influenced a wide range of critical discussion and art
>making since their original appearance.
Modern Academic Discussion-yes. Art-no.
>Obviously, Duchamp's work had the effect of raising doubts and questions
>about the nature of art objects and aesthetic value.
What doubts?
The Duchamp pisspot discussion here reminds me of an
incident. A guy once asked me to join his secret
society. Among other things he told me I would learn
their secret handshake.
The fact was that except for members of his club no one
really gave a damn about these secrets and the only
reason for them was that they enhanced a feeling self
importance on its members. Much modern art and the
pseudo philosophical gas which accompanies it is
analogous here.
Duchamp’s urinal is just another put-on with artistic
pretenses. It is about as important as last months
newspaper.
Even Modern Academic put-on specialists rarely talk
about the urinal lest people think their masterpieces
are not new and original. The only people it influences
today are modern art historians whose books hardly
anyone reads (they are bought for the pictures) and a
small artzy fartzy faction of the post modernists.
O, yes Duchamp influenced the "Fur lined teacup." When
I went to school much Artzy fartzy discussion centered
around this and Moholi Nagy. Stuff now as important as
the secret handshake.
Mani DeLi
...Today's clown prince of art is Warhol not Duchamp
wsparker
Mdeli wrote:
>
> BTW the last time we started to call each other names
> you had conniptions. If you wish to continue I will
> answer you in kind.
It was your "original" idea!
As ye sow so shall ye reap.
Euphemism
(Bruce Attah) wrote:
[...] Grosz's drawings would be historically
> significant, because it is the objects themselves that contain both the
> formal properties you describe and the criticism of Weimar decadence.
The physical object doesn't "contain" criticism, or "beauty" for that
matter; these are attributed to the work via the artwork's relationship to
other art, language, and the whole range of social conventions and
institutions.
I think this issue is at the heart of our dialogue. Duchamp casts such a
big shadow because he has come to symbolize the turn in twentieth century
art toward critical investigation of the contexts that create meaning.
The readymade raises the possibility that a network of factors that are
not inherant in the object determine what is given legitimacy as art.
It also suggests that the viewer is a participant in the creation of meaning.
Euphemism
> >Bruce Attah wrote:
> >> Conversely, Duchamp's object contains neither the critique of art nor any
> >> particular formal properties that have been very influential. The story,
> >> though, has been influential, both regarding the sorts of objects that are
> >> presented as art, and the manner of their presentation.
>
> Parker answers:
> >Gee, why not separate the "story" from the "art" for us. Keeping in mind
> >that all we do as human beings is tell stories, visually, verbally,
> >whatever other mode you can identify, and yet they all rest upon this
> >giant thing called "language."
>
> A story may be interesting but artwork isn't valued
> because of its story. Judgment in art is based on the
> qualities of the artwork..
How does one percieve "quality" in art? I can't imagine how it is
possible without some kind of "story" that establishes criteria for
judgement. It is an error to imagine that "quality" is self-evident and
universal.
> >So why don't you see you can't separate out the "story" of the art from
> >the art itself? What a folly. Do you think it is possible? Language is
> >heavily intertwined in all the modalities of perception (language is not
> >exclusive to any one of them) and afterall "language" resides in art!
>
> The "story" is about all there is to most Modern
> Academic Art because the object is of almost no
> interest whatever.
I'm not sure which "Modern Academic Art" you mean: you dismiss such a
varied lot of things without specifying what you're talking about. There
is some art, our friend the "Fountain" is an example, where the artist
intentionally refuses to deliver the expected display of virtuoso craft or
visual interest specifically in order to shift attention away from the
physical design of the object and toward other aspects of the situation
which gives art value (Alan MacCollum's "Surrogates" are a clear example
of this). Like it or not, this kind of work is not a failure of drawing
skill. It is, for better of worse, more or less successfully, an attempt
to think about and present other aspects of art.
Satterlee
Bruce Attah wrote:
>
<snip>
> In my opinion, none of the following things is capable of transforming an
> object into art: a signature, a title, fiat, consensus, "discourse", a
> frame, a plinth, or an auction. The a thing becomes art WHEN IT IS MADE,
> not before and not after, just as chairs become chairs when they are made,
> and motor cars become motor cars when they are made, and not as a result
> of any subsequent "discourse" or "context".
This is a fundamental point of belief, and that is fine. My question
(this is not meant to be loaded or rhetorical) is this: When an
artist's work is out of favor, is it still art? In other words, right
now you think John Doe's work is a piece of cr*p, but in 20 years you
have a change of heart and discover real meaning in the work. Was it
always art?
<snip>
> Given this view that I hold, objects like Duchamp's "readymades" are not
> art at all, and cannot possibly be art -- they were never MADE into art.
> Also, even Duchamp's urinal (his most notorious readymade) were art, I
> claim that it would not be an art object that had much significance in the
> history of art (cf. my earlier post).
The paints were never MADE into art. They became part of the process of
art making. I think that is one of the central points of this vein of
Duchamp's work. Materials or process don't make it art. Something else
does.
>
> When I say that Duchamp's urinal would not be a historically significant
> object, even if it were art, I am not saying that the quality of art in
> the object is significant while the object itself is insignificant.
> Rather, I am saying that an entirely distinct thing, the _story_, is
> significant. It may well be that the story is art (stories can be art,
> after all), but whether it is or not, it is NOT THE URINAL.
>
> Bruce Attah.
Could you clarify this last paragraph, please? I've read it over a
number of times and I know there is a significant point you are making,
but I'm not connecting. Thanks.
amos
wsparker
Euphemism wrote:
>
> In article <5ambp0$r...@news.interlog.com>, hu...@interlog.com (Mdeli) wrote:
>
>
> How does one percieve "quality" in art? I can't imagine how it is
> possible without some kind of "story" that establishes criteria for
> judgement. It is an error to imagine that "quality" is self-evident and
> universal.
>
>
> I'm not sure which "Modern Academic Art" you mean: you dismiss such a
> varied lot of things without specifying what you're talking about. There
> is some art, our friend the "Fountain" is an example, where the artist
> intentionally refuses to deliver the expected display of virtuoso craft or
> visual interest specifically in order to shift attention away from the
> physical design of the object and toward other aspects of the situation
> which gives art value (Alan MacCollum's "Surrogates" are a clear example
> of this). Like it or not, this kind of work is not a failure of drawing
> skill. It is, for better of worse, more or less successfully, an attempt
> to think about and present other aspects of art.
Gee, a good amount of time has passed and still no answer to a sincere
and direct question.
Is his non-response "Conceptual Bullshittism."
I'd think he'd be very happy to have someone ask him what he thinks.
I don't mean another issuance of one of his titillating manifestoesque
terse press-release statements, either.
I'd like to know what he thinks in response, point for point, to an
actual well formulated question.
I am expecting no actual response to well articulated query, Does anyone
her expect that?
I dare say, it is more likely that we will get yet another rehash of the
same simplistic evasive vagueries.
Mdeli
I wrote:
>> A story may be interesting but artwork isn't valued
>> because of its story. Judgment in art is based on the
>> qualities of the artwork..
euph...@aol.com (Euphemism) wrote:
>How does one percieve "quality" in art? I can't imagine how it is
>possible without some kind of "story" that establishes criteria for
>judgement. It is an error to imagine that "quality" is self-evident and
>universal.
Do you look for a story every time you look at a lousy
student drawing or a painting you don’t like? I doubt
it.
Most viewers can sense when a drawing is rife with
error or contains practically nothing. They can also
perceive ugliness in color, technique and when a work
evokes the feeling that it is a put-on which most
anyone can duplicate. Artworks which do not evoke this
perception may have "quality"
No story is necessary to appreciate the great and
minor masterworks of the past and the same is true for
modern work.
> >So why don't you see you can't separate out the "story" of the art from
>the art itself?
Did you ever go to a gallery and just like some ones
work which you never saw before? Or do you only form
an opinion after you read a story?
Tell us some of the Vermeer story or that of a Dutch
still life painter we know nothing about. Would Van
Gogh’s work have less artistic merit if we knew nothing
about him?
His story is interesting but its what hangs on the
wall that counts.
I don’t follow up the story of any artwork which
doesn’t interest me. And I suspect everyone here does
the same, including you.
>I'm not sure which "Modern Academic Art" you mean: you dismiss such a
>varied lot of things without specifying what you're talking about.
Modern Academic Art is the majority of stuff which
presently inhabits the modern sections of museums and
is chosen for criticism in Art magazines. This includes
the majority of work considered by modern critics to be
the greatest artwork produced in this century.
Present day art historians use the term "academic" to
describe the characteristics of the situation in the
latter part of the 19th century.
I chose the word academic because it aptly describes
the analogous situation today.
> There
>is some art, our friend the "Fountain" is an example, where the artist
>intentionally refuses to deliver the expected display of virtuoso craft or
>visual interest specifically in order to shift attention away from the
>physical design of the object and toward other aspects of the situation
>which gives art value (Alan MacCollum's "Surrogates" are a clear example
>of this). Like it or not, this kind of work is not a failure of drawing
>skill. It is, for better of worse, more or less successfully, an attempt
>to think about and present other aspects of art.
--As are rubber doo-doos, plastic vomit and most of the
highly creative material found in the joke store. These
are far greater art than a store bought pisspot with an
attached lecture.
I am still waiting to attend a university seminar in
which the Dadaistic and post modern implications of the
artist who gave us the poo-pooh cushion will be
seriously discussed. Perhaps you might have an
important "story" to add to this artistic question?
Mani DeLi
...the present clown prince of art is Warhol not
Duchamp
Bruce Attah
In article <euphemite-040...@comserv-g-27.usc.edu>,
euph...@aol.com (Euphemism) wrote:
> (Bruce Attah) wrote:
>
> [...] Grosz's drawings would be historically
> > significant, because it is the objects themselves that contain both the
> > formal properties you describe and the criticism of Weimar decadence.
>
> The physical object doesn't "contain" criticism, or "beauty" for that
> matter; these are attributed to the work via the artwork's relationship to
> other art, language, and the whole range of social conventions and
> institutions.
The physical object contains the criticism. Shall we persist in rebutting
one another's statements with flat contradictions? Yay, nay, yay, nay...
I don't think that will get us very far, so I will try to explain what I
mean, and you see if you agree with me.
If a novelist describes a character in such a way as to convey a feeling
of disgust towards that character and his or her doings, we read this,
along with other contextual cues in the narrative, as a hint that the
novelist is criticising the character. Whatever conventions may exist
(such as language) that enable us to read the meaning of the portrayal,
the fact remains that the criticism of that character IS IN THE NOVEL, and
not somewhere else.
So, too with a painting or drawing. In the drawings of Rowlandson,
Scarfe, Daumier, AND GROSZ, we are able to see from the MANNER OF
PORTRAYAL, where the artist's sympathies lie with regard to the characters
portrayed. Some figures look stupid, others, lazy, filthy or otherwise
unpleasant. Their ugliest features are exaggerated to the point where
they inspire laughter or revulsion. Other figures are portrayed without
the same cruelty.
A big part of the art of picture-making is in using your MANNER of
representation as a clue to the MEANING of the picture. If you don't
understand this, then what are you doing professing an interest in art?
> I think this issue is at the heart of our dialogue. Duchamp casts such a
> big shadow because he has come to symbolize the turn in twentieth century
> art toward critical investigation of the contexts that create meaning.
In ANY age of art since the Renaissance, you will find pictures that are
not just MEANINGFUL, but also CRITICAL. Duchamp was no pioneer in this
respect.
> The readymade raises the possibility that a network of factors that are
> not inherant in the object determine what is given legitimacy as art.
Pure, unadulterated bollocks.
> It also suggests that the viewer is a participant in the creation of meaning.
Sure, it is the viewers who create the meaning of Duchamp's ready-mades,
just as the Emperor creates that feeling of warmth when he wears the
charlatan's robes. By contrast, it is NOT the viewer who creates the
meaning of Botticelli's Minerva. The viewer, rather, reaches across the
centuries to grasp (tenuously) at BOTTICELLI'S meaning.
Bruce Attah.
Euphemism
Bruce Attah wrote:
> In ANY age of art since the Renaissance, you will find pictures that are
> not just MEANINGFUL, but also CRITICAL. Duchamp was no pioneer in this
> respect.
You are screaming at a straw man of your own device: I never suggested
that Duchamp was the first "critical" artist.
Please read the sentence carefully:
" [Duchamp] has come to symbolize the turn in twentieth century art toward
critical investigation of the contexts that create meaning." This is a
far more specific (and modest) claim. With the readymades, Duchamp was a
pioneer in focusing on factors outside of the picture frame that have a
bearing on how "art" is understood. However wrongheaded it may be, this
project has been incorporated into the practice of many artists,
especially in the last thirty years.
> > The readymade raises the possibility that a network of factors that are
> > not inherant in the object determine what is given legitimacy as art.
>
> Pure, unadulterated bollocks.
How else do you explain the widespread acceptance of the readymades as
artworks in prominent museums of art, histories of art, universities and
art academies, etc.? I'm not asking whether you agree with this
view--clearly, you don't, and you would like to see this consensus
changed. I just can't imagine how you can deny that they have in fact
achieved official standing (social legitimacy) as art, and for reasons
that--I think you would agree--are not a judgement about their physical
craftsmanship.
To deny this is to retreat from reality.
Satterlee
Bruce Attah wrote:
<snip>
> A big part of the art of picture-making is in using your MANNER of
> representation as a clue to the MEANING of the picture. If you don't
> understand this, then what are you doing professing an interest in art?
A straight, non-sarcastic question: do you use the term *representation*
in a narrow, strict interpretation, or in a broader, more inclusive
way. Can an abstract piece have a MANNER and a MEANING as you use the
terms above?
<snip>
> By contrast, it is NOT the viewer who creates the
> meaning of Botticelli's Minerva. The viewer, rather, reaches across the
> centuries to grasp (tenuously) at BOTTICELLI'S meaning.
>
> Bruce Attah.
As these conversations indicate, MEANING seems to describe a process
rather than a product. On one hand, there is no way that we can know
Botticelli's meaning because of the almost cataclysmic differences in
our epochs. On the other hand, we should be able to make a human
connection irrespective of the times passed. I dispute that a piece, in
and of itself, has an a priori meaning that transcends context.
amos