Make Museums Not Malls (Stop Spamming(

[Guajirro]

In my own artwork I identify with the concept of craftsmanship not
being an issue. I believe that an artist by trade makes art; therefore
whatever the artist makes is art. The artist can remove an object from
its original environment and place it within an art environment and the
object has no choice but to exist as art. I am an artist, therefore I
make art. With my own work I try to find inspiration in everyday
ordinary objects. I use images and objects and juxtapose them with each
other creating an abstraction from real life, or even representing the
irony of real life. The concept can sometimes have a greater impact than
craftsmanship. I also try to question how far will the viewer go before
the viewer reacts and challenges me the artist.
You might think that this idea is nihilistic; and you are right. We
live in a world where everything is either filtered or covered with a
thin sheet of film. Nothing is real anymore. It is all new and
improved or taken away because it causes cancer. This great place that
we call earth is run by governments. These governments don’t care about
urban planning or the comfort of its citizens like the Romans did.
Instead they only care about protecting their borders from other
countries. Meanwhile, we the citizens have to deal with high crime
rates and unemployment. Not to mention the ultimate crime of all; the
removal of art itself.
This view of society and art is not a new one. It existed in the
1920’s and was called Dada. Being curious about where I am going with
my own artwork, I am going to go back in time to learn what Dada has to
do with me today, and how has Dada changed the art world as we now it.
An international movement in art and literature called Dada was started
in 1915(Software Toolworks, Dada). Dadaists’ declared a purpose to
protest the senseless violence of World War I. The world had never seen
destruction on such a large scale. They believed that World War I
established moral and aesthetic value meaningless. The term Dada was
chosen at random from a dictionary and means “hobbyhorse” in
Romanian(Dawtery 88). Dada promoted anti-art and non-sense, declaring
that art did not depend in any way on established rules or on
craftsmanship; the only rule was chance, and the only reality is
imagination. Dada seemed to have roots in nihilism, but it could also
be seen as a kind of thoughtful absurdity. A way toward freedom
achieved by penetrating into the unknown regions of the mind.
Political exiles of all kinds took refuge in Zurich during World War
I. It was there that Dada was started by Hugo Ball, Jean Arp, Richard
Huelsenbeck, Marcel Janco, and Tristan Tzara (Encarta, Dada). Together
these gentlemen founded the Cabaret Voltaire (opening unknown). This
cabaret was a theater, a literary gathering place, and an exhibition
center. The Cabaret Voltaire hosted scandalous and mysterious
entertainment. Various artists lectured and exhibited together. Some
of the artist involved with The Cabaret Voltaire were Jean Arp, Giorgio
de Chirico, Max Earnst, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Pablo Picasso
(Toolworks, Dada).
Tristan Tzara, a Romanian poet and playwright, b. April 4th, 1896, d.
December 25th, 1963, is the principal founder of the Dada movement.
Tzara then moved to Paris in 1919 bringing Dada with him. When he died
he left essays on art in which he stated that he had always been a
Dadaist. His early works included: La Preiere Aventure Celeste de M.
Antipyrine (The First Celestial Adventure of Mr. Aspirin), 1916, La
coeur a gaz (The Gas Heart), 1923, and The Approximate Man, 1931. By
reading their titles one can see the sort of irrational playfulness that
is Dadaism (Encarta, Tzara).
Jean Hans Arp b. September 16th, 1887 d. June 7th, 1966, was a sculptor
and a poet. He was a leading figure in 20th-century avant-garde art.
After exhibiting abstract rectilinear works in 1915 in Zurich, Arp
turned to arrangements of objects according to the laws of chance. In
1916 Arp became a co-founder of Dada. He contributed with both poetry
and illustrations to all Dada Publications. In 1917 Arp made several
series of abstract woodcuts and polychromatic relief’s. In 1918 along
with his soon to be wife, Sofie Taeuber, he made large collages of
geometric cutouts, largely under her influence. In 1919-20, Arp worked
with Max Ernst in Cologne on a number of Dada enterprises. In 1923 he
worked on Kurt Schwitters’s review Merz, also in 1925 with El Lissitzky,
he published a work about all the contemporary art movements call “The
Isms of Art” (Toolworks, Arp).
Francis Picabia, b. January 22nd, 1879, d. November 30th, 1953, is
another co-founder of Dada. This French painter began his career as an
impressionist style painter. By 1913 he turned to Cubism but this
seemed to be too confining for Picabia’s playful temperament. Soon he
began to produce images like Universal Prostitution (1916-17; Yale Art
Gallery), in which human figures are represented by machinelike
objects. Picabia also published poems and essays in avant-garde
journals. He also took part in various Dada events until 1921, when he
joined the surrealists (Toolworks, Picabia).
El Lissitzky b. November 10th, 1890, d. December 30th, 1941, was a
Russian painter and designer. He was also one of the most enthusiastic
advocates of abstract art. In 1919 he began to paint what he called
Prouns. Prouns were geometrical abstractions influenced by the work of
Kasmir Malevich. In 1922 as a result of the Bolshevik government’s
hostility to abstract art, Lissitzky went to Germany where he
contributed his constructivist ideas to the Dada movement (Toolworks,
Lissitzky).
Kurt Schwitters b. June 20th, 1887, d. January 8th, 1948, was a member
of the Hanover Dada movement and an active contributor to avant-garde
art before World War II. He is principally known for his Merz collages
and constructions. These were abstract arrangements of commonplace and
discarded objects chosen for their shape, color, and texture. In 1917
he began to develop a personal idiom, producing his first Merz drawings
in 1919. Merz art, the name which he derived from the word Kommerz
appearing on a scrap of newspaper in one of his early collages. He then
developed the Merz picture which was larger and more three-dimensional
than the Merz drawing. He published Merz poems under the name Anna
Blume in 1919 and launched the magazine Merz throughout 1923-32
(Toolworks, Schwitters).
Man Ray, b. Philadelphia, August 27th, 1890, d. November 18th, 1976,
was a pioneering painter and photographer in the Dada movement. He
turned to film making in 1923, at which point he produced Le Retour a la
Raison (Return to Reason), 1923, and Anemic Cinema (1925-26) with Marcel
Duchamp (Toolworks, Ray).
Marcel Duchamp b. July, 28th, 1887m d. October 2nd, 1968, was a French
painter and theorist. He was a major component of Dada and one of the
most influential figures of avant-garde 20th-century art. In 1912,
Duchamp painted his famous Nude Descending A Staircase (Philidelphia
Museum of Art), which caused a scandal at the 1913 Armory Show in New
York City. In the same year he, along with Francis Picabia and
Guillaume Apolinaire, developed the radical and ironic ideas that
independently prefigured the official founding of Dada in Zurich. In
Paris, 1914 Duchamp bought and signed a bottle rack, thereby producing
his first ready-made, a new art form based on the principle that art
does not depend on established rules or on craftsmanship. Duchamp’s
ready-mades are ordinary objects that are signed and titled, becoming
aesthetic, rather than functional objects simply by the change of
context and surroundings. Dada aimed at departure from the physical
aspect of painting and emphases in ideas as the chief means of artistic
expression. In 1915, Duchamp moved to New York City, where he join
Louise and Walter Arensberg and their circle of artist and poets, which
formed New York Dada. That same year he began his major work, The Large
Glass, or The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors (1915-23), a
construction of wire and painted foil fitted between plates of
transparent glass. In 1918 he completed his last major painting, Tum’,
a huge oil and graphite on canvas. Tum’ is a unique combination of real,
painted, illusionistic, and flat space. Following his maxim never to
repeat himself, Duchamp stopped painting in 1923 after 20 works and
devoted himself largely to the game of chess (Toolworks, Duchamp).
Although the movement called Dada no longer exists, its effects and
ideals still remain. I only wonder what would these artists be doing
today if they were alive. Would they make the same type of work or
would their old age come through and effect the work? Other artist’s
throughout the twentieth century have touched upon Dadaist ideals for
creating art. In the 1960’s Conceptual art reached a high point with
art that was mainly based on an idea. Artists like Sol Lewitt, William
Wegman, and Bruce Nauman were and are still categorized with this
genre. Another movement created in the 1960’s was minimalism, a
movement where all pretensions were abandoned. Artists involved were
Elsworth Kelly, Frank Stella, and Ad Reinhardt. In the 1970’s there was
a movement called Fluxus that had no identifiable style and it too
dealed heavily with the ideals of Dada.
Where is art going? It is very important to answer this question
considering many are trying to take art away. Artists as a collective
must once again unite and demand that art be left alone or there will
not be an art culture in this multicultural country. I will do my part
to illustrate this by using objects and images that are precious to the
people who wear teal, purple, and are only concerned with how far the
local mall is. It is this part of the population that have removed
themselves from the cultural centers to reside in suburbia where
galleries and museums don’t exist. I understand that this country has a
young culture, but let’s not make “THE MALL” our culture. Lets remember
while the lunatic fringe is building up its arsenals and militias
preparing itself for another revolution we must also build up our forces
and bombard them with art and education in an attempt to raise the level
of awareness. I personally don’t want to be alive to witness another
American revolution. Perhaps I should build a nuclear bomb, sign it,
title it and call it art. Go ahead and try me I’ll launch it if the
radical right tries to take away our culture.
“Make Museums Not Malls”
Bibliography:

Dawtrey, L., Jackson, T., Masterton, M., Meecham, P., Wood, P.
Investigating Modern Art. New haven: Yale University Press and The Open
University. 1996.

Lucie-Smith, Edward. The Thames And Hudson Dictionary Of Art Terms.
London: Thames And Hudson. 1984.

Microsoft Encarta ‘95. Release 3.17.53. Computer Software. Microsoft
Corp.. 1993. Windows95.

Software Toolworks Workshop Multimedia Encyclopedia. Release ?. Computer
Software. Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc.. 1992. Windows95.