Sol Lewitt

In the second half of the twentieth century, artistic movements made pushes in order to move beyond the traditional gallery space, changing the terrain of displaying and making art. An artist’s body of work no longer needed to reside inside of a gallery or art collection, and artists became free to explore other ways of creating and displaying work. In this vein, Andy Goldsworthy works sculpturally with natural media, and leaves the sculptures within a particular environment, often expecting his work to decay quickly. Many times, the only evidence of any art he makes is the photographs taken during the process. By more traditional standards, art of this nature is entirely contradictory. What is the point of pieces of visual art that cannot

While art does have its advantages, it will not solve everyone’s problems. It is true that not everyone enjoys the thrill of creating a beautiful masterpiece because they might have been forced to take that class. However, those who love these classes show that there is a relationship between creativity and

Throughout the centuries, artists, literary or otherwise, created masterpieces that remain invaluable to the present day. Therefore, several would question why there are so few masterpieces in the many years humanity had to to develop them. Gertrude Stein answers this question in her essay What are Masterpieces and Why are there so Few of Them?

An artist is successful if his or her work speaks to its audience. The artist intends for their work to make the audience feel a certain way, think a certain way, and possibly even act a certain way. Some artist will choose to leave the interpretation of their work up to the audience, often these ambiguous works will be interpreted differently by almost every member of the audience. Other artist, such as Robert Indiana, the pop artist behind the famous LOVE Sculpture, are able to—for the most part—limit variations among the interpretations of their work. Of course, although in an artist such as Robert Indiana’s case the message may be clearly stated, the interpretation of the work by its audience is still subject to change overtime. As

My perception of The Legacy of Jackson Pollock relates to my practice through the concept of regenerating materials to create artwork, while also regarding how Pollock’s work engages with an audience through his application of medium, showing spatial awareness through his method of creating.

Throughout human history people used to capture the reality of their time, express their feelings and share their impressions by copying both literally or figurative the mundane. The so-called artists have had different impacts in society all along the centuries. Only a few are currently taught in school, although the reverberation of their work is still impregnated in XXI Century. Nowadays, the term ‘artist’ can be used in reference of painters, sculptors, writers, singers, choreographers and other professions whose production are considered valuable culturally speaking. One of the main problems is that their work produce such a magnificent impact on the audience the artist is set aside and usually forgotten as a person, so they feel their rights to be violated.

Jeff Koons builds on the Duchampian tradition of ready-made materials in the production of art. Koons brings the art objects out of mainstream culture and pushes them to their ultimate limit, compared to the ordinary and frequently mass produced objects that Marcel Duchamp reimagined as art objects such as the bicycle wheel and the urinal. For Duchamp however, this act was one of supreme skepticism. As the New York Review of Books art critic Jed Perl explains in his critique of Jeff Koons’ Whitney Museum Retrospective “The Cult of Jeff Koons,” Duchamp differs from Koons in that Duchamp’s production of ready-made objects was a result of a need for art to become understood on a deeper level by questioning its function in the sphere of history.

Arthur C. Danto in “The Artworld” provides us with the argument that, “To see something as art requires something that the eye cannot descry-an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art: an artworld.” Danto shows us the importance of the artworld in order to know that a work of art is more than just what we can plainly see. Danto provides two theories he calls the “IT” (Imitation theory) and the “RT” (Reality theory). With these two theories, Danto explains how we can define art and why “The Artworld” is needed to help understand art, because after all, “these days one might not be aware he was on artistic terrain without an artistic theory to tell him so.”

Art is all around us. There are many different forms of art. It can be something created, captured, or it can be already existent. Not a single person is to say what makes something art because there is a different definition for everyone. However, there are a couple factors that come into mind whenever someone decides to declare something as art. In this essay I will be comparing and contrasting four different pieces of art. I will be discussing each art piece’s form, time period of creation, intention or purpose, and value. These four pieces of art are Michelangelo’s Pieta, Fountain by Marcel Duchamp, Mark Rothko’s No.61, and the “Oyster Dress” by Alexander McQueen. These works of art come in all different shapes and sizes but they are valued

In 1953, Robert Rauschenberg had the idea of adding drawing to his All White Series. However, drawing on these paintings, or anywhere, would defeat the purpose of this series, and so he came to the conclusion that the only way he could achieve this would be through erasure. He began experimenting with his own drawings, but still being a young artist it he didn’t think it would be considered art. For his idea to work, he thought, it had to be art that he erased. Having admiration and respect for artist Willem de Kooning, Rauschenberg decided to buy a bottle of Jack Daniels, and go to his house. Rauschenberg explained to de Kooning his idea, and asked if he could use a drawing of his. Reluctant, de Kooning agreed, only because he understood the idea. After looking through his portfolios, de Kooning handed Rauschenberg a drawing that he would miss, and that was almost impossible to erase. A month later, Rauschenberg successfully erased de Kooning’s drawing, and with the help of Jasper Johns, titled the piece in ink, and framed it. Robert Rauschenberg’s Erased de Kooning Drawing can be seen as either a minimalist piece or conceptual piece. Through a clearer understanding of both movements, the aim of this essay is to show how this piece could be seen as a minimal piece or a conceptual piece, and to see which movement it leans more towards.

The Art of the readymade, a controversial topic both at the beginning of its conception and its duration, was provocative for artists and audiences alike. What made the readymade so provocative was the push by artists to go against one of the foundations of art, the material, and instead focus almost entirely on its conceptual development. In short, a consequence of the readymade according to Helen’s Molesworth was “a disavowal of an ontological definition of art” . A definition previously shaped by academic art focusing on the considered beautiful aesthetics of artworks that pleased audiences up to the early 20th century. In this essay it will be argued that the readymade defies the “retinal” aspect of art through two factors. The first factor is the application of a foundational physical three step process to allow the readymade to be considered as art. This process is outlined as the inclusive selection of object(s), the removal of the object(s) original purpose and its artistic redefinition through its placement. Alongside this process is the second factor which is the artists own personal experiences that accompanies and influences the readymades purpose. The process and influence from personal experiences are evidently applied to readymades including Marcel Duchamp’s work Fountain, 1917 and Tracey Emin’s work My Bed, 1998. These readymades are considered art as this process and experience becomes the pivotal point in the development of art shifting and redefining the

Benjamin’s death in 1940 at the age of 48, is rumored to be a suicide when the Naza’s took office, but is still a mystery. His ideas and concepts however, would live on for decades to come. Much of what he wrote about when discussing art came essentially after the development of photography and film. In his work, “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Benjamin addresses his perception of the changes in art and the aesthetic experience congruent with societal changes. He writes with concern of how the great artworks are viewed after the introduction of photography and film. His idea of mechanical reproduction changed the art world as society knew it, particularly in how the public views artwork and the value of that work as more and more people are able to own, view and discuss it. This paper will specifically look at aspects of Benjamin’s groundbreaking essay and how educators can relate his ideas to the practices in their art classrooms.

One of the best examples to argue about the artistic creativity would be Duchamp’s Fountain that rocked the art world in 1917, when it was refused entry to an art show priding itself as being open to all. Rotated and signed with the pseudonym “R. Mutt 1917” on its upper side, it is not merely one of Duchamp’s ready-mades. It has become a recognizable icon in the history of modern art. In addition to the questions of decency and social norms, how could such piece of work be considered as creative? It could be seen as plagiarism, a plain piece of plumbing. “Whether Mr. Mutt made the fountain with his own hands or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view – created a new thought for that object (Art of the 20th century 2006:389, Ramirez 1998:54). This succinct statement is a brilliant rejoinder to the critics of Mutt and the Fountain. The object

In a ‘tradition breaking spirit’ [D’Alleva, 2012], that characterised modernist artists, early in the twentieth century, Duchamp abandoned traditional ideas and techniques, to create a new kind of ‘art’, one that the idea behind a work of art is more important that its visual realization, the ‘retinal’. The ready-mades was the product of Duchamp’s questioning what art is.

For over two thousand years, various philosophers have questioned the influence of art in our society. They have used abstract reasoning, human emotions, and logic to go beyond this world in the search for answers about arts' existence. For philosophers, art was not viewed for its own beauty, but rather for the question of how art and artists can help make our society more stable for the next generation. Plato, a Greek philosopher who lived during 420-348 B.C. in Athens, and Aristotle, Plato’s student who argued against his beliefs, have no exceptions to the steps they had to take in order to understand the purpose of art and artists. Though these two philosophers made marvelous discoveries about the existence of art, artists, and