“What is Art?”
This age old topic has been the subject of many coffee cup conversations as well as world wide debates and yet, is never fully answered or put to rest.
Artists old and new have asked themselves “What is art?” What is it that makes things of artistic value?
Is everything I create art because I say it is?
What is it based on: skill, complexity, public acceptance? Is it monetary based? Is it for the artist, the public or a select few?
Are all mediums valid?
In 1917 Marcel Duchamp also wanted to stir up this debated when he titled a urinal “The Fountain” and submitted it to an art show as an act of provocation.
“The Fountain” was one of what he called “readymades.” The only definition of “readymade” published under the name of Marcel Duchamp (“MD” to be precise) says in André Breton and Paul Éluard’s Dictionnaire abrégé du Surréalisme: “an ordinary object elevated to the dignity of a work of art by the mere choice of an artist.”
However, André Gervais asserts that Breton wrote the definition for the Surrealist dictionary.
By submitting some of them as art to art juries, he challenged the public and his patrons on the conventional notions of what is, and what is not, art.
Some were rejected by art juries and others went unnoticed at art shows.
All this merely serves as an introduction to today’s WTF Art artist.
Continue reading “WTF is Art Issue #3 – The debate continues”
Amanda Milke 