The Modern Artistic License: Rough Draft of Paradigm Shift Essay

This is how I hoped to set it up:

• Cite instance of Contemporary Art
• Illustrate popularization of art, how this type of art has become dominant in contemporary culture
• Address thesis statement: Art increasingly abstract and concept-based
• History/Old Dominant Trend/What Art Used to Be:
• Dictionary Definition of Artist
• From the Renaissance up to the mid-19th century, traditional art focused on realism, or the depiction of realistic scenes and events.
• Brief background of a few movements
• Highlight Dadaism and Pop Art as major catalysts of contemporary conceptual art
• Describe Conceptual Art
• Describe what conceptual art “portends” about society today

The Modern Artistic License

If you have ever gone to an art museum – whether in Philadelphia, New York, or even London or Paris, you have probably noticed the great disparity between the subject matters and the styles used by artists from each time period in history to the next. While art has certainly undergone many changes throughout each era, no other century has seen such a clear reversal of artistic trends or attitudes about artistic merit – from realism to abstract conceptualism – as did the extraordinarily liberalizing twentieth century. Today, peculiar installations like Joseph Kosuth’s One and Three Chairs (1965) and Simon Starling’s Shedboatshed (2005) line art museums all around the world, alongside the works of classical artists like Rembrandt and Mary Cassatt. This new concept-based art, which focuses on intriguing viewers intellectually and cognitively as opposed to depicting visual reality, made its first appearance in the early twentieth century with roots tied to the irrational Dadaism movement of the 1920s and the consumer-centric Pop Art movement of the 1960s. Inspired by dissenting works like that of Dada artist Marcel Duchamp and pop icon Andy Warhol, the increasing democratization and abstraction advocated by conceptual art reflects a deviation from traditional norms and, ultimately, a resulting paradigm shift towards a new individualist and expressionist way of thought that characterizes the modern era and the “modern artistic license”.

From the Renaissance up until recent history, much of society considered realism to be a crucial aspect of “fine art”, or the respectable artwork that lined museums and private galleries. Techniques like chiaroscuro shading and perspective were used to enhance the visual illusion of reality in various depictions of subject matter (Palmer 61). In many cases, the value of a body of work stemmed from the aesthetic beauty and gratification derived by its patrons (Schellekens). In essence, the dominant trend in fine art generally constituted décor for the wealthy upper classes who could afford to have their private portraits drawn to their likenesses or who could afford to buy expensive painted or sculpted works (J. Wolf). Today, however, with modern capabilities for mass production and media coverage somewhat leveling elitism, artists are given much more leniency, or freedom of “artistic license”, in their subject matters and mediums. A broad definition offered by the Oxford English Dictionary identifies an artist as anyone who “practices any creative art in which accomplished execution is informed by imagination” (OED Online). This increasing liberalization of the term reflects the changing attitudes society has towards unorthodox art forms and their place in the realm of fine art.

For many reasons, the radical Dada movement of the early 1920s – which sprung from the negative backlash and reactions to the horrors of World War I – can be seen as a major catalyst that shifted the world’s view on matters such as artistic evaluation and what exactly could be attributed as art. The movement rejected reason and logic, praising everything anti-war, anti-bourgeois, and intuition-based. Such anti-government, anti-reason ideologies in the Dada society at the time provided the groundwork and basis for much of artist Marchel Duchamp’s work (Falconer). In 1917, the French Dadaist shocked the world with his submission of The Fountain to an Independent Artists Gallery exhibition held in New York City. His controversial entry featured an inverted, white porcelain toilet with the signature “R. Mutt” along the rim (Gayford). Needless to say, he was rejected by the thoroughly horrified committee on the grounds that a public urinal was not and could not be considered art. To be sure, the so-called “fountain” in question was neither hand-made by Duchamp nor particularly beautiful – the bathroom appliance was a mass-produced “Bedfordshire” model unit purchased from the J.L. Mott Ironworks Company on Fifth Avenue (Gayford). However, Duchamp’s continual insistence of the limitless boundaries of art and a magazine article’s coverage of the small scandal sparked an explosive ongoing debate within the art community, raising questions about the role of the artist in each work and what justifiably could be considered art.

As an avid collector, Duchamp continued on this venue to create a series of works known as “readymades”. He purposefully gathered run-of-the-mill, mundane objects he found in derelict second-hand shops and market squares and set out to transform these various oddments into art by rotating them and simply deeming them works worthy of artistic merit (Falconer). Paradoxically, many of his divisive readymades including Bottlerack – a cup holder he found at a market bizarre – was thrown away by his sister, who mistook it as garbage while he was away in America (Los Angeles Times). However, despite the initial outrage at Duchamp’s submission of a plumbing appliance (which shared a similar fate as Bottlerack), today the Dada artist has received numerous accolades, and The Fountain has been voted as the number one most influential work of the twentieth century by art experts worldwide (Gayford). Duchamp championed the revolutionary idea that art intrinsically has no limit and that beauty can be found in even the most commonplace objects. As a result, Duchamp’s unconventional, “avant-garde” approach to art is widely considered to be one of the major forerunners of the modern abstract and Conceptualist cultural movements.

A few liberating decades later, the fashionable Pop Art movement of the late 1950s to the early 1970s emerged, largely in response to the permeating aspects of mass culture. The Stormy Sixties, as the decade is often referred to by historians, was rife with political activism, consumerism, and mass production (Pioch). The increasing urbanization and manufacturing boom that followed the end of the Second World War sparked an influx of machine-dominated culture, which manifested itself in works of the time period. Whereas art of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was predominantly for the aesthetic gratification of affluent private sponsors, Pop Art in the 1960s sought to democratize the craft by eliminating the elitism generally associated with fine works (J. Wolf). Ordinary, everyday subjects – experienced by all members of society – were depicted, broadening respect for “commercial” artists like cartoonists and illustrators and emphasizing a new attitude that there was no hierarchal distinction between “high art” and “low culture” (Pioch). Like Duchamp, Pop artists argued that art could be derived from any source, whether from Marvel comic book characters or movie stars. For example, some of the most famous Pop Art works include Andy Warhol’s 100 Campbell Soup Cans, inspired by his lunch, and The Marilyn Diptych, a series of fifty silkscreened frame ink paintings of Marilyn Monroe, inspired by society’s admiration of celebrities (J. Wolf). Such proletariat or “common” works marked a clear deviation from fine art of the elite to popular art of the people, which in turn ultimately reflected the ever-more democratic and tolerant lifestyles that became popularized in America.

In the decades after the media and manufacturing boom of the 1960s, modern Conceptual Art made its way into contemporary society as an emerging trend. Stemming from its groundbreaking twentieth century predecessors, the movement often includes very unorthodox mediums and stylizations that stray from conventional depictions of realistic scenes in favor of the abstract and bizarre. In fact, a fundamental, unifying aspect of the otherwise eclectic movement is that it prompts viewers to explore the intellectual analysis and thought process behind each work of art rather than to assess its merit solely on visual appeal or realistic-likeness (Schellekens). With influences from the Dadaist notion of “readymade” art and the Pop Art perception of common popular culture, abstract conceptual artists today often display normal, everyday objects and arrange them in their own interpretations with underlying themes. The fundamental role of the artist is thus shifted to that of a “meaning-maker” (Schellekens).

Although realism is still very prevalent in art, it is no longer considered the only dominant trend in accepted art circles today. In recent history, concept-oriented art forms like Joseph Kosuth’s One and Three Chairs and Simon Starling’s Shedboatshed have been recognized as revitalizing, modern works in museums throughout the world. Kosuth’s tripartite chair installation, which requires minimal input from the original artist, has been on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York countless times throughout the past half-century. The exhibition itself consists solely of an empty wooden chair placed beside a life-sized photograph of a chair and a poster of the dictionary definition of the word “chair” (MoMA.org). No other installation instructions are mentioned except that the actual, physical chair is to be in the center of the two other chair counterparts with the photograph on the left and the poster on the right. The other measurements are left ambiguous to the whim of the curator at the time of each exhibition (MoMA.org). The idea behind this indefinite mobile arrangement of three different versions of the same central idea, according to contemporary art experts, is to explore the boundary between art and utility (S. Wolf). Much of the work is left to the viewer’s interpretation, reflecting modern society’s individualist view.

Meanwhile, Simon Starling’s Shedboatshed installation, which features an ordinary wooden shed that had been deconstructed, transformed into a boat, paddled down the Rhine River, and then restored as a shed, won the Turner Prize in 2005 and a sum of £25,000 (Higgins). A hundred years ago, such loose, indefinite art forms would be unlikely to be appreciated, let alone even considered art. The acceptance of bizarre works like Kosuth’s quirky installations and Starling’s cyclical contraptions highlight the monumental changes that took place within the art world in modern times. Such open-minded interpretations and responses to abstract art highlight the paradigm shift in creative thought and evaluation in our society – changes that mirror the ever-evolving, progressive social norms of the modern world.

Since the premiere of Marcel Duchamp’s discordant work, The Fountain, in 1917, the art world has questioned the very functionality of art, raising inquiries like “what constitutes art?” and “what defines artistic merit?” Although the concrete value of abstract art is still a divisive topic among many viewers, the general consensus among most contemporary artists is that meaningful art serves the purpose of expression and utility of the mind, a progressive idea that first established its place in modern thinking with the various art movements that characterized the past century. As a result of the irrational non-mainstream Dadaism mentality of the 1920s and the consumer-centric grass-roots Pop Art culture of the 1950s to the 1970s, our perceptions of contemporary art today have shifted greatly from assessing whether a work of art bears realism to analyzing what the artistic process represents on a deeper level and how it intellectually challenges and engages the viewer in the context of his or her world. Ultimately, such drastic changes of the term “art” – and the extensive freedoms given to each artist with their works – reflect contemporary society’s increasingly individual and freethinking way of life.

Works Cited

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“One and Three Chairs.” MoMA.org. The Museum of Modern Art, 2011. Web. 23 Oct. 2012. <http://www.moma.org/explore/multimedia/audios/291/98>.

Falconer, Morgan. “Marcel Duchamp Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works.” The Art Story. The Art Story Foundation, 2012. Web. 21 Oct. 2012. <http://www.theartstory.org/artist-duchamp-marcel.htm>.

Gayford, Martin. “Duchamp’s Fountain: The Practical Joke That Launched an Artistic Revolution.” The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, 16 Feb. 2008. Web. 22 Oct. 2012. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3671180/Duchamps-Fountain-The-practical-joke-that-launched-an-artistic-revolution.html>.

Higgins, Charlotte. “It’s a Shed, It’s Collapsible, It Floats and (with Help from a Bike) It’s the Winner.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 05 Dec. 2005. Web. 24 Oct. 2012. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/dec/06/arts.turnerprize2005>.

“Marcel Duchamp Asks What Makes Something Art.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 01 Feb. 2005. Web. 24 Oct. 2012. <http://articles.latimes.com/2005/feb/01/entertainment/et-kidcal1>.

R. Palmer R., Joel Colton, and Lloyd Kramer. A History of the Modern World. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007.

Pioch, Nicolas. “The 20th Century.” WebMuseum. BMW Foundation, 14 Oct. 2002. Web. 21 Oct. 2012. <http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/tl/20th/>.

Schellekens, Elisabeth. “Conceptual Art.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2009 Edition). Ed. Edward N. Zalta. Stanford University, Spring 2009. Web. 16 Oct. 2012. <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2009/entries/conceptual-art/>.

Wolf, Justin. “The Art Story: Pop Art Movement.” The Art Story. The Art Story Foundation, 2012. Web. 21 Oct. 2012. <http://www.theartstory.org/movement-pop-art.htm>.

Wolf, Sylvia. “One and Three Chairs.” Art Through Time: A Global View. Annenberg Foundation, 2011. Web. 23 Oct. 2012. <http://www.learner.org/courses/globalart/work/207/index.html>.