Art is anything that we think it is. I once had to make a clay model of an elephant for my fifth grade class. One day I was working on it and my teacher came up to me and asked if I would like to have my piece shown in the local art show. I was surprised yet honored because only two other people were asked and my piece wasn't that great. Now that I think of it, it was probably the best artwork I had done during that time. I, of course, said yes but I didn't know that I was going to have to stay after school to finish it up in time for the show. Because of this time constraint we had to quickly finish our pieces, in which eventually caused me to accidentally spill black paint all over my nearly finished yellow elephant. My yellow, three tailed, and big eared friend was now covered in black paint, which made me feel like a failure after all that work. My teacher came over and said that she would try to clean some of it off. After about 30 minutes of cleaning, she managed to clean most, but not all of it. I finished painting it that day but there were still black streaks all over it. I still got a honorable mention ribbon at the show though, so I felt good about the whole thing.
I think art is anything we think it is. I think a chair is a piece of art because someone had to design and then build it. Like Duchamp, I think a urinal is a piece of art because of the same reason. Thierry de Duve says that the conception of art is different for everyone because we all have different opinions as human beings. I agree with him because like I said, "Art is anything we think it is."
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Sam,
The example of an art work that you created yourself is an interesting one. It brings up a lot of questions about intention and also accident and things that happen by chance. Your intention was to create a yellow elephant but then fate stepped in. I wonder, even as a child, how did that make you feel, to lose control of the work you had made?
Another thing you need to do for the next blog entry is to explicitly address the questions I have posed, for example, there were others that you missed:
-What distinguished it from other art works you have experienced?
- What was the artist's intention for the work?
- Was it successful or not, and why?
A lot of people put value on form and craft in an art work, and others on beauty. Duchamp was unique because he decided (and de Duve discusses this) that the IDEA behind an art piece was the most important thing.
In terms of your thoughts on de Duve, I need to hear more about questions or confusions you had about the reading. Using quotes from the reading can help you do this. Where does he say "that the conception of art is different for everyone because we all have different opinions as human beings". How does he prove his point?
A urinal or a chair might have value in culture because they are functional and well-designed. But was your 5th grade elephant less of an art piece because it wasn't perfectly and professionally crafted? What if Duchamp had put piece of trash or an apple core in the gallery?
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