In all of your projects, it is valuable to try to “identify your model.” What are those ideas and aspects that you always seem to return to—what informs and guides your thinking—what is important for you to say. Why are you making this art?
“Readymade” is the term that Marcel Duchamp coined to describe a series of art pieces that he made out of manufactured objects. Sometimes Duchamp altered these objects (the “assisted readymades”) and sometimes Duchamp presented them completely unchanged. His assertion was that the art value of an object does not reside in its aesthetic value. He claimed that the objects he chose for his readymades were chosen precisely because they were aesthetically neutral, for their “visual indifference” in his own words. (It is always important, however, to question Duchamp’s claims—he was fond of verbal jests that typically take on multiple levels of meaning. For example, is it possible for anything to be aesthetically neutral? Through culture, and by simply paying attention to something, does the neutrality fade?) If you take away the aesthetic consideration of an object, the basis of most art up until this period in history, what makes it an object of art? With his readymades, Duchamp asserted:
§ The artist defines an object by choosing it; the choice of the object is itself the creative act.
§ The crux of an artwork’s meaning does not reside in its formal qualities (retinal art), but in its idea (conceptual art).
§ This idea, or meaning, is not an immutable property of the artwork which is somehow imbued intot he object by the artist, but rather, in equal measure, the viewer’s interpretation creates the meaning.
§ Re-contextualizing an object (such as, putting a urinal in an art museum), re-titling it (calling it “Fountain”), re-presenting it (turning the urinal on its side and having Alfred Steiglitz photograph it) are all techniques that can create new thoughts, dialogues, and discourse about an object in the mind of the viewer, hence creating new meaning.
Whether you agree or disagree with his assertions, Marcel Duchamp’s readymades, and the ideas and questions they raise about the nature of art, have hugely influenced most of the artwork produced since then. Duchamp’s readymades precipitated radical changes in how we now view art.
For this project, you should create an artwork from a readymade object (or image). It can be an assisted readymade or an unassisted readymade, but in each case, your project should gain its meaning by fundamentally changing how we view the object (create a new line of thinking, a new discourse). Use the strategies of re-contextualization, re-titling, and re-presentation to achieve this.
Post at least two images of your Readymade/Hybrid to the Intermedia Class Blog... and bring your object (if you can) to class on presentation day (be sure to email me your short artist statement too... approximately 200-250 words).
Text credit: Mark Neucollins
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