a) It is all around us. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Be Green. If Picasso were still alive he might consider himself "green." According to Borriaud he "copied, interpreted, and recycled masters of the past... he veritably embodies the strategy of recycling." Another artist who might have considered himself green, the late Robert Rauschenberg. His combine paintings include found objects that are painted over and incorporated into his works. He does not "cite" his sources when creating his combines, nor does he pay anything to the person who may have thrown these found objects out. However, when someone tried to recycle something that he had thrown out, it became a whole new story.
Rauschenberg sues another artist for misusing trash.
When Artist Robert Fontaine tried to give credit to Rauschenberg, he ended up in a world of legal trouble. He wasn't selling the artwork as his own, nor did he appropriate it into his own work. He was doing the exact thing that Rauschenberg would have done if he himself had lived down the street from Picasso, Ruebens, or even Da Vinci. After seeing the price tags his own combine paintings, Rauschenberg should agree, that one man's junk is another man's treasure. Not to say that Rauschenbergs work is junk, but found objects have usually been discarded by someone.
In an article listed in onpointnews.com it reads:
Fontaine says VARA does not apply because “Rauschenberg is the author of the material which is the subject of his complaint.” He also makes the provocative -– and potentially precedent-setting -- argument that Rauschenberg “abandoned” his attribution rights when he dumped the proof sheets in the trash.
The article continues:
“Rauschenberg is an incredible artist,” Freeman said. “But what happens when that incredible artist discards material?” Courts have found garbage to be fair game in search and seizure cases. “An expectation of privacy in trash left for collection in an area accessible to the public” is not reasonable, the U.S. Supreme Court said in California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35 (1988).
Picasso said, "Bad artists copy. Good artists steal."
Picasso: Good artists copy; Great artists steal by Thomas Stephan
Innovation through Imitation by David Platzer
ON pg. 147 Bourriaud sums up this argument. He writes, "Appropriation, with its aggressive connotations, implies competition, a dispute over a territory that could equally well belong to anyone of the combatants."
Peter Paul Rubens. The Three Graces.
c.1636-1638. Oil on canvas
Pablo Picasso. The Three Graces.
1925. Oil and charcoal on canvas
b) "The capitalist mode of production arose from the 'encounter' between 'the owners of money' and the proletarian stripped of everything but his labor-power."
This statement made me wonder about production art. I looked up the Wikipedia definition of production artist, which its self underlines this very principle.
What distinguishes "production art" from design is the lack of opportunities to utilize creativity and design training in the work involved. Although the position may be treated as low-skilled labor, the degree of technical knowledge required for some production art work may be comparable to higher skilled engineering, especially with computers.
complete Wikipedia definition of production artist
I am also reminded of the work of Kathe Kollwitz, whose work was extremely influenced by the exact opposite of capitalism. She consedered herself a proletariat and created work about her suffering and the world around her that was falling apart under the Nazi regime. She too had been stripped of everything, her job, her family, freinds, and eventually even her studio. The only thing that she had left was her art. It's a wonder that any of her work is around for us today.
c) The Beautiful
Pg 45 of the Art Journal reads "...the kitchen is what's called a "reaction formation." You will notice that in each of these cases the object does not, so to speak, "match" the subject; rather there is an inverted relationship since the object is supposed to compensate somehow for a subjective sense of deficiency."
In thinking about this statement I am reminded of Duchamp's bicycle wheel. It is exactly that a bicycle wheel. However, it is not on a bicycle, it has been placed upside down on a bar stool. In doing this Duchamp has rendered both objects useless. Neither of these objects "match" but rather they are complete opposites. One used for transportation, the other used for staying put. I think that there is something rather profound about his choosing two objects that are completely opposite. By melding them together, they end up canceling each other out. From the title we could assume that his subject is the bicycle but by inverting the wheel and placing it on top of the bar stool, it's as if he is putting it upon a pedestal, which is closer to eye level, where one would not usually see a wheel.
Marcel Duchamp, Bicycle Wheel, 1913
d) Pg 159 Bourriaud writes "Artists who are working today with an intuitive idea of culture as toolbox know that art has neither an origin nor a metaphysical destination, and that the work they exhibit is never a creation but an instance of postproduction."
I think we can see many examples of this around us today. For example, Dan Steilhilber uses everyday objects to help us look more closely at the things that surround us and how beautiful they can be. Our first example appears to be a very delicate painting with minimal color where the light creates a glowing effect. However, upon closer inspection it is revealed that these are just duck sauce packets, that one might find at your everyday Chinese Take-out restaurant. The second example shows that of paper coated hangers arranged in a spiraling way. Never before have I thought that simple metal hangers could be so interesting. Both of these works have taken simple everyday objects that have been overlooked as possible mediums with which one could create stunning works of art.
Dan Steilhilber, Untitled (2003/2008): Duck sauce
Dan Steilhilber, Untitled (2002/2008): Paper-clad hangers
e) Pg. 156 Bourrriaud writes about the cultural object and "letting its origin appear under the more or less opaque layer of its new use or the new combination in which it happens to be captured..." My take on this is that he is suggesting that we need to open our eyes, to see what it is around us that we have and imagine the ways in which we can make them work for us. It is with this new way of seeing that each art movement has been brought about. Duchamp, although well ahead of his time, was able to do exactly that. In order for us to appreciate these objects I believe we need to find some kind of use or connection with them. In 2007, CNN posted a story about an artist who was doing just that. Known to some as the Post-it boy, David Alvarez, then just 19 years old, took your everyday Post-Its notes and used them as a medium to create a large scale picture of the legendary Ray Charles. Using the same concept, with music as his subject and every-day objects as his medium, he later created a larger-than-life piece of guitarist Jimi Hendrix, with playing cards. Is it possible that moving from the Post-its to the playing cards has created his own Post-Post-its?
Colorful Creation
Jimi Hendrix gets Shuffled
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