Anti-art

Artist's Shit (Italian: Merda d'artista) is a 1961 artwork by the Italian artist Piero Manzoni, which consists of 90 tin cans, each reportedly filled with 30 grams (1.1 oz) of faeces. One of his friends, Enrico Baj, said that the cans were meant as "an act of defiant mockery of the art world, artists, and art criticism".[1]

Anti-art is a loosely used term applied to an array of concepts and attitudes that reject prior definitions of art and question art in general. Somewhat paradoxically, anti-art tends to conduct this questioning and rejection from the vantage point of art.[2] The term is associated with the Dada movement and is generally accepted as attributable to Marcel Duchamp pre-World War I around 1914, when he began to use found objects as art. It was used to describe revolutionary forms of art. The term was used later by the Conceptual artists of the 1960s to describe the work of those who claimed to have retired altogether from the practice of art, from the production of works which could be sold.[3][4]

An expression of anti-art may or may not take traditional form or meet the criteria for being defined as a work of art according to conventional standards.[5][6] Works of anti-art may express an outright rejection of having conventionally defined criteria as a means of defining what art is, and what it is not. Anti-artworks may reject conventional artistic standards altogether,[7] or focus criticism only on certain aspects of art, such as the art market and high art. Some anti-artworks may reject individualism in art,[8][9] whereas some may reject "universality" as an accepted factor in art. Additionally, some forms of anti-art reject art entirely, or reject the idea that art is a separate realm or specialization.[10] Anti-artworks may also reject art based upon a consideration of art as being oppressive of a segment of the population.[11]

Anti-art artworks may articulate a disagreement with the generally supposed notion of there being a separation between art and life. Anti-art artworks may voice a question as to whether "art" really exists or not.[12] "Anti-art" has been referred to as a "paradoxical neologism",[13] in that its obvious opposition to art has been observed concurring with staples of twentieth-century art or "modern art", in particular art movements that have self-consciously sought to transgress traditions or institutions.[14] Anti-art itself is not a distinct art movement, however. This would tend to be indicated by the time it spans—longer than that usually spanned by art movements. Some art movements though, are labeled "anti-art". The Dada movement is generally considered the first anti-art movement; the term anti-art itself is said to have been coined by Dadaist Marcel Duchamp around 1914, and his readymades have been cited as early examples of anti-art objects.[15] Theodor W. Adorno in Aesthetic Theory (1970) stated that "...even the abolition of art is respectful of art because it takes the truth claim of art seriously".[16]

Anti-art has become generally accepted by the artworld to be art, although some people still reject Duchamp's readymades as art, for instance the Stuckist group of artists,[3] who are "anti-anti-art".[17][18]

  1. ^ Dutton, Denis (1 July 2009). The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 202. ISBN 9781608191932.
  2. ^ David Graver. The aesthetics of disturbance: anti-art in avant-garde drama. University of Michigan Press, 1995, p. 7.
  3. ^ a b "Glossary: Anti-art", Tate. Retrieved 23 January 2010.
  4. ^ Barnes, Rachel (2001). The 20th-Century art book (Reprinted. ed.). London: Phaidon Press. p. 505. ISBN 0714835420.
  5. ^ Paul N. Humble. "Anti-Art and the Concept of Art". In: "A companion to art theory". Editors: Paul Smith and Carolyn Wilde, Wiley-Blackwell, 2002, p. 250.
  6. ^ Martin Puchner. "Poetry of the revolution: Marx, manifestos, and the avant-gardes". Princeton University Press, 2006, p. 226.
  7. ^ Kathryn Atwood. "The Triumph of Anti-Art: Conceptual and Performance Art in the Formation of Post-Modernism". Afterimage, Sep 1, 2006.
  8. ^ Peter Bürger "Theory of the Avant-Garde". Trans. Michael Shaw. Minneapolis: Minnesota. 1984, p. 51
  9. ^ An Paenhuysen. "Strategies of Fame: The anonymous career of a Belgian surrealist". Archived 2008-09-26 at the Wayback Machine In: "Opening Peter Greenaway's Tulse Luper Suitcases". Guest edited by: Gray Kochhar-Lindgren, Image and Narrative, Vol.VI, issue 2 (12.) August 2005.
  10. ^ Sadie Plant. "The most radical gesture: the Situationist International in a postmodern age". Taylor & Francis, 1992, p. 40.
  11. ^ Interview of Roger Taylor by Stewart Home. "Art Is Like Cancer". Mute Magazine. 2004.
  12. ^ Paul N. Humble. "Anti-Art and the Concept of Art". In: "A companion to art theory". Editors: Paul Smith and Carolyn Wilde, Wiley-Blackwell, 2002. Page 244
  13. ^ "The Lights Go On and Off - WHAT ART IS Online, February 2002". www.aristos.org. Retrieved 15 December 2017.
  14. ^ "Ernst Van Alphen, a Clark scholar from the Netherlands, suggested that Modernism itself can be characterized as anti-art in that since the earliest gestures of Dada and Futurism, art is seen as transformative and productive, breaking with institutions rather than destructive of images." Source: http://www.berkshirefinearts.com/?page=article&article_id=128&catID=3
  15. ^ This is one dictionary definition of anti-art: "A loosely used term that has been applied to works or attitudes that debunk traditional concepts of art. The term is said to have been coined by Marcel Duchamp in about 1914, and his ready-mades can be cited as early examples of the genre. Dada was the first anti-art movement, and subsequently the denunciation of art became commonplace—almost de rigueur—among the avant-garde." Note the emphasis on the fact that most art adopts the same principles attributed to the concept of "anti-art". Source: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O5-antiart.html
  16. ^ Adorno, T.W. (1970). Aesthetic Theory. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 43. ISBN 978-0485300901.
  17. ^ Ferguson, Euan. "In bed with Tracey, Sarah ... and Ron", The Observer, 20 April 2003. Retrieved on 2 May 2009.
  18. ^ "Stuck on the Turner Prize", artnet, 27 October 2000. Retrieved on 2 May 2009.