The Avatar: March Edition Greetings from Shawnee’s Art and Literary publication!

What is art?

“Fountain” is a well known readymade sculpture born out of the Dada movement, a movement which embraced random and nonsensical art. This sculpture consists of a sideways urinal with “R. Mutt - 1917” written along the bottom, a pun on the Mott plumbing company. This piece was submitted anonymously by Duchamp to an unjuried art show, of which he was part of the board, in order to prove there was bias despite all pieces supposedly being accepted. The unjuried show rejected this piece, outraging Duchamp enough to make him quit the board. Across the art world, “Fountain” and multiple similar pieces inspired generations of critics to ask the question, “What is art?” Today, we have two sides debating this question, and at the end of this article, you can share your opinion too!

This is not art

Art culture has degraded as time marches on to the modern age. The corruption and high spending has pushed artists away from beauty and emotion to meaningless pieces. Nowadays art is bananas taped to walls, dead sharks and polka dots, primary colored squares. Any message these pieces may convey is merely a cover up to a pointless amalgamation of ridiculous materials in order to profit. Art is not about art anymore, it has become getting rich and selling NFTs.

“Fountain” is plainly a urinal, given a stage to scream a meaning that does not matter. Will we continue to call these scribblings of a toddler “art” when it does not inspire us as viewers? Why must we continue to hang these thoughtless “artworks” on the fridge, when they clearly do not deserve to be praised? Regardless of the artists intentions, the audience is only left to ponder the meaning and perhaps go so far as to pretend they understand the meaning in a snobbish fashion. The truth is such nonsensical work will always be meaningless.

The amount of effort does matter when it comes to art. If the artist does not care, then why should we as the viewers? Just because we did not create “Fountain”, does not mean we couldn’t have or that we were incapable of sharing Duchamp’s line of thought, if he had any at all. From the moment the Dada movement was spawned art has become more and more perverted to be absolutely pointless. “Fountain” is the birth of the meaningless ensemble movement, and it is not true art.

This is Art

How can we define art?

Art is subjective. If you look up the definition of art, you may find it reads something like "the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power." This definition itself is subjective, as there is no way to predict how one will feel when viewing or experiencing art. Conventional beauty, too, changes frequently from century to century, even if we as the modern generation feel our idea of beauty is absolute. No standard of of subjective viewing will ever be the same from groups to cultures to time periods.

Art then is always changing from era to era, and the idea of what art is quickly being corrupted as time goes on. Pieces we love today, such as Starry Night by Van Gogh, were hated in their own time for not being "real" art. The problem with art critics isn't their critical nature so much as their condemning of artists, and their oversized egos. Critics, and even critical viewers, believe they have the final decision on what art can be, and they can utterly destroy art by calling it garbage and moving on.

So what is art?

Art is an experience, a shared understanding between the viewer and the artist. Some art is easy to accept, and some art is difficult for mainstream audiences to understand. It is easy to mock pieces like Fountain for being low effort, or silly, because it is easy to dismiss what the artist wanted to share with his audience. Fountain is a urinal that was not created by the artist, tipped over and written on ironically. It is humorous, and because it is a random object with no meaning, it is not art.

But who decides what constitutes art?

Should we as critical viewers dismiss and mock artists who do not fit in our conventional ideas of art? Artists who put passion and individual thought behind their pieces are disgraced by an unforgiving audience, because they did not want to be conventional artists. Perhaps we can accept an unconventional piece so long as it is in painted or sculpted form, that way even if we do not understand we can at least recognize the effort. We so often praise those who think outside of the box, but are vicious to those we cannot at all understand. To mock Fountain and strip it to its barest materials, to claim there was little to no thought in this art, to void the message Duchamp wanted to spread, is a crime against art.

It is my opinion that none of us can define art, only the artist. I will support any piece, despite the ridiculousness, despite the lack of thought or effort, despite the materials used, as long as the artist deems it to be art. I do not have to like any of these pieces, and I am allowed to be critical, but to demean someone's art to the point of claiming it does not exist is plainly wrong, and egotistical. The issue of this debate is that it is useless. Debating what art is is akin to debating what a rock is. A rock is a rock, even if we dislike the appearance of it. Geologists may study them, break them apart, define them, but at the end of the day, the rock is surely a rock.

None of us can decide if Fountain is art, because it is art. We may explain why we don't like the piece, we may even joke about its simplicity, but we cannot debate this definition, as to continue to do so is insulting to the artist and all art ever created by someone with a dream and vision. Art is subjective, but the definition of art is not. Art is what you create, it is what others create, and it is always going to be art.

Intro and arguments written by Natalie Burgess

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