7 ms·

At the same time, putting a urinal in an art gallery is considered a significant piece of art history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp) https:/

At the same time, putting a urinal in an art gallery is considered a significant piece of art history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp)

sandworm101 7y ago
It is more complicated. That urinal in that gallery at that time by that artist had great meaning. Just as why painting soup cans can be great art, context always matters more than paint.
- harimau777 7y ago
  I tend to think that some of the issue is that people use the word "art" to refer to things that are different concepts. I tend to feel that for something to qualify as art it has to have both philosophical merit and aesthetic merit (although I don't think the aesthetic necessarily has be be beauty). In my opinion, artists that emphasize almost exclusively the philosophical aspects of their art would be more accurately termed activists or political cartoonists; while artists who focus purely on the aesthetic aspect would be more accurately termed something like artisans. However, that's definitely heavy into the realm of opinion and even then there are definitely huge gray areas.
  - sandworm101 7y ago
    >>> artists that emphasize almost exclusively the philosophical aspects of their art Like writers? Poets? There are many types of art that are almost entirely philosophical. What else can they emphasize?
    - harimau777 7y ago
      Under the perspective that I'm proposing, both prose and poetry could be equally philosophical; however, poetry also incorporates some sort of aesthetic features such as a rhyme scheme, a pattern of syllables, rhythm of stressed syllables, etc. Therefore, poetry would be "art" in the sense that I am talking about but prose would not be. However, I that this example brings up some interesting points: - One of the problems that I think underlies these discussions is that many people think that something must be "art" in order to be profound/valuable/important/expressive. However, I'd argue that things like prose philosophy and oral storytelling can be equally profound/valuable/important/expressive. - Like I said before, there are definitely gray areas. I just argued that poetry was art but prose is not due to poetry's use of aesthetic features. However, it can't a story incorporate significant aesthetic features both in the form of techniques like metaphor and in the use of sumptuous descriptions? - I think the previous point might suggest that there can be different degrees to which or different senses in which something is art. For example, we might say that poetry is art relative to a prose novel but that the novel is art relative to a science paper. Or we might say that a beautifully engraved beer stein is not art in the sense that it does not have any philosophical meaning but it is art in the sense that it goes beyond the simply utilitarian to incorporate the aesthetic.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  But what was the meaning? The artist's meaning was that art - or what we think of as art - is not actually possible, so a urinal is just as much "art" as anything else is. The art critics (don't know about the gallery) thought that it was pretty, and so they accepted it as art, which horrified the artist, because they completely missed his point. Source: "Saving Leonardo", by Nancy Pearcey.
  - sandworm101 7y ago
    Or he was saying that he thought all the other art there was trash, that a urinal was more interesting. It was also placed on its back, an unussual orientation. So it was a statement on perspective too.

sandworm101 7y ago

It is more complicated. That urinal in that gallery at that time by that artist had great meaning. Just as why painting soup cans can be great art, context always matters more than paint.

harimau777 7y ago
I tend to think that some of the issue is that people use the word "art" to refer to things that are different concepts. I tend to feel that for something to qualify as art it has to have both philosophical merit and aesthetic merit (although I don't think the aesthetic necessarily has be be beauty). In my opinion, artists that emphasize almost exclusively the philosophical aspects of their art would be more accurately termed activists or political cartoonists; while artists who focus purely on the aesthetic aspect would be more accurately termed something like artisans. However, that's definitely heavy into the realm of opinion and even then there are definitely huge gray areas.
- sandworm101 7y ago
  >>> artists that emphasize almost exclusively the philosophical aspects of their art Like writers? Poets? There are many types of art that are almost entirely philosophical. What else can they emphasize?
  - harimau777 7y ago
    Under the perspective that I'm proposing, both prose and poetry could be equally philosophical; however, poetry also incorporates some sort of aesthetic features such as a rhyme scheme, a pattern of syllables, rhythm of stressed syllables, etc. Therefore, poetry would be "art" in the sense that I am talking about but prose would not be. However, I that this example brings up some interesting points: - One of the problems that I think underlies these discussions is that many people think that something must be "art" in order to be profound/valuable/important/expressive. However, I'd argue that things like prose philosophy and oral storytelling can be equally profound/valuable/important/expressive. - Like I said before, there are definitely gray areas. I just argued that poetry was art but prose is not due to poetry's use of aesthetic features. However, it can't a story incorporate significant aesthetic features both in the form of techniques like metaphor and in the use of sumptuous descriptions? - I think the previous point might suggest that there can be different degrees to which or different senses in which something is art. For example, we might say that poetry is art relative to a prose novel but that the novel is art relative to a science paper. Or we might say that a beautifully engraved beer stein is not art in the sense that it does not have any philosophical meaning but it is art in the sense that it goes beyond the simply utilitarian to incorporate the aesthetic.
AnimalMuppet 7y ago
But what was the meaning? The artist's meaning was that art - or what we think of as art - is not actually possible, so a urinal is just as much "art" as anything else is. The art critics (don't know about the gallery) thought that it was pretty, and so they accepted it as art, which horrified the artist, because they completely missed his point. Source: "Saving Leonardo", by Nancy Pearcey.
- sandworm101 7y ago
  Or he was saying that he thought all the other art there was trash, that a urinal was more interesting. It was also placed on its back, an unussual orientation. So it was a statement on perspective too.