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Comment by bazzargh | Hacker News Reader

Nitpicking, but that comment in the closing paragraph is jarring: "Anyone can put a urinal on the wall and call it art". It's clearly a reference to Marcel Duchamp's Fountain - a key work in the argument of what is and isn't art. However, that urinal, and its reproductions, were pointedly never mounted on a wall, but flat on a pedestal where it couldn't be used. It's like the author had heard the phrase but didn't know what it was about?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp)

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"Anyone can put a urinal on the wall and call it art"

I'm not sure this is too far from the point of duschamp's piece, which is that you can "put anything on a pedastal" and the "sign it", and as long as it's done by someone with a certain "aura", such an act becomes transformative.

The "wall" and the "pedastal" need not be taken literally, IMHO. There is a whole "deconstruct the art gallery" theme that followed. Things like..."pile of rocks in a white cube". And for that matter, the actual "white cube" itself.

see, eg.

http://www.amazon.com/Inside-White-Cube-Ideology-Gallery/dp/...

If I recall correctly Andy Warhol used to do exactly this (sign everyday items, including urinals). He called it "ready made art."

I want to say "see also: Banksy", but I don't know if that idea is completely thought out.

Readymades were a Duchamp thing completely. Warhol was influenced by them (and Duchamp in general), but he didn't call his work by that term, regardless of similarities in method or concept.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Readymades_of_Marcel_Duchamp

It's been a long time since, I read it, but in Bob Colacello's biography[1][2], I thought he mentioned that Warhol did create (or at least _refer to_) items as "ready made art", without (if I recall correctly) reference to Duchamp.

But I could be mistaken.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Colacello [2] http://www.amazon.com/Holy-Terror-Andy-Warhol-Close/dp/08154...

Warhol would do things like mass-produce objects that looked very much like other things, example: screen printed Brillo Boxes - and then photograph them in say, a super market. It's similar, but different - Duchamp, as the story goes, would just buy the object and call it art. There's some controversy over that, as some of these Found Objects aren't so commonplace, but have key differences in them, to make them more aesthetically pleasing - they may be actually one-ofs, that only look like something commonplace and mass-produced, giving Duchamp the last laugh. That's what happens, when a chess player starts makin' art!

Also see the Warhol's Campbell Soup cans - he just really liked Campbell tomato soup. Speaking of canned things, see, Piero Manzoni's "Canned Shit", where, well, it's what it says on the tin, I guess. I guess, as I haven't actually opened one, myself,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist%27s_Shit

Warhol would use many different mass-production (cheap!) techniques to produce his art. One of my favorites is xerox'd photographs of flowers, he would almost give away for free - certain that they would be both collectable, and that people would simply throw them away, because hey: it's just some cheap photocopy. The one's that survive are worth quite a bit. Incidentally, he didn't get the copyright to the original photograph, so lost money on the whole thing.

I think warhol's biggest, "Readymades" were the actors of his films, who would get little, if any direction and they would just film them doing their thing. See, "Chelsea Girls"

> Justin, (author of Dada Mail)

I want to say "see also: Banksy", but I don't know if that idea is completely thought out.

Ha ha. Here's a quick roadmap =D

Junk on a pedastal >Duchamp

white cube > makes junk look good

mass produced junk (for the white cube) > Warhol [0,1]

who needs a gallery? just pile junk outside > richard long [2,3]

who needs order?... junk-just-piled...in-a-gallery > Various [4,4.5]

Someone elses junk/pile, already outside?> Banksy [5,6,7]

_______________________________

[0] http://coca-cola-art.com/2008/11/15/andy-warhol-moment-fame-...

[1] http://glgvisualculture.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/warhol-b...

[2] http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/at/at120524land_art_at_moca

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Long_%28artist%29

[4] http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/how...

[4.5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appropriation_%28art%29

[5] http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/browbeat/2013/1...

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_art

Its worth noting that when poor people (eg, homeless) pile junk outside...its called vandalism.[#,##] When rich, white people do it...its put in a museum. The confusion of vandalism/and art making...is the origin of s0-called "street art".

[7] http://fineprintnyc.com/images/blog/banksy/better-out-than-i...

[#] http://news.yahoo.com/homeless-man-who-had-been-living-in-wa...

[##] The origins of the vandalism / art dichotomy more correctly stem from the work of (poor, black) people...ie, graffiti artists...not to suggest they were homeless...my apologies for the "confusion in the allusion", above.

Excellent post, thanks for all those references. Regarding your last sentence, you're right in terms of the actual product, but in art (or at least modern art) it's often the intention behind the product that is important part. In that sense there is a huge difference between what a homeless person does and what a "white person" does, (as you describe it.)

The homeless person is making a mess, the white person is making a statement.

^^^ I'll just put an aside here: I know you were being hyperbolic, but these are obviously quite bad choices; realistically, the homeless person just needs a place to put things. You really want "vandals" and "artists" rather than "homeless people" and "white people."

That said, it simply begins the whole discussion on whether art should be objectively pleasant/obvious/etc... "what is art", we could go on and on.

But I think it's quite well understood these days that there is a lot more to a piece of art than what is in front of your eyes. The message, background, and intention are everything.

As I said though, calling them vandals and artists is the interesting part, since as you point out, the whole street art movement deliberately blurs the line.

Ah, fair points. I added an extra comment above.

Modern Art = "I could have done that" + "Yeah, but you didn't."

On a relatively similar note, some critics have argued that some of Warhol's work implies that there is no such thing as art anymore.

see: http://nplusonemag.com/the-miraculousness-of-the-commonplace

Oh for gods sake, are we still discussing this? It's been almost a hundred years. Look:

> Submitted for the exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists in 1917, Fountain was rejected by the committee, even though the rules stated that all works would be accepted from artists who paid the fee.

He was playfully trolling. That's what Dada was all about. Then it caused a stir, and in response to the controversy he didn't waver but kept going. "Let's see how far we can push this!"

I respect that, and the fact that people have been taking it as seriously as they have makes it more brilliant, but at its core it the whole thing was an epic art-troll by an already established artist. Can we finally get over that and stop over-interpreting it?

(bitter art school graduate)

> Oh for gods sake, are we still discussing this? It's been almost a hundred years.

Chill out buddy, not all of us were alive in 1917.

You understood the reference, and so did everyone else, so does it really matter if he says "on the wall" instead of "on a pedestal"?

Also, you have misquoted (?) the article. When quoted like that, it sounds like the author is criticizing Daft Punk, when in fact the author is addressing potential detractors.

It's just funny to me because it shows the author's lack of understanding of the Duchamp piece or why it was interesting at all.

Or the author saw it in a TV show or film. There's an episode of the old show, "My Name is Earl" which shows an art gallery and a urinal mounted on the wall. (Earl's brother Randy uses it and then comments how it doesn't flush.) That episode has been shown on TBS in the past week, so the author might have seen it.

Yup, and I did wonder about that (or generally if it was a recent pop culture reference). I checked google&IMDB before posting in case it was a quote. I didn't recall that MNIE episode - good spot.

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