Art Is Anything You Can Get Away With Marshal Mcluhan

Despite what the common consensus might accept you believe, the above quote did not originate with Andy Warhol, but rather Canada'due south very own media guru, Marshall McLuhan. I'one thousand not sure why people are so quick to credit Warhol with these insightful words (maybe he'south responsible for popularizing them) but if I had to venture a guess, it seems to me that it is probably because it but makes more than sense that the words would be coming from a well-established 'Artist', rather than an aging punster and intellectual. Interestingly, I don't retrieve hearing of Warhol ever crediting McLuhan with this one time pop catchphrase either, but and so it as well seems Warhol never really credited anyone for anything that he appropriated.

The truth is, McLuhan had a deep respect for fine art, and at times was fifty-fifty considered by his peers to be quite an artist himself (though more than and so in a conceptual sense with his understanding of the globe, language, and technology than in any one of the more "traditional" art forms). As such, McLuhan was very much interested in how art communicated ideas to the world, and even referred to art as a "Distant Early Warning" system that could portend where a given civilisation was headed past their current trends.

Enough about McLuhan though; I could go on forever about him. He'due south absolutely bright, and I've thought so ever since I audited a media studies class well-nigh him when I was yet living in Greece. As for Warhol, I don't desire to exit the impression I despise the human being, or even disrespect him. I call up he's contributed lots to the fine art world, and at the high-bespeak of his reign, I think he actually did push the envelope on a lot of things, even bringing into question the very nature of art. Do I similar his piece of work? Over all I retrieve what he produced is highly overrated, just I certainly admire many of the processes he introduced to achieve what he did, and the gall it took him to do it as well. I recollect ultimately he achieved what he was going for every bit well, so I'd have to be a fool to say that he wasn't successful as an creative person (and non but by the standards thrust upon someone through fame, but I think he legitimately held his own as a credible artist based on his approach to his work, and that he even offered a fresh alter in direction for a waning modernist move). The fact still remains though, Warhol stole images and ideas all the time, it's what he did; and then it should exist no more a surprise that he took some ownership of McLuhan's argument on 'art beingness anything you tin get abroad with' , than that he did then with Campbell's now iconic soup tin can. And who knows, maybe Warhol was consciously plagiarizing McLuhan as a commentary, or even an embracement, of Warhol's own typical, often-appropriated, 'get-away-with-it' style of work.

My betoken to this blog post though has footling to do with Warhol, and probably even less so McLuhan. I but figured it was a good opening quote, and I felt I might need to clarify it somewhat before continuing on with the real 'meat' of my argument, and maybe not so much argument, but test. It also gets to the heart of what I'm trying to innovate here, and that is how we ascertain "Art", and more specifically, how far tin can we take something before it crosses the line from "Art" into the absurd (often this line is blurred, I realize, but at what point practise people say "well that's simply ridiculous, that can't be fine art!").

For case dorsum in 1917, Marcel Duchamp, then living in New York, introduced a piece of work he chosen "Fountain" to a show with the Society of Contained Artists. It was a real porcelain urinal, singed R. Mutt, and that was information technology. Now was he trying to be funny? Clever? Was it a publicity stunt? Was he just ignorant? Was information technology an insult to the pervading institution of art at the fourth dimension? Was information technology simply inappropriate? Or, did it redefine our understanding of art as we know it.

As it turns out, despite a considerable corporeality of opposition and criticism (the Society refused to showroom the piece), today we can expect back and say with certainty that Duchamp's "Fountain" marked a crucial turning point in the way we empathise art. In fact in 2004, "Fountain" was selected as "the most influential artwork of the 20th century" by 500 renowned artists and historians. What Duchamp'south "Fountain" did was redefine, no, revolutionize, the way we look at art. Hours of painstaking work in a studio? Non anymore. A simple found object, or "Readymade" as Duchamp called information technology, could, if re-contextualized under the right weather, suddenly take on an entirely different meaning, and thus exist constituted equally "Fine art". Even today some might argue whether found objects are actually "Fine art", merely the fact that "Fountain" instantly created so much debate and forced then many people to reconsider what they were really looking at, makes the slice undeniably fascinating. It pushed the technical subject field of art into the background, and moved the concept, or idea behind the work to the fore.

Today, people nowadays feces, semen, urine, expressionless animals, blood, vomit, and sometimes even the absence of anything at all, as legitimate "Art".    Is it really art?  Who are we to make up one's mind?  If it creates dialogue, controversy, advances ideas, exemplifies, typifies, intrigues, and forces people to think only for an instant outside their immediate understanding of the world, then I think "Art" is probably an appropriate label, and as my opening quote would advise, if you tin get away with it, why not label it equally such?

In the end, Art has come up to mean (and perhaps it has always meant this) anything that engages our senses in a style that aims to enlighten an audience; and fifty-fifty if the intent is to specifically not enlighten us, we should still be enlightened by its conscious effort to do simply that. It's not just nigh paint on a canvas (but it can be). It'southward not just about technique (but again, information technology can be). It's not just about the idea, (and still, it can be). In my opinion though, art is only a philosophy of the senses. Depending on the work being considered, vision, sound, touch, odor, even gustatory modality can all come up into play. And as a philosophical discipline, I remember art should always attempt to be something constructive (even when it is being destructive, if that makes sense), and something that perpetually builds-on and evolves from its past. It'south kind of like writing an essay, where you might not take something new to say, merely you might take something to contribute to the word, and so, in that sense, I think art should always accept something to say, even if what it has to say is that it has nothing to say at all.

One more thought. If art is anything you can get away with, what happens when you can't get away with information technology?

My point is, if you program to get away with something, you'd better be able to defend yourself on some level or some other when you're called upon to practice so. In art, as in philosophy, you even so need redundancy your work with some context, understanding and groundwork on what y'all trying to pass-off as valid. I'm not maxim everyone has to concord with you, but you should be able to explicate why your work is fine art. Marcel Duchamp was ridiculed for his "Fountain" (after all it was but a urinal), merely he stood past it and made a bold instance for its status every bit fine art, and today (if he were alive) he'd have the satisfaction of knowing that its "cosmos" proved to exist a pregnant and defining moment in art history.

Not every piece of art has to exist a "Fountain", but it should be something even if it's intended to be zippo at all.

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Source: http://ardellpadenom.blogspot.com/2011/05/art-is-anything-you-can-get-away-with.html

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