As a topic that has been hotly discussed in recent years, art has undoubtedly had a profound impact on modern and contemporary society, and even if you don't like art, various media have begun to promote elusive aesthetic forms and contemporary art. Items bought from the flea market, paintings without any skill. In the end, why did contemporary art develop to this point, that is, the ethics that broke with traditional art began to become strange.
Through this article, let's understand the beginning and end of conceptual art. Is it artistic or non-artistic, is it a new breakthrough in the history of human aesthetics or a simple capital game?
The punk behavior of grotesque chess players – the birth of the "urinal"
It all began in April 1917, when Marcel Duchamp, a French artist and intellectual, a chess player and an "ordinary man" who didn't take things very seriously, decided to submit the Fountain for exhibition, a signed "urinal." The exhibition is hosted by the New York Independent Artists Association. And this work "Spring" is not even Duchamp's original idea. Rather, it came from his grotesque girlfriend, elsa von freytag Loringhoven, who was an unprecedented artist, poet and true freyss even by today's standards. But that's another legend.
Elsa von freytag loringhoven
At that time, Duchamp, one of the judges, alias "r. mutt", sent a men's urinal that could be found everywhere in the public toilet, and signed it: "r. mutt", which is "Spring". The work was immediately rejected by the Independent Artists' Association, who, of course, did not know that the author was Duchamp, who was famous at the time. Seeing the reaction of his peers, Duchamp finally verified his prediction, he understood that his artistic concept was too advanced for the world to accept, so he immediately quit the Independent Artists Association. Then, Duchamp moved the urinal to the museum, and used this ready-made product to ask people the question: What is a work of art and what is art? How far away is art from life? Readymade art became Duchamp's most important artistic concept. This is undoubtedly controversial, not only did the Dadaist magazine stand up to prove it, But Duchamp also issued a public statement, which is also a prophecy about the continuation of art history: "Did he make the fountain himself?" Yes or no, it doesn't matter. Duchamp chose it. Taking an ordinary object from reality and placing it like this, the actual meaning of The Fountain has disappeared and follows a new name and perspective to be really continued, and Duchamp created a new idea for this subject. In other words, urinals magically become springs by redefining them.
Izumi is like a king without new clothes, and that's how conceptual art begins, as a joke, as a mockery, as a provocation to ignorant human beings who are accustomed to thinking in stereotypes. Since then art has no so-called form, and to this day it still follows the same pattern: selfish provocation, reflection on traditional ideas, bizarre expression and media hype. Marcel Duchamp is known as the father of conceptual art, and in 2004, 500 authoritative artists and art critics from around the world openly recognized "Springs" as the most influential work of the 20th century, and these admirers were the group that Duchamp once ridiculed. There is no doubt that because this gentleman, who never stuck to form, succeeded in bringing art to a more diverse and profound field. The spirit of "not being inherently bound and refusing to be with everything" also has a profound impact on all walks of life.
The product of rationality and absurdity—conceptual art
Conceptual art, an art in which the thought (or concept) behind a work is more important than the result of completion, emerged as an art movement in the 1960s, a term that usually refers to art from the mid-60s to the mid-70s.
The defining principle of conceptual art art is that the idea or concept is more important than the work itself as a complete work of art. Talent and artistic skill are not important here. Many times conceptual works are not produced by the artists themselves, but are completed by industrial technical means through assistants and hired technicians. Daminghurst's dot paintings, for example, cost between $53,000 and $1.7 million each, and the price continues to grow.
hypothalamus acetone powder, 2012
He explained to us that the work presents the joy of expressing color. We don't know if there is real joy in color, but I believe that Mr. Damien Hirst enjoyed the joy of his growing silver household value. Any ready-made object that has been completed or discovered can be considered a work of art if the artist is willing to define the work, which includes dead animals or certain acts in public places. Some artists completely deny that art needs to use substances to express its meaning, instead using words to express their ideas.
spencer tunick
i will not make any more boring artjohn baldessari(american, born 1931)
Most of these works are critical movements, social activities, rebellions against institutions, and some conceptual pursuits of transformed commodity art. So it all comes down to thoughts, not their material manifestations. From this, we recognize the problem of two things.
First, conceptual artists tend to express the original ideas they first generate. Art has always been deeply thought-provoking, and every material and technical application in the process of artistic creation is part of these original ideas. If we distinguish between thought and object, this is an anti-artistic act, a very absurd idea, and the overall observational thinking is also another concept contained in conceptual art
Those who, by virtue of their artistic skill and thinking in dealing with unconnected ideas, are called philosophers, poets, and artists. They have been around for thousands of years and, without offending the masses, have surpassed the level of thinking of ordinary people. Moreover, poets and philosophers live in the world as much as we do, right among us, often watching us and laughing at our banal thoughts. But we don't care. We only care about their "price". This is why conceptual art is based on the denial of universally accepted values and morals. Whether it is the creation of materials and technologies themselves or social taboos, the denial and interpretation of universal values to produce behavioral and mental antagonisms, contradictions, public scandals, etc., are a challenge to universal ideology.
The most controversial name in the contemporary art world, "ugly" in the contemporary art world, appeared in the market
In fact, concept art is very easy to produce, does not require skill and technology, but is highly sought after and inseparable from its successful marketing and media promotion. We cannot bypass the commercial act of art and discuss art independently in the context of the times. Then we'll mention another name, Charles Saatchi, the greatest advertiser and collector of all time.
Saatchi & Saatchi was founded in the 1970s when they occupied the silk cut cigarette advertising market, and the Saatchi brothers were commissioned by the British Health Education Council to produce a public service announcement against early pregnancy, unmarried pregnancy, and condom use. The ad shows a "pregnant" man with a big belly and confused eyes, and the narration is: "If it was you who was pregnant, would you be more careful?" The ad made the Saatchi brothers a hit.
What really made them famous was the 1978 campaign ad that helped Conservative Leader Margaret Thatcher ascend to the Prime Minister's throne: the picture showed a long line of money recipients, with the pun titled "Labour isn't working", satirizing the ineffectiveness of Labour's policies, the inability to solve the unemployment problem, winning the hearts and minds of the Conservative Party, beginning the Conservative Party's 18-year rule, and building the huge reputation of the Saatchi Brothers advertising agency. Saatchi Brothers Advertising Became a World Class Advertising Agency in a very short period of time.
In addition, he pioneered another world of collecting: in 1969, Thatch first came into contact with collecting, buying the works of Sol Lewitt, a famous New York minimalist, and in 1985, he opened his first gallery, the Saatchi Gallery. During this period, Thatch is said to spend millions of dollars a year on contemporary paintings and sculpture collections.
sol le witt, selected works & interviewposted
Thatch is unlike other rich crocodiles who use collectibles as gimmicks. His own interest in contemporary art, especially in the United States, was evident as a student, and he had a fascination with "bold, rebellious and iconic things." And indulging in the music of "Elvis Presley" and rock guitarist Chuck Berry, he will never forget the psychological feelings of seeing Jackson Pollock's paintings at the Museum of Modern Art in New York for the first time, calling it a "turning point in his life".
In the 1990s in Britain, when the art market began to decline, for some works of art with real "PR potential" as a new form of aesthetic communication, Saatchi, as a rebellious collector with an interest in contemporary art, began to use capital and media to push a group of newly graduated and smelly artists into the market, including Tracy Emin, Damien Hurst, Sarah Lucas and other well-known conceptual artists. Thatch successfully used people's curiosity and the need for aesthetic breakthroughs to further subdivide the art market and save the depression of the contemporary art market.
For Saatchi, who is accused of disregarding artistic feelings and values for personal preferences and commercial interests alone, has also successfully allowed him to discover a group of valuable artists, for "art players", investing in and hyping unformed conceptual artists can not only help the development of the art career, but also satisfy his psychological state of "curiosity" and "showing off", of course, his contribution to the rise of contemporary art is not only these. We won't go into it all.
The achievement of conceptual art - the "curiosity" needs of human beings
Only when we explore the emergence and commercial advancement of conceptual art can we understand why conceptual art has developed benignly in the context of the times. The root cause is inseparable from the audience's "curiosity hunting" needs.
"Curiosity psychology" is what we often call curiosity. Because man has thoughts since birth, although the early days are only a kind of consciousness, but already have the instinct of curiosity, such as infancy, his instinct is to eat hungry, because he will not use language, then we will find his every action, this is the beginning of the stage of psychological exploration, then he will be because of the shape of the nipple, as long as it is close to the shape, the first image instilled into his brain is to send it to the mouth! Of course, this is very intuitive, with the slow growth, in this process, because of unknown people and things, so that he has a desire to want to know (learning process), starting from sensibility, and then to the touch of the hand, feedback to the brain, so that the unknown becomes knowable, although the process is long, so that the companion life, curiosity is like this, then extended to the hunting, it can be said that it is only a matter of text expression, to say the difference, is that "curiosity" is instinctive, and "hunting" is compulsive consciousness!
Here, we first want to thank the emergence of the media era, to a certain extent to meet our information exchange, the same concept art as a medium without fixed judgment, his high price and form is easy to create cultural hotspots, under the impetus of the media, his concept of art works of thinking has been a certain spread, open viewers can easily achieve "liberated thinking and complete self-education". Whether built on marketing events or not, the spread of ideas is a fact, and recognizing one's "stupidity" by appreciating the artwork is a form of expression in which the viewer is satisfied with self-examination. The pursuit of pure formal perception is difficult to satisfy us anymore, excessive aesthetic stimulation forms a burden and the impact on inherent cognition becomes a new purpose for us to watch the exhibition. The same satire of capital and materialization has become a popular form of entertainment for artists.
epilogue
An important part of a conceptual work of art is its concept, while the tangible representation is not important. The artist Saul Levitte famously argued that "ideas are the machines that create works of art"; this marked the devaluation of craftsmanship in the most prosperous period of industrialization and the arrival of the era of information as a means of production. The artist constructs a new language using realistic materials, which is more formally closer to language. Conceptual art not only abandons the creation of artistic entities, but also adopts a pure way of conveying concepts, and highlights some realistic scenes in the audience's heart and spirit through physical objects, photos, language and other methods. Its aesthetic pursuit also breaks through the form, mainly the process of transforming the recorded artistic image from conception to factor, allowing the audience to grasp the trajectory of the artist's thinking; forcing the audience to change their appreciation habits and participate in artistic creation activities through sound, image or physical object. Language is the material medium of ideas it is stated and can be repeated countless times at the same time.