“When Form Has Become Attitude -and Beyond” (1994)Kocur, Zoya, and Simon Leung. Theory in Contemporary Art since 1985. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2005. pp19-31.
Thierry de Duve is a writer and critic who teaches modern and contemporary art at the University of Lille III. He has written at least three books that focus primarily on Duchamp and Duchamp’s impact on art, and has written for the journals October and Artforum.
I enjoyed the way de Duve set his argument out as a framework, a very visual mode of presentation, that allows you to easily follow his line of thought and see where you agree or disagree . If you disagree, you can slot what you think into the framework and see how your ideas fit within it and challenge or rearrange the argument accordingly.
Given his scholarly knowledge of Duchamp, I couldn’t help but feel de Duve’s light treatment of how “FrenchTheory” followed the acceptance of Duchamps ouevre was a little tongue in cheek(Kocur and Leung). Duchamp’s readymade allowed artists to move toward a conceptual basis for their work, and moved the bar on which materials could be used in artmaking. The high forms of painting and sculpture lost their ascendancy and low forms like craft became valid material.
This shift from material to conceptual has been taken a step further in recent art by the move toward social art in it’s various forms. John Roberts argues in his book The Intangibilities of Form, that social art is an attempt to make what he describes as post-cartesian art. Art that has no subject and object or artist and audience. (Roberts) This idea of art being an integral part of society has long been the goal of many artists[1], and although it may not be achievable, it might be fun trying.
[1] For example, the Situationists felt that art should show people how society was blinding them to how life could be lived and it should do so using everyday aspects of life.
nice one. Agree regarding the structure of the writing - made it an easier read with this amount of signposting. Must have a chat with you about craft being an art material - like it.
ReplyDeleteConceptual art is about making art accessabale to everyone, or atleast a wider audience than the bourgiousie capitalist. But if art has no subject, object, artist or audience who is it really accessable to? It's a little like the story about the emperors new clothes where someone needs to say "but there is no art left in it".
ReplyDeleteThierry de Duve is a pretty sweet critic I was listening to him in conversation at the Frieze art fair and he said that he didn’t believe conceptual art really exists because when a piece is good and convincing it is good visually and once it has been realised visually it is no longer just a concept. http://www.friezeartfair.com/podcasts/details/theory_practice_thierry_de_duve/
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