So I'm taking art history class this semester and we're reading about Barbara Kruger. And I find myself getting annoyed every time I see her work. Because she hasn't really drawn or painted any of it herself; she's mostly just taken images and slapped slogans or phrases on them in the name of feminism.
And I find myself wondering - is this really art?
For me personally, art is something that an individual creates with their own hands. I don't agree with the idea of "found art" either because taking an object and calling it "art!" just doesn't really ring true with the perceptions of art that have been established in me since childhood.
My father has always loved to play the guitar, but at times he's sketched and painted too. At an early age I was exposed to the work of my father's favorite artist: Pablo Picasso.
I love Picasso's work, whether it's cubism, nudes, the Guernica, whatever it is. I like it because I know he spent the time and effort in the art to create it all himself. I like it because it's something out of someone's mind and soul that they put up for the world to see.
Not to say there aren't many talented feminist artists who sketch, paint, and create pottery and sculptures. I'm certainly not an antifeminist. It just bothers me that Barbara Kruger's work is called 'art' because I feel like it's only being called art because it's feminist. While I find her work intriguing and I think she really speaks through it what most people don't want to say, that is she effectively says what's in the back of most people's minds, I don't know that I'd call it 'art' so much as eye catching propaganda the way I wouldn't exactly call a picture of an aborted fetus used by abortion protesters 'art.'
So I thought I'd see what the bloggers of Progressive U think. Tell me people; what do you call art? What does art mean to you? Can it be a found item? Does it have to be created with the artists own hands to be art? Does Barbara Kruger's work count as art?
I think that her work counts as art, even though the whole peices are not her original work the ending product is completely her own.
TO me art is something that gets it's value when it incites a reaction from people or even just one person. And that's not to say that only art in the finest galleries and museums have true value or that is the only medium of art worth appreciating. I'm a big fan of the local artists, and the local bands I think they have just as much to offer as any other "great" artist.
I'm not sure about the idea of found art unless it is applied to something greater then that individual object.
"Love is not enough. It must be the foundation, the cornerstone - but not the complete structure. It is much too pliable, too yielding."
~Bette Davis
That's true: I think that's the single reason I would be willing to consider her work as art is that it does incite a reaction from me whenever I see it/ makes me think a little bit harder about gender roles.
Yeah, found art really has to be something that can go beyond what that thing is, you're right.
Four years of art school have taught me this: it doesn't matter how hard you work, or how much talent you have, or what medium you use. Because if you're truly showing the world how you see the world, then you are making art.
That and you're gonna starve no matter what you do. Unless you're in the right place at the right time, like Annie Liebovitz.
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If I had had more time I would have written less. -- Thomas Jefferson
RachelSetzer.com
So for something to qualify as art, it only has to be something that expresses a point of view?