The Art Instinct_ Beauty, Pleasure, & Human Evolution - Denis Dutton [107]
This question raises a thicket of issues. What can the verb “make” mean in relation to a readymade, since the artist does little or nothing object, which was made elsewhere? (Responding to Arthur Danto’s view of readymades as a “transfiguration of the commonplace,” John Brough has argued that buying a urinal from a plumbing manufacturer Duchamp’s question is about the possibility of the artist making a work art that at the same time denies its status as work of art. Such a work would force its audience to say, “No, no, that cannot be a work of art.” such object—intended to baffle or frustrate its audience—will be kind of anti-art, described by P. N. Humble as “the antithesis of something created primarily with the intention of rewarding aesthetic contemplation.” Anti-art, Humble suggests, “reflects and embodies intention to produce something that does not, and could not, satisfy criteria we employ in classifying things as art.”
This is a perfect description of Fountain, yet philosophical aesthetics the last third of the twentieth century has been bent on trying a justification for this object not as anti-art but as art. So is Fountain work of art? Most art intellectuals say yes, it clearly is; a smaller group theorists argue that it is not. One way to throw light on the question to analyze Fountain against the list of cluster criteria for art proposed chapter 3.
1. Direct plea sure. The art object is valued as a source of immediate experiential plea sure in itself, often said to be “for its own sake.” In this respect, Duchamp precisely chose an object that—at least for its first intended audience in 1917—would supply no plea sure in perception, direct or Fountain is a disagreeable piece of plumbing. As a Dadaist on the other hand, the object can be a source of great plea sure. This pleasure is dependent on its being exhibited as a work of art and— the plea sure of a joke, an artistic shaggy-dog story—it requires knowledge of context and intentions. The urinal did not supply kind of plea sure over at the J. R. Mott company in Brooklyn, where just a piece of plumbing, a stock item.
2. Skill and virtuosity. The making of the object requires and demonstrates the exercise of specialized skills. The demonstration of skill is one of deeply moving and pleasurable aspects of art. Again, Fountain is a assault on the notion that a work of art requires skill. With a readymade, the skill is someone else’s, in this case the foundry workers’. Skill nevertheless remains highly relevant to Duchamp’s readymades. Today, when the my-kid-could-do-that brigade challenges the skill involved producing some readymade descendant in a gallery—preserved shark, minimal, act will be admired by a sophisticated art-world audience: your kid doesn’t know that! As a Dadaist gesture in this sense, Fountain not just skillful, it has to be regarded as a work of genius.
3. Style. Works of art are made in recognizable styles, rules that govern form, composition, or expression. Style provides a stable, predictable, “normal” background against which artists may create novelty and expressive surprise. Once more, Fountain is not opposed to any particular style, as Bauhaus might pit itself against Victorian ornament, but is implicitly against whole idea of style. Fountain, Comb, and In Advance of the Broken Arm all objects that come as close to pure utility as you might find. White porcelain may in some minds suggest a bathroom-fixture style, but if understand the nature of the surface primarily as having a hygienic function (no-stick, easily cleanable), then the object is devoid of style. Combs and hairbrushes are usually designed with stylized handles, Duchamp probably chose a practical dog-grooming comb as Comb it shows no hint of design or style whatsoever.
4. Novelty and creativity . Art is valued for its novelty, creativity, originality, and capacity to surprise