Questions About Art

1.     What is a work of art?  Describe qualities found in artworks.

The work has meaning, made by someone that appreciates it, can be just something to look at that has beauty, could not be beautiful and have a deep underlying meaning, could be made with a viewpoint in mind that shows the artists feelings/emotions, a form of expression. I see a work of art as something that has value/meaning/beauty to society as well as the person that made it.

2.     What should an artwork provide to both the maker and the viewer?

A sense of beauty and wonder, a deeper meaning than just looking at it and seeing beauty in it, a message presented through the artists work, a sense of accomplishment and amazement.

3.     Why do people make art?

To express themselves, to express something important, to create something that is beautiful to look at, to relieve stress, for pure enjoyment, to send a message to society.

4.     Where does one encounter art?

EVERYWHERE. Art is on TV, on the walls of buildings/schools/homes, on billboards/posters, in people, in animals, in nature. Everywhere

5.     What is the role of the artist?

To enlighten people on their viewpoints, to create something beautiful, to make something that they are personally proud of, to make something new and unique.

Dada Notes

·    What is Dada and why did it come into existence? 
People, mainly artists, resented the war and wanted something to rebel against it. This became the Dada movement because they strived to make anti-art work to mock the war and anything used for it. 

·      Discuss Duchamp’s notion of “Readymades”.  What are they?  
Duchamp would take already made items and turn them into something unusable and call it art. One of his most famous ones is taking a normal clothes iron and making it unusable by adding spikes to the bottom of it. This was his dada art.

·      How do they change your expectations about what art can be? 
They aren’t necessarily beautiful, but they’re interesting to look at and have meaning behind them and are more meaningful than just the first glimpse you get of the piece.

What did they embrace? 

Chance, accident, improvisation

Why did they take this approach? 

This expressed a form of personal protest against the war and criticized the violent world that they were living in. it depicted the predictableness about their lives at that specific point in time.

·      What is the value of art made by Dadaists? 

     It was not the artwork or how it looked, it was about the act of creating the artwork and collaborating with others to create a new vision of the world.

·      How and why did Dada artists work with words?

      Dada artists saw that at the heart of order and reason was language. So to symbolize the way they felt the world was crazy and chaotic at that time, they cut apart words and letters to create a completely new letter which showed the chaos. They would also put phrases together that were rather risky for their time period, creating phrases to put on their artwork such as “She has a hot ass” pictured on the image below.