Reading Response #4

I know that I'll be taking a bit of a step backwards with this reading, but I still felt that it was important to address.

And, in a way, I'm glad that this post is a (very) reflexive one, because this is something that has actually come up in 3 out of the 4 classes I have this semester, when before this year I hadn't become aware of something that is discussed in this reading.

And that, of course, would be "Fountain" by Marcel Duchamp.

Reading Response: "Writing About Art"

by Sylvan Barnet.

Before this class, I had never been made aware of the "Fountain"'s existence before. But it's certainly a big enough staple in the world that it was addressed in 3 of my classes this term.

The first, of course, was this class, in the lecture titled "Back to Basics: Grammar, Style & How to 'Paint With Words' that occurred on the 17th of September.

This piece of writing was given to us as an introductory reading, that would help to introduce the class into what exactly art is, hiow it's viewed in our culture, and how we can learn to look at art critically.

I know that I should be tying this reading to the lecture in which it was discussed, but instead I would like to tie it into the lecture titled "Exhibition Reviews and Art Criticism", which took place on the 1st of October.

My reason for doing this is on the 1st of October we engaged in a class activity that dealt first-hand with Duchamp's artistic work.

In class, we were split up into groups of 4 and were assigned one of four works of art and we had to give a brief criticism/analysis of the work, given the information we could quickly look up on our laptops.

I, along with fellow classmate Nikki, were of course assigned "Fountain."

That piece that we were given to read early on in this class helps to explain how "Fountain" came to be.

"In listening to people who talk about art, let's not forget the opinions of the people who consider themselves artists... In 1917, when the Society for Independent Artists gave an exhibition in New York, Marcel Duchamp submitted for display a porcelain urinal, upended, titled Fountain, and signed 'R. Mutt' (the urinal had been manufactured by Mott Works). The exhibition was supposed to be open to anyone who wished to exhibit in it, but the organizers rejected Duchamp's entry, saying in a press release that it was 'a very useful object, bit its place is not in an art exhibition.' The press release went on to say, 'It is by no definition a work of art.'"

And this is more or less the summary that professors in my other two classes decided to give when they brought up this moment in art history, only in very different contexts.

The next instance that this piece came up in my life was during my creative writing course, or to be more specific, WRIT 3P06 - Short Story Writing. In that class we of course discussed the idea of fiction being sorted into various categories and the idea not always being whether or not it's good or bad, but whether or not it is a piece of writing (if I had known I would be discussing this moment in this blog, I probably would've taken better notes during that lecture).

And the next time that Marcel Duchamp's work rose up, it was, oddly enough, in my women's studies class! The class is ENGL 3Q94 - Feminism & Cultural Theory.

It's funny, in a way, how this one moment in what you'd think would only be significant in art history, is able to be applied to so many other fields of study. The idea of "What Is Art?" doesn't just apply towards the visual arts. Rather, it can be applied near anywhere! And this story is one that applies to countless other mediums.

I know I could have discussed more components of the reading, but it was this work by Duchamp that really caught my attention in this reading, so I hope that's okay.

Alright, bye for now!

~ topCAPcritic