Found

Or, to put it another way, you fail to give nature full credit when you anthropomorphize, fail to understand it on its own terms.
 
I'm not Oswaldo, but I don't think he himself was anthropomorphizing nature as much as trying to give a picture of the supposed mindset of a New Guinean spirit-man.....receiving the mangrove root from nature, rather than being the sole source and creator/author of the sculpture. In that sort of mindset paradigm, it is similar to, say, Northwest Coastal tribes thanking the animals they hunted for "giving" their lives/flesh to them (or thanking the various nature spirits that provided them). White man anthropomorphizing nature may be silly sure (Bugs Bunny is silly), but what of indigenous peoples and animism? That's harder to discount as looney.

As to the supposed differences in intention or mindset between the New Guinean carver and an artist from the "western male dominated" world, I'll throw this out: I think that the carver is most likely not anonymous, but rather a specialist, like a shaman, who would in fact be recognized by his/her community for his special abilities to act as a conduit through which the spirit world/nature speaks. Sure, he is not motivated by NY times reviews...his position may have a less ego driven motivation than Picasso, who knows, but he is probably a recognized, revered specialist.

Post-modernist thought and feminism notwithstanding, the critique via commodity fetishism is interesting, and certainly easily applied to many cases (not just for what we call "art" here in the "civilized world"). But such a critique does not really address the creative act itself. Concerning Picasso (and plenty of other artists), I would wager that at least for the act of creation (never mind what happened once the art work was finished) he has a lot more in common with the unknown New Guinean spirit-man carver than one would think on the surface of things.
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
I'm not Oswaldo, but I don't think he himself was anthropomorphizing nature as much as trying to give a picture of the supposed mindset of a New Guinean spirit-man.....receiving the mangrove root from nature, rather than being the sole source and creator/author of the sculpture. In that sort of mindset paradigm, it is similar to, say, Northwest Coastal tribes thanking the animals they hunted for "giving" their lives/flesh to them (or thanking the various nature spirits that provided them). White man anthropomorphizing nature may be silly sure (Bugs Bunny is silly), but what of indigenous peoples and animism? That's harder to discount as looney.
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As long as we're all psychoanalyzing Oswaldo's very provocative post, I'll posit that the essential distinction between "found" and "given" art (using his terminology) is irony. Found art, and I welcome being corrected on this if I'm mistaken, amounts to the ironic usage of the everyday for artistic purposes (I'm thinking of Schwitters and the Dada crowd here). The New Guinea artist almost certainly was not crafting those critters with any sense of irony.

Mark Lipton

ETA: And how can the discussion have progressed this far without any mention, let alone exegesis, of Kant?
 
Every time I decant, I feel like I'm removing the categorical imperative.

Yes, I wouldn't call something crafted "found." It's like saying you "borrowed" that wallet out of that stranger's back pocket.

I had a professor whose hobby was to take pictures of found art in the city: smashed cigarette packets, soda cans, etc.

But the problem would be, in that case, that the stepping outside and framing would be the art act, not the seeing the cigarette packet as art.

Or maybe he just brought them home and put them on boards. I forget. Memory fades.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
On anthropomorphizing nature, I vote with Jeff and Joe: is too.
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Not my point. I took issue with the use of the word silly, not the concept.

Or, to put it another way, you fail to give nature full credit when you anthropomorphize, fail to understand it on its own terms.
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I'd go with this.
Best, Jim
 
I'll throw in a vote with the 'is not' camp.

Human understanding itself is nothing but a fragment of nature, after all. Of course not all fragments need resemble one another. But since there's (more or less) nothing to understanding beyond its objects, which themselves are also part of nature, I don't see what the big deal is here.

The problem isn't thinking that rivers desire to flow downhill, it's thinking that your desire to drink wine is anything different from that.

Or so I'm inclined to think today anyway.

I had a chance to buy this exact wine and I didn't. Stupid stupid stupid. I'm tempted to drive 300 miles right now and get it, if it's still there. I guess I could call...
 
originally posted by Rahsaan:
originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):Where's Peter Liem when we need him?
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Not here.
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I was just tasting a bunch of Gruner with Peter, so I asked about the Egly. He said the folks at Egly-Ouriet are very proud of the Ambonnay Rouge, and lavish a lot of care on it.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Duchamp opened the way for the conceptual possibility of found art, but his readymades were not found art. First, just as a matter of fact, with the possible exception of "Fountain," most of the readymades, including such things as the bottle rack, not to mention more obviously the bicycle wheel on the stool, were artificed and not merely presented objects. Second and more importantly, Duchamp's choices and presentations were artifice whose aesthetic point was calling into question aesthetic concepts that could not explain those artworks as artworks.

Found art is actually much less interesting and problematic. One finds a piece of drift wood one chooses to apprehend as beautiful and then puts it in one's livingroom. One knows just what is going on and one's choice to designate the object as beautiful can be explained, as most artworks can, equally well under any number of theories. The extension, finding works from other cultures whose original purpose one either ignores or is ignorant of and apprehending it in aesthetic terms, may raise questions of ethnocentrism, but they don't raise any particularly interesting aesthetic ones. Of course, both the driftwood and the anthropological object one is presenting as beautiful may actually be beautiful and worth apprehending in that way, but that's another issue.
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Words are slippery*. I believe there's no such thing as found art, only found objects. It's the finder/chooser who must convince society that it is art (if so inclined).

The bicycle wheel is not technically a readymade but an assemblage, though usually included among the readymades. It is sometimes called (see Francis Naumann) an "assisted readymade" because it is an assemblage of two readymades.

Thank you, Joel, it was certainly not my intent to anthropomorphize nature. I don't have an opinion as to whether doing so is silly or not. It's not an issue for me, and is merely a matter of opinion. But, as a matter of principle, I'd rather not convert my opinions into universal value judgments.

* I've been meaning to ask you this: was it Wittgenstein who said that most of the problems of philosophy are the consequence of tautological use of language, i.e., reducible to misuse of grammar?
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Duchamp opened the way for the conceptual possibility of found art, but his readymades were not found art. First, just as a matter of fact, with the possible exception of "Fountain," most of the readymades, including such things as the bottle rack, not to mention more obviously the bicycle wheel on the stool, were artificed and not merely presented objects. Second and more importantly, Duchamp's choices and presentations were artifice whose aesthetic point was calling into question aesthetic concepts that could not explain those artworks as artworks.

Found art is actually much less interesting and problematic. One finds a piece of drift wood one chooses to apprehend as beautiful and then puts it in one's livingroom. One knows just what is going on and one's choice to designate the object as beautiful can be explained, as most artworks can, equally well under any number of theories. The extension, finding works from other cultures whose original purpose one either ignores or is ignorant of and apprehending it in aesthetic terms, may raise questions of ethnocentrism, but they don't raise any particularly interesting aesthetic ones. Of course, both the driftwood and the anthropological object one is presenting as beautiful may actually be beautiful and worth apprehending in that way, but that's another issue.
Click to expand...

Words are slippery*. I believe there's no such thing as found art, only found objects. It's the finder/chooser who must convince society that it is art (if so inclined).

The bicycle wheel is not technically a readymade but an assemblage, though usually included among the readymades. It is sometimes called (see Francis Naumann) an "assisted readymade" because it is an assemblage of two readymades.

Thank you, Joel, it was certainly not my intent to anthropomorphize nature. I don't have an opinion as to whether doing so is silly or not. It's not an issue for me, and is merely a matter of opinion. But, as a matter of principle, I'd rather not convert my opinions into universal value judgments.

* I've been meaning to ask you this: was it Wittgenstein who said that most of the problems of philosophy are the consequence of tautological use of language, i.e., reducible to misuse of grammar?
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You are probably thinking of Proposition 4.3 of the Tractatus.
 
"The bicycle wheel is not technically a readymade but an assemblage, though usually included among the readymades. It is sometimes called (see Francis Naumann) an "assisted readymade" because it is an assemblage of two readymades."

I don't know who creates these distinctions but, following what I take to be this one's point, virtually all the readymades should be relabelled assemblages. Even "Fountain," prior to his sending an actual urinal to the Independent exhibit, existed in his studio as an assemblage (a constructed urinal hanging from a doorframe, if I remember the photo correctly) and was "remounted" as an assemblage in his museum in a valise.
 
originally posted by Yule Kim:
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Duchamp opened the way for the conceptual possibility of found art, but his readymades were not found art. First, just as a matter of fact, with the possible exception of "Fountain," most of the readymades, including such things as the bottle rack, not to mention more obviously the bicycle wheel on the stool, were artificed and not merely presented objects. Second and more importantly, Duchamp's choices and presentations were artifice whose aesthetic point was calling into question aesthetic concepts that could not explain those artworks as artworks.

Found art is actually much less interesting and problematic. One finds a piece of drift wood one chooses to apprehend as beautiful and then puts it in one's livingroom. One knows just what is going on and one's choice to designate the object as beautiful can be explained, as most artworks can, equally well under any number of theories. The extension, finding works from other cultures whose original purpose one either ignores or is ignorant of and apprehending it in aesthetic terms, may raise questions of ethnocentrism, but they don't raise any particularly interesting aesthetic ones. Of course, both the driftwood and the anthropological object one is presenting as beautiful may actually be beautiful and worth apprehending in that way, but that's another issue.
Click to expand...

Words are slippery*. I believe there's no such thing as found art, only found objects. It's the finder/chooser who must convince society that it is art (if so inclined).

The bicycle wheel is not technically a readymade but an assemblage, though usually included among the readymades. It is sometimes called (see Francis Naumann) an "assisted readymade" because it is an assemblage of two readymades.

Thank you, Joel, it was certainly not my intent to anthropomorphize nature. I don't have an opinion as to whether doing so is silly or not. It's not an issue for me, and is merely a matter of opinion. But, as a matter of principle, I'd rather not convert my opinions into universal value judgments.

* I've been meaning to ask you this: was it Wittgenstein who said that most of the problems of philosophy are the consequence of tautological use of language, i.e., reducible to misuse of grammar?
Click to expand...

You are probably thinking of Proposition 4.3 of the Tractatus.
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Thanks, Yule, but I looked it up and it seems to be about something different.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
"The bicycle wheel is not technically a readymade but an assemblage, though usually included among the readymades. It is sometimes called (see Francis Naumann) an "assisted readymade" because it is an assemblage of two readymades."

I don't know who creates these distinctions but, following what I take to be this one's point, virtually all the readymades should be relabelled assemblages. Even "Fountain," prior to his sending an actual urinal to the Independent exhibit, existed in his studio as an assemblage (a constructed urinal hanging from a doorframe, if I remember the photo correctly) and was "remounted" as an assemblage in his museum in a valise.
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Not sure I understand you. Hanging Fountain on a doorframe doesn't make it an assemblage, nor does putting it on a base, as it was shown at the Armory. The snow shovel is not an assemblage, neither is the bottlerack, they are found objects that he decreed to be readymades. The only readymade that is a combination of two found objects is the bicycle wheel.
 
Sorry. It was proposition 4.003.

"4.003 Most sentences and questions that have been written about philosophical things are not false but rather nonsensical. So we cannot answer questions of this kind at all, but only ascertain their nonsensicality. Most questions and propositions of philosophers are based on our not understanding the logic of our language.

(They are of the same kind as the question whether the good is more or less identical than the beautiful.)

And it is not surprising that the deepest problems are really no problems at all."
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
"The bicycle wheel is not technically a readymade but an assemblage, though usually included among the readymades. It is sometimes called (see Francis Naumann) an "assisted readymade" because it is an assemblage of two readymades."

I don't know who creates these distinctions but, following what I take to be this one's point, virtually all the readymades should be relabelled assemblages. Even "Fountain," prior to his sending an actual urinal to the Independent exhibit, existed in his studio as an assemblage (a constructed urinal hanging from a doorframe, if I remember the photo correctly) and was "remounted" as an assemblage in his museum in a valise.
Click to expand...

Not sure I understand you. Hanging Fountain on a doorframe doesn't make it an assemblage, nor does putting it on a base, as it was shown at the Armory. The snow shovel is not an assemblage, neither is the bottlerack, they are found objects that he decreed to be readymades. The only readymade that is a combination of two found objects is the bicycle wheel.
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The bottle rack was crafted and not merely presented. Look closely at the photo of the urinal on the doorframe and you can see that that too has been worked at to some extent. I don't know about the snow shovel. I'd even say that putting the urinal on a base (not to mention signing it R. Mutt)also involves more than straightforward presentation.
 
originally posted by Yule Kim:
Sorry. It was proposition 4.003.

"4.003 Most sentences and questions that have been written about philosophical things are not false but rather nonsensical. So we cannot answer questions of this kind at all, but only ascertain their nonsensicality. Most questions and propositions of philosophers are based on our not understanding the logic of our language.

(They are of the same kind as the question whether the good is more or less identical than the beautiful.)

And it is not surprising that the deepest problems are really no problems at all."
Click to expand...

Great, that's it!
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:

The bottle rack was crafted and not merely presented. Look closely at the photo of the urinal on the doorframe and you can see that that too has been worked at to some extent. I don't know about the snow shovel. I'd even say that putting the urinal on a base (not to mention signing it R. Mutt)also involves more than straightforward presentation.
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Bottle rack was crafted? How so? By whom?

Levi, sorry about the drift.
 
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