In The Mezzanine, Baker is clearly making the point that the trivial things in life are important, that they make up the bulk of everyday experience. To do this, he makes Howie ponder many of the objects that he encounters in the course of his lunch hour. Of course, Howie wouldn’t have the time to ponder all of the experiences that make up his lunch hour in such depth as he rides up an escalator. He would not have been able to take everyday objects out of context (straws, ties, shoelaces) to think about how they were invented and their particular attributes that he likes or dislikes. However, in his book, Baker can take the objects out of context and make the point that even though they are things that are around us everyday, they are art. Baker not only suggests that trivial things matter, but art is all around us all the time even though we don’t usually notice it.
So, my question is, are trivial objects taken out of context really art? The Oxford dictionary’s first definition of art is “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power”. The objects that Baker talks about are not paintings or sculptures, but they are human inventions that required skill and imagination to create. If people appreciated these seemingly unartful objects for their beauty and emotional power, then perhaps they are art (which is the point that Baker makes). For most of us, everyday objects probably aren’t art, and maybe we would feel happier about our lives if we saw every little thing as a creative effort worthy of our attention.
But then, the idea of taking objects out of context brings to mind modern art. For me at least, much of modern art is very obscure. It requires time and effort to understand modern art (any art actually, but modern art is notoriously difficult to decipher). Modern art is an experiment. So is all art valuable? To paraphrase Mr. Mitchell, people hang a urinal on the wall and call it art. According to Baker’s ideas, it is art, and should be appreciated for its beauty and functionality. But I don’t know. There are many ways to justify the idea that all art is valuable; people are trying new things, making you think about things a different way, taking you out of your comfort zone. But I still have reconciling the ideas of art and everyday items. I do not think I could see the beauty of a urinal, even if it was hanging on a solid white wall in a gallery, just as I do not see the beauty and usefulness of a spatula every time I make a fried egg. Maybe I should look closer, but really, there are other things I'd rather spend my time on.
I find modern art fascinating as well as confusing. I think that an artist who can figure out a way to make trivial everyday objects interesting has accomplished something artistic because they have made us look at the object differently.
ReplyDeleteBut, then there are art projects like Josef Alber's "Homage to the Square" which is basically a bunch of painted squares stacked on top of each other. Things like that make me stop and think... Really? Is THIS what art has come to? I could do this in preschool.
I was at the art museum in Chicago over the summer, and they had an exhibit of several Oscar Niemeyer sketches. The sketches looked more like squiggly lines and circles than actual objects. Honestly, to me it looked like a kindergartner's art project and I had no idea why they would devote an entire wall to this guy.
I guess what draws people to this kind of "art" is that it's unique and almost astonishing in its simplicity. To see a urinal in an art museum would be surprising, and people would draw closer to the exhibit out of a curiosity to see why on earth the artist would do such a thing.
I think that it's similar to something we talked about last year in Nonfiction writing. We talked about how you have to get really good at writing before you can start breaking the rules and creating a new style. You have to become a great writer before you're allowed to use weird punctuation and stuff like that because if you're only a mediocre writer then you just look silly when you break the rules. But once you're a great writer, you can do almost anything and have it still be interesting.
There are some great artists out there who have amazing sketches and have gone through countless art classes, or just have drawn things all their lives. And once they get really good--once they are noticed in the art community--only then are they able to break the "rules" of art and create something totally new. First they have to understand how art works before they can go crazy with the creativity and call a couple of squares art. And then we are fascinated by this art because it breaks all the "rules" and conventions that other art has been following.
Kathryn, I went to the art museum too! One of my favorite parts was overhearing a guy in the modern art exhibit talking about one of those "preschool art" pieces: "Yeah I really like this because it pisses other people off." Shocking people is definitely something good to aim for in art - obviously it has to be good, but if it's great it has to be different.
ReplyDeleteFor me, drawing makes me appreciate little visual details of objects. I could probably appreciate a urinal hanging up in a museum simply because I like analyzing things like I'm going to draw them: the silhouette, the curves, the way light reflects off certain parts, the texture, the subtle changes in color. Putting something up against a white background really makes me appreciate those details.
Like many people, I don't understand modern art and I have developed a distaste for it. I have seen "art" that is merely a red dot on a white background or pieces of newspaper randomly glued together, and I don't think it compares to traditional forms of art which required a significant amount of time and labor. However, Mr. Mitchell and Nicholson Baker allowed me to gain an amount of respect for modern art.
ReplyDeleteWhen I referred to the urinal on the gallery wall, that wasn't just hypothetical. I was thinking of Marcel Duchamp's famous/infamous work "Fountain" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp)). Duchamp was, of course, making a "statement" of sorts about art, challenging the viewer to question what makes something art or not. But the basic point is clear: we simply do look at a urinal differently (and, hopefully, treat it differently!) when it's hung in a gallery and called "art" than when we encounter it in the bathroom. Baker might see the latter as "art," and his narrative art might seek to depict it in new and metaphorical ways that alter our routine perceptions. Maybe there is a beauty to be appreciated in the design of such commonplace objects. But Duchamps "Fountain" also made a lot of people angry, and it continues to do so--as if the artist were "getting away with something."
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