Art, a truly universal subject matter, can be produced to express intense emotions, or just for the sake of making art. Traditionally, art is a purely aesthetic domain. Ranging from cave paintings to the Mona Lisa, art was created for viewing pleasure. It was not until the early 1900’s, did artists question this aspect of art. They began to question what made art and distinguished ordinary from extraordinary. Liberal thought such as this was not accepted in the traditional European setting so artists looked to America. With the start of a new found American lifestyle, many things began to change for the country as a whole. Americans enjoyed their freedoms as a fairly new world power. They began to look to the other world powers to find influence in creating an idiosyncratic way of life. But it was not until the start of the First World War, did Americans artistically know where they belonged. With the start of World War I and an already evolving identity, American society established a greater individuality with the help of the Dada art movement.
One of my favorites, Duchamp changed the meaning of art with Dada.
Dada was essentially a lifestyle portrayed through art and public gatherings. Dada literally translates to ‘hobby-horse’ a very meaningless, childish name, chosen at random. Though Americans were still not accustomed to such a crude display of free form art and abstraction, many New York artists, such as Stieglitz’s circle, were thoroughly inspired by the likes of Duchamp and Picabia. If it wasn’t for sheer coincidence that these influential artists decided to come to America, such a movement might not have been possible. Dada was everything that was good, everything that was nothing. To intellectualize Dada would go against everything it stood for. Dada artists were proponents of the peace movement and attitude of American Society. Many artists of this movement believed that the reason the world was being destroyed by such a massive war was due to the overanalyzing logic and materialistic reasoning of higher administrations. In order to denounce this type of thinking, they went back and recreated what they thought art was meant to be. Though American society was not yet ready for such a radical art movement, they were curious to say the least.
Duchamp wanted to destroy any sense of convention by presenting them as anatomical plumbing. Though his methods were untraditional, he was still successful, making himself “internationally notorious”.
Duchamp was not fully satisfied until he created very controversial works that even Americans were taken aback at. Firstly, he accomplished this by created iconoclastic works that attacked traditional culture. In his rendition of the Mona Lisa, Duchamp simply used crayon to add a mustache and goatee to a reproduction of the piece. This was the beginning of Duchamp’s new direction of thought, the idea that art could be made out of anything. This brought much controversy because it was common knowledge that ordinary, everyday objects could not be signed, thrown in a museum and called art. To support his idea, Duchamp used a variety of “readymades” to create new works. Readymades were just ordinary objects assembled together. Many of his works were composed of these “readymades” to help artists understand that anything could be considered art if the mind was relieved of aesthetic value. According to Duchamp, “the conception, the ‘discovery,’ was what made a work of art, not the uniqueness of the object." His most infamous readymade was Fountain which was simply a urinal signed R. Mutt, he submitted to the New York Society of Independent Artists which rejected the work completely. Duchamp continuously challenged the American society with his works. Society in return became very interested in contemporary art, interested in more than just aesthetic beauty as the Fountain surprisingly received much acclaim after being rejected. The challenge he consistently presented helped culture the American art movement and open their minds to all forms of art.
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