FILM 3660 1nd Edition Lecture 16 Outline of Last Lecture October 10 2014 I Greenberg II Steinberg Outline of Current Lecture October 13 2014 I The Duchampian Legacy II Key Terms III The Notion of the Index IV Duchamp s Tum 1918 Oil on Canvas V Allen Kaprow The Legacy of Jackson Pollock 1958 VI Rauschenberg John Cage VII Jasper Johns FLAG VIII TOPHAT Questions Current Lecture The Duchampian Legacy The first artist who decided artists did not have to be expressionists Tubes of Paint the minute Duchamp realized that there was a middle man between him and his own production he decided any thing readymade can now be art the readymade Artists do not have to make the art and the canvas and the wood etc this brought Duchamp to the idea of commodity art The retinal vs the gray matter Art is less made in order to engage the eyes amd instead it is a conceptual thing that the brain has to engage with What do we ask of art Is it beautiful RETINAL Is it autonomous RETINAL Is it art GRAY MATTER How do we know GRAY MATTER What determines it GRAY MATTER What is the relation of commodities to art GRAY MATTER These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute The Pictorial Nominalism Art is a process of nomination by the authority of an artist I won t be the author or the producer I am the chooser Components of art after Duchamp 1 Visual Work Transition from retinal to gray matter dematerialization of art object 2 Language 3 Gray Matter KEY TERMS 1 READYMADE 2 Chance does not equal authorship 3 The photograph message without a code a photo chemically produced trace the index of the object to which the light sensitive medium was exposed 4 The index Does not equal icons or symbols stenciled directly off reality 5 Deskilling You do not need to be a special person to make art skill of artist is no longer how we judge art 6 Sterility 7 The autographic gesture 8 Medium Specificity 9 Flat bed picture plan The Notion of the Index Art foregrounds its vulnerability to external forces through index Post Modernity in the 24 7 of our lives it is through index that external forces try to capture our attention The opposite of autonomy is heteronomy the law of the other we receive laws from the outside meaning comes to us from the outside In art the law of the other is prescribed materially Art and our lives are not intrinsic the parallel is that both art and human lives are open to external affects Duchamp s Tum 1918 Oil on Canvas The bottle brush sticks out of the painting and creates a shadow The rendezvous or encounter Painted shadows of bicycle wheels a hat rack and a corkscrew The technique of choosing art walking around a hardware store for 10 minutes and randomly picking a piece of material to become your art The instant random moment is indexical seizing a moment of a material to become your readymade RENDEZVOUS The hand in this picture is pointing with the index finger always situational Allen Kaprow The Legacy of Jackson Pollock 1958 1 The end of painting the beginning of the art world interface the dissolution of painting into the environment 2 New Sources materials the space and objects of our everyday life 3 Art as an Event happenings and events art as co substantial with the temporality of its unfolding Rauschenberg John Cage The environment around us keeps moving no matter what sit still and embrace it The White Paintings The shadows that walk past reflect on the white page Cage called them landing pads for dust Not intrinsically valuable but value from relationship between it and external forces John Cage 4 33 musical piece where pianist didn t play piano but instead he opened and closed the piano lid and listened to people shuffling around him and coughing the external never stops No faith in uniqueness because all gestures are mechanical Automobile Track Print One black tire mark on long canvas 1953 totally encompasses INDEX The notion that artwork does not have intrinsic meaning Jasper Johns FLAG The readymade he didn t invent the flag It fills the canvas no need to be artistic Encaustic paint heated wax on treated piece of wood with a brush Johns used a bed sheet and newspaper dyed red white and blue and put them together Always worried about painting falling apart FRAGILE Readymade sign flag uses painting medium gives him a slight degree of artistic freedom Only subjectivity is in the assembly of this art not the content America leaves little room for individual freedom American imperialism is there anything outside of it Bleak view on subjectivity TOPHAT QUESTIONS ANSWER Heteronomy ANSWER Landing Strips ANSWER Encaustic