—Sol LeWitt, artist
13
Artists are cognitively grounded in the aesthetic. That
is, they are aware of, and think about, the sensory and
emotive qualities of phenomena and things. Absolutely
anything can be the object of aesthetic consideration,
even things that don’t seem in the least bit sensuous,
like a series of random numbers or an abstract idea.
Every artist formulates their own problems to solve
and sets their own criteria for success.
Artists do myriad things. Six of these things are
discussed on the following pages. This limited (and
arbitrary) sampling is intended to emphasize how, in
totality, the work of artists has a substance, spirit, and
methodology different from that found in most other
types of work. Highlights from the lives of seminal
20th-century artists are used to illustrate these six
things.
14
All of the artists featured in these vignettes, with at
least one notable exception, make visual art with a
pronounced conceptual bias. In other words, they are
just as—or more—concerned with the ideas and
concepts on which their artwork is based as they are
with its physical expression. These artists, and the
inspirational and influential artworks they produced,
represent only a narrow spectrum of artist types and
artistic media. They are, nevertheless, meant to serve
as rough proxies for the contemporary artist archetype
and for all works of art in all media.
15
“The process of painting is a series of moral decisions
about the aesthetic.”
18
1. Determine what art is
Almost everyone agrees that artists make art, but few
people agree on what, exactly, art is. Art continually
appears in new and previously unimagined guises. The
art of today may bear little resemblance to the art of
the past. As a consequence, “art” is a word that is often
intentionally left undefined.
How then, or rather who, determines what art is and
isn’t? For instance, who decides what is exhibited in art
museums and art galleries? In effect it is those who
make the art, i.e., artists.3 With every new artwork, an artist brings a new manifestation of art into existence. However, if this new manifestation deviates too far from previous ones, there may be a problem. The artist then has to persuade others that what they have brought into existence is, indeed, art. One artist who expertly did this—got others to buy into his unusual conception of art—was Marcel Duchamp (1887–1969).
19
“. . . art may be bad, good, or indifferent, but,
whatever adjective is used, we must call it art,
and bad art is still art in the same way as
a bad emotion is still an emotion.”
20
“The reality in an artist’s existence is to
question answers.”
21
Duchamp was born and raised in France. In 1915, in his
late twenties, he came to live in New York. Duchamp
made a number of noteworthy paintings and sculp-
tures, but his major preoccupation was making art that
questioned the philosophical premises of the domain
of art itself. Duchamp asked through his art: Do artists
really have to fabricate art artifacts with their own
hands? Are certain materials more suitable than others
for making art? What makes an artwork different from
those things that look similar but are not works of art?
And what, really, is art?
During his first decade in the United States, Duchamp
worked diligently on what he hoped would be his
masterpiece, an artwork that incorporated elements of
painting, sculpture, and collage. It was constructed out
of varnish, oil paint, lead film, dust, cracked glass, and
aluminum foil―and was altogether encased in a wood
