No Longer Art
ABOUT US
Dedicated to the accurate classification of Art.
I
n the early 20th century, Marcel Duchamp’s frustration with the rigid doctrine of the art world promoted him to re-evaluate what it is to create ‘art’. Duchamp believed that “art could be based on cognitive faculty as well as the aesthetic” (McEvilley, 25). He wanted to break with the obsession of aesthetic ‘good’ taste in favor of an art that was ‘non-retinal’. Duchamp’s Readymades took aim at established art practices of the past. A central strategy of Duchamp’s anti-art is “the procedure of creation by-designation” (McEvilley, 27). Creation by-designation allows for artists to declare a work, art with a linguistic declaration.
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If an artist’s linguistic declaration can declare something art, can a declaration strip something of its’ art status? Does this power only lie with the artist whom created the work? Can I/we ‘un-declare’ Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa art?
Just because it occurred in the history of Art, does not make it currently Art.
MISSION STATEMENT
What's the Plan?
Sourcing the insights of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, McEvilley states “if something is contextualized socially as an art object, then it must be an art object, at least for that society at that time” (27). It is no doubt that the majority of global society contextualize the Mona Lisa as art. This vast acceptance of the painting’s art status, cannot simply be linguistically declared changed by an individual. Such a reputation must be challenged on a larger scale.
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To attempt to change the societal context of the famous painting, I have created an online petition. The petition’s goal is to convince enough of the world’s population to join me in declaring da Vinci’s Mona Lisa no longer art. It is of course, unlikely to receive signatures from the majority of the world’s population. In the event of failure, it could be argued that the Mona Lisa was never art to begin with. One of the ways Duchamp declared his Readymades art, was by signing them. Leonardo da Vinci never signed the Mona Lisa, there is no record of him declaring the painting art. If an artist makes something art by declaring it so, what does it mean if there is an absence of a declaration?
Citation:
McEvilley, Thomas. “Kant, Dada, and Duchamp”, The Triumph of Anti-Art, Kingston Ny: McPherson & Co., 2005, pp. 15-35.