SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF MODERNISM
1) subjectivity—how seeing takes place, rather than on what is perceived—instead of objectivity
2) blurring the distinctions between genres and media
3) fragmentation (of time, space, perspective, etc)
4) a tendency toward reflexivity, or self-consciousness, about the production of the work of art, so that each piece calls attention to its own status as a production, as something constructed and consumed in particular way
5) minimalism
6) rejecting the distinction between "high" and "low" or popular culture, both in choice of materials used to produce art and in methods of displaying, distributing, and consuming art.
Marcel Duchamp went so far as to say in 1912, "Painting is "washed up." In abandoning painting, he said, "I want something where the eye and the hand count for nothing." This image here is Marcel Duchamp's "ready-made" The Bicycle Wheel (1913). Do you see it expressing any of the characteristics of modernism listed above?
3 comments:
The first characteristic that I observed was fragmentation on the wheel and some from the chair. I interpreted the fragments on the wheel as little individual representation of time, and that the wheel was still, perhaps time was being held? Obviously there are other interpretations about the image, which leads to subjectivity. There isn't a real concrete relation between a chair and a wheel, but together they might form an object, of course which would be subjective. The image I saw resembled a face, I perceived the wheel and the chair as a flat image, with the fragments being texture to support the "eyes" of the wheel. Chair as the body.
The most obvious characteristic of modernism that is present in Marcel Duchamps "Bicycle Wheel" is the rejection he uses in materials. By using a wheel and a stool it makes an impression on any viewer, whether it be "remember that stupid wheel thing" or "the expression that the artist conveys through the wheel is amazing". Either way people will remember it and talk about it which is what most artists strive for. The piece also has reflexivity, the wheel nor the stool wouldnt be interesting if they stood alone. With that being said there is a certain level of balance where each piece relies on the other.
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