Entry #1

I left the lecture today with one huge question on my mind. This question was, should art be available to the public? My immediate answer was yes but as I thought more and more about it, the more questions kept popping up in my head. Next thing I knew my brain was bombarded by questions like what separates advertisements from art? Is design art? and what makes the street art of Shepard Fairey fine art? Is it fine art? This goes on and on and trust me, its quite overwhelming but to me art is supposed to feel overwhelming.

I do though still believe that art can be available to the public. For example, I'm a huge fan of the Artist KAWS, his colorful and cartoon influenced works reminds me that art can be fun. The link below is an image of the KAWS designed album art work for Kanye West's album 808s & Heartbreak. 

Kanye West's album art work for 808s & Heartbreak designed by KAWS

I believe that just because something is mass produced like a CD cover would be, doesn't make it any less art than what I see in galleries. Art has always had its commissions and CD covers like the Kanye one, in my opinion, are like the modern commissioned portraits.

Shepard Fairey's fine art talents can be seen in his gallery shows. Fairey has proved himself as an extremely talented artist and because of that his simple stencils of Andre the Giant should be seen as art. Artist need to have talent to back up there ideas. For example Marcel Duchamp, who is famous for his ready made art, proved his talents with his cubist paintings. 

In response to the reading in Suzi Gablike's Conversations Before The End of Time, I find that this generation of young artists, just like every generation to come before them, is morally and artistically obligated to question and attempted to break away from the preconceptions of what art is. If people haven't always rebelled against the way things were done before them, art would never evolve. The example that I immediately think of is the jump from post WWII American abstract expressionism to the vibrant and fun Pop art movement in the 1960's. If artist like Robert Indiana, Andy Warhol or Roy Liechtenstein never questioned why art had to have such a macho, emotion filled attitude was relevant is a modern consumerism country, art would not have progressed the way it has. Our generation will unintentionally, or intentionally, change the way art is seen and done and the generations to follow will do the same and so on and so forth. Its a never ending cycle but that doesn't mean art is progressing toward an inevitable end. When Pop art was becoming the norm, many artists started going back to there fundamental skills and creating more realism and ever hyper realism. The jump from Pop to realism makes since because Pop art like the works of Andy Warhol are very heavily dependent on photography and realist artist strive to make they're works as photographic like as possible. So to sum it up I believe that artist need to question art so that art will progress and continue the cycle. Who knows, this generation could be heavily influenced by Rococo. The opportunities are always endless.