Artist Manipulation of Material
The job of an artist is to create art, the best artworks of the artist are born from the creativity of the artists experiments and ideas. In this essay I will write about some of the most influential creative practices we call modern art. I am going to focus on the materials and mediums that the artists use within their specific practice. I will first write about Marcel Duchamps artwork Bicycle Wheel (Tate (no date)) and the concept of an artist using a readymade object to shape their art practice and comparing it to Joseph Kosuth’s artwork called One and Three Chairs,( Joseph Kosuth. One and three chairs. 1965 | moma (no date)) in this paragraph I will write about how the artists have purposefully decided to use these objects and how they both have presented them in simple forms. I will also research about the artist Richard Serra and his sculpture One Ton Prop (Richard Serra. One Ton Prop (House of Cards). 1969 (refabricated 1986)) and how the artist Serra has worked with a factory to create a specialty material that suited his needs when it comes to his artworks and showing the contrast of it to the artist Theaster Gates who uses sourced objects like magazines and a fire-truck to create his artwork called Raising Goliath.(Raising goliath by Theaster Gates (no date)) Kara Walker is another artist I plan on writing about in my essay writing about her artwork A Subtlety (Kara Walker’s ‘a subtlety’ (no date)) and the choice she made to have the material of her work link to the concept of her artwork bringing reference to an artwork by Felix Gonzalez-Torres and his artwork Portrait of Ross (Gonzalez-Torres, F. (1991)) where the material in which the sculpture is made is representing the concept but in a more abstract way. I also will write about how John Baldassari created his artwork Corpus Wafers (Woodward, D. (2023)) using material he had made using his old artworks relating it to Michael Landy and his performance called Break Down. (Break down (2021)) All of these artworks have helped define the ideas of fine art and challenge the materials in which artists use to create their work. I feel this essay will allow me to understand creativity and materiality better as an artist, and allow others to understand that there is no specific medium that creates the best art, meaning that the best artists are the ones who don’t conform to the standards of artistic practice that commonly work with paint or bronze, this mentality of only using “art materials” hides you from being truly creative while stopping you from being seen as an individual artist or creative.
The artist Marcel Duchamp creates artwork using ready made objects and manipulates them to change their function and or aesthetic such as his artwork Bicycle Wheel where he uses a wooden stool and attaches a bicycle wheel to the top of it removing the usability of the stool when it comes to sitting on it but changing the use of the whole sculpture, Duchamp created this sculpture for its calming abilities whilst also creating a sculpture with humorous themes This style of art became popular in the dada period where Duchamp displays modified ready made objects in white wall gallery spaces permanently redefining what can be considered art, (Rosenthal, N. (2001)) in the early years after the end of World War 1 Duchamp became a successful painter however shortly gave up on painting, this is because he wanted to create art for the ideas and not the visual outcome. Therefore, he selected mass-produced and commercially available objects to modify into artwork rather than design them himself like how an artist creates a painting. His reasoning for creating these ready-mades was that he wanted to elevate ordinary objects to show the potential of these objects we see and take advantage of in our every day life. Over time of creating these artworks he realised he was creating a private symbolic language telling us that there isn’t a hierarchy of material (The POP artist and dadaist: Richard Hamilton and Marcel Duchamp: Perspectives (no date)) Duchamp states in the art assemblage A Symposium “…Based on a reaction of visual indifference, with at the same time a total absence of good or bad taste…” (Rosenthal, N. (2001)) whether the objects of the artwork are made by the artist or gathered as a ready-made object the artist has chosen to represent the object as a sourced object meaning that the creation of the object is of no importance to the artist or the artwork. This is different from other artworks using a ready made objects like a chair, seen in Joseph Kosuths artwork One and Three Chairs where he presents three chairs all in different mediums to use ready made objects in an artwork to create the humorous theme the way these artists approach humour within their artworks is different however they both use the materiality of the artwork to aid them in creating the humour as a key factor within their artworks. The main difference between Duchamps artwork and Kosuths artwork is that Kosuth has chosen to display the object in a material and different mediums however, Duchamp has chosen to use the material to show the object in its simplest form. This is just one way artists use material to change the artwork contextually.
In contrast to how Duchamp sources objects Richard Serra sources building material and adapts it to suit his needs this is seen in the artwork One Ton Prop where he used lead that he hardened with an alloy called antimony so it was stronger than commercial material, and able to withstand the environment in which it was exhibited. The idea that the artist has used science surrounding a material to create or design a new material that would be used for his artworks that would be a better suit for what he needs in a material. Serra’s work all seems to consist of the same steel slabs that have been industrially manipulated. The simplistic material overtly shows artwork in a raw form showing just the backbones of artworks, his artwork One Ton Prop shows this as the artwork is the offspring of an earlier artwork Verb List ((No date) Richard Serra) where he created a list of verbs in which he listed Prop. While creating the artwork One Ton Prop he used the idea that if he made giant slabs of heavy material he could just “prop” them against each other and have them be secure just using the sheer weight of the material. Serra doesn’t only use the Steel and lead to create his artworks, he chooses to create these flowing spaces between the material suggesting he is using the negative space and air as part of the artworks material. Using this way of thinking he creates these rooms of openness within the confines of the giant steel structures so in the same moment you may feel like your free you are also trapped. This is in contrast with the artist Theaster Gates assemblage Raising Goliath (Raising goliath by Theaster Gates (no date)) which uses readymade gathered objects like a 1967 Fire truck and magazines with hardware like metal and wire. This act of sourcing material in large quantities rather than making the material is a more conceptual way of making work as it goes against the ideas of “making art” and its connotations of creating it from scratch, although in some sense this idea of sourcing material is just a “making art” using different materials like a painter collects paint to create a masterpiece Gates collects magazines and Serra collects different material based on their qualities to create a new material better suited for his intended use.
The artwork A Subtlety by Kara Walker uses polystyrene as the building blocks of her artwork, this is because it is an easily accessible material which is also easily transformed into different shapes whilst having characteristics like being white in colour and light, this mouldable material has been made into a large scale sphinx with accentuated hips and breasts with black African facial features referencing the history of the sugar factory it was exhibited in, the large scale sculpture was located in the centre of the factory facing out symbolising a sphinx acting as a protector and guardian of the factory workers which were all slaves that were being over worked whilst being unpaid. The choice that Walker made regarding the choice of sugar the sculpture was covered in was related to the job of the slaves showing that they have been here almost like a signature or how graffiti is a mark of the artist left in a space symbolising they have created the work. This is seen as the white sugar isn’t sugar in its “raw” form as it has been processed and refined which would have been the job of slaves whilst the factory was in use. These contextual links have been made using the material that the artist has chosen to use similarly to the way Felix Gonzalez-Torres decided to use individually wrapped chocolates in his artwork Portrait of Ross this decision was made with links to the idea that Ross was slowly deteriorating with his health problems with the idea that the gallery visitors will take a chocolate when they visit which will make the pile of chocolates dissipate. Gonzalez-Torres decided to use chocolates piled up in a corner of the gallery space as it creates an abstract representation of Ross this decision made by the artist is similar to the way Walker decided to create her sculpture using polystyrene covered in sugar so that there was a realistic representation of her sphinx. The choice of material has a conceptual and contextual links to the reasoning in which the artworks were created. When it comes to the individually wrapped chocolates that Gonzalez-Torres chose, he cared more about the weight of the chocolate being 175lbs (Gonzalez-Torres, F. (1991) ‘untitled’ (portrait of ross in l.a.)) than the chocolate itself as Gonzalez-Torres wanted to have some sort of direct representation linking to Ross that wasn’t what you would initially expect being a visual representation. The shape of his sculpture Portrait of Ross was ever changing as when a chocolate was taken it would have a slightly shape getting smaller as time went on linking to how ross was towards the end of his life.
John Baldassari created his artwork Corpus Wafers using ashes made from burning 13 years of his artworks (Woodward, D. (2023)), this idea that the artwork has repurposed the old artworks by making them into a uniform material (the ashes) to then create them into a new artwork. The idea of a life cycle is apparent within this artwork showing how the paintings have been made spent time living on earth and then was burned symbolising a life cycle and rebirth. The idea Baldassari worked with in this artwork could be seen as how is material seen as a final artwork, some could say it is a performance artwork as the main stage of the artwork is the action of destroying the paintings. However some would say it is still a painting as it is made from paintings just like how a collection of paintings is displayed as one collection and some would argue that it is a sculpture as the final result of the artwork is a jar of cookies made from the ashes. Baldassari named the medium of this artwork “A Project” (Magazine, S. (2008)) suggesting that he himself hadn’t decided what medium this artwork should be classed as, or what part of the project is the most important to him. The idea of destruction is a theme carried out within many different artists such as Michael Landy with his artwork Break Down where he gathered all of his belongings and all memorabilia of his life and destroyed it in a factory like setting with trays of his personal items being carried round on conveyor belts to bays where workers dismantled his life leaving him with only the clothes he was wearing and bagged up remains weighing 5.75 tonnes that he then buried in a landfill site. (Break down (2021)) This artwork was considered a performance artwork as the end result had no mass or presence it was an abundance of nothingness. Although everything that he destroyed was noted down and made into a inventory book displayed as a separate artwork (Michael Landy: Break down inventory (2024)), the artwork Break Down was created as a reference to the end of his old life and the book created after the performance could be seen as the start of his new life. The material of the artwork Break Down and Corpus Wafers both have similarities. However, have been represented differently one being 13 years of their career being destroyed and made into the future of his career and one being the artists entire life being made into the absence of life.
In conclusion from this essay I have realised that the best artists are those who play with their artistic material seeing a material as what it is and what it can be rather than what it has been used for in the past as art will always be made for the future, the object or material may subsequently reference the past or present but its purpose is to be made for the future. Therefore, using materials that are in todays everyday life isn’t important as in 50 years those things would have changed and will not have the context of being part of everyday life just like Marcel Duchamps readymade sculptures, However it will still have contextual links to the era that you made it in which will relate to you as an artist more than the artwork. The idea that art is made from art materials brought from an art store is a limiting factor when it comes to the production of an artists work as the role of an artist is to create art not recreate life’s mundane objects to then incorporate in an artwork. This concept of buying art supplies stops the true creativity of an artist as artists like Michael Landy created his most famous work called Break Down with nothing other than the stuff he already owned. Artists jobs are rare to find if you blend in with all the other artists that are creating work using regular art supplies however as soon as you start creating art using materials that don’t conform with the standard art supplies being paints, clay and bronze, you are more likely to be noticed as having a unique voice as an artist allowing your art to be more noticeable by curators and other professionals in the field. This was prominent in Kara Walkers sculpture called A Subtlety where she used sugar as the material she sculpted with, these decisions are made by the artist and add value to the work being the idea that the artist needs to make art for themselves to show their desired context as that’s when their best work is created. The artwork also allowed me to realise that the material that the artist chooses is important to the artwork as it is an additional layer of interest or information that the viewer can notice, this is because the choice of using sugar solidifies the context of the building being a retired sugar factory run by black African slaves which was the original context of the artwork. Although the choice of using sourced material to create artwork is the common practice, some artists simply spend time looking round their personal spaces just like the artist John Baldassari when he was in his studio storage area and picked up years of his old paintings that hadn’t sold and wanted to repurpose them into a sculpture by cremating them and moulding the ashes into cookie shapes, this type of art is made to tell a story of the life cycle of art or life in general using drastic actions of burning the paintings. His artwork Corpus Wafers was born from the ashes of his artworks proving that art is made more with the creativity of the artist and less of the material in which it is made from.
(No date) Richard Serra. verb list. 1967 | moma. Available at: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/152793 (Accessed: 16 June 2024).
Break down (2021) Archive of Destruction. Available at: https://archiveofdestruction.com/artwork/break-down/ (Accessed: 16 June 2024).
Gonzalez-Torres, F. (1991) ‘untitled’ (portrait of ross in l.a.), The Art Institute of Chicago. Available at: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/152961/untitled-portrait-of-ross-in-l-a (Accessed: 16 June 2024).
Joseph Kosuth. One and three chairs. 1965 | moma (no date) MoMa. Available at: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/81435 (Accessed: 16 June 2024).
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Magazine, S. (2008) Stale cookies in a jar, Smithsonian.com. Available at: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/stale-cookies-in-a-jar-23869618/#:~:text=Turns%20out%20the%20so%2Dcalled,cookies%20laced%20with%20the%20ashes. (Accessed: 16 June 2024).
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Richard Serra. One Ton Prop (House of Cards). 1969 (refabricated 1986) | moma (no date) MoMa . Available at: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/81294 (Accessed: 16 June 2024).
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Woodward, D. (2023) John Baldessari, the cremation project with corpus wafers (version 2), 1970, ELEPHANT. Available at: https://elephant.art/john-baldessari-the-cremation-project-with-corpus-wafers-version-2-1970/ (Accessed: 16 June 2024).
