Readymade art is when you take ITEMS, things that already exist, but you make them into something new. Does that take as much effort as painting a whole canvas? Jesus no, I've painted so I know what effort looks like in different art forms
But just because gluing stuff to a wall or attaching things together takes less effort does NOT mean that the process can't have its own meaning and result in its own powerful message. People who say that readymade art isn't art just don't understand the meaning of taking something and making it into your own piece, it's actually a very creative process because when you limit yourself to readymade items, you are requiring yourself to use what you have to somehow change their context entirely. That's what creativity is all about, isn't it? Takes less effort than making an entire picture out of ink or graphite, but the composition itself is still your own, and it's art that you have complete say over (which is not what can be said about AI "art")
To meaningfully understand art, people should make all kinds of things, and revisit all kinds of art forms no matter what their skill level is, because otherwise you'll get burnt out and forget what it means to make things
u/GoatsWithWigs, your post does fit the subreddit!
Its not an art form I personally understand but its definitely way more valid than AI Art thats so true.
Yeah, not everyone has to get it. Regardless, it is an art form that exists and has its place, and the amount of effort that goes into readymade art even widely depends on how much you're willing to put in
It blurs an interesting line between original sculpting and simply attaching stuff together. At what point does taping a banana to a wall become "art enough," should we try adding more things to it? It's a surreal and fun question
Mhm I don't get it, but I do recognize it has its place. Art has a huge variety of different mediums.
People have to remember even if they find it personally stupid, or don't get it - it just means it can be for someone else to enjoy and understand.
as someone who just got a masters degree in the fine arts and primarily works with found objects/ readymade sculpture, i think only non-art people dont recognize this as art. in the art world it is very much acceptable! and a lot of work does go into it, especially when it comes to collecting, grouping, and arranging objects. as well as altering found objects and including crafted elements. theres a lot that goes into it :)
Yeah, Duchamp settled this question over 100 years ago. I think all 10 dentists on this one are dead by now.
An established artist passing off a urinal as art hardly proves anything except how gullible and up their own ass the art world is.
Yeah, and it's been shown time and time again that what the art world thinks varies VASTLY more than what is truly art
It just goes over your head huh
As I understand it, Duchamp did this as a critique of the money-laundering industry that was (and is) the modern art market. The art wasn't the urinal, but rather the act of trolling.
I think you’re conflating ready made with assemblage, collage, or up-cycling.
Ready-made implies no alteration whatsoever. Simply a found object presented as art.
there can be slight alterations with readymade art, usually with the way the object is displayed. take Duchamp’s “fountain” for instance. it was altered by him writing on it, as well as inverting it from its usual position. yes there can be a differentiation between readymade, assemblage, found object art, collage etc. but they have the same essence of repurposing and recontextualizing objects.
This is all pedantic but I don’t consider object orientation and signature to be significant alterations.
Readymade places the artist as a curator of the world, its preexistence is what defines it as a readymade.
Contextualization is truly the only thing that should happen with ready-made
thats fair. i guess from my perspective, assemblage and found object art can also be readymade, but readymade doesnt have to be assemblage. theres so many examples that blur the boundaries though so labels are hard with this type of art. I usually describe it as found-object art, as this is less specific and more all-encompassing. but from my experience in the art world, found-object sculptures are definitely often referred to as readymade, even when slight alterations are made.
Yeah I get all of that and you’re correct in that these terms are often applied rather liberally to objects and artworks. I think that has more to do with people trying to gain visibility and convey which artistic traditions are being harnessed by the artist more so than them being “incorrect”.
But I have fun talking about this stuff… 😀 in my opinion Assemblage shouldn’t be called readymade because it had to be assembled so the artist had to do some work.
“Collections” I think are the true boundary crosser when it comes to “ready made”, I can’t decide if putting multiple objects in a cabinet together counts enough haha.
yeah at the end of the day they are all labels and what one person thinks, another will disagree. just like with any attempt to make an absolute definition of something. but its definitely interesting to consider the technical details that go into genuine classification of art.
collections are definitely an interesting one to consider. im sure some could be borderline “art” but i would think it comes down to how they were arranged and any design choices that were made in the display. then again, that could also just fall under interior design or decorating. as a found object artist, i dont consider my groupings or collections “art” until they are re-imagined in a new form. but im sure some avid collectors would feel the collection itself is the art.
Well I'd consider what I did readymade, as all I did was attach objects to my bedroom wall. That's all it is of course, unless you look at the composition of the items and what the purpose is
That sounds like readymade to me. Unless you want to consider the entire collection a single piece of art, then it's a "collection".
That’s not what ‘ready made’ is. Reworking something into something else is upcycling or collage, creating something new from reclaimed materials is still making a new thing. Ie art.
Ready made is more like craft kits, Eg paint by numbers kit, embroidery kit with design already stenciled on etc.
Craft kits are not “ready made”
A cool rock you found, a mass produced bottle… those are ready mades
Yeah exactly, but if you glue the rock to the bottle, that’s not ready made. Kits and found objects are the closest thing to ‘ready made’ artworks, since they remove the thinking and creativity since you just follow along.
Interesting but I think craft kits are more akin to conceptual art of Sol Lewett: a series of instructions for an assistant to carry out to realize the artistic vision.
Yeah I’m more thinking paint by numbers, colouring books or Lego sets lol
I know! But the term “ready made” is a specific art term referring to a movement begun by Duchamp about 100 years ago to call a Lego set a ready made is even more off.
An unassembled box of legos I would consider a ready made if presented in a gallery.
An assembled Lego set I would consider a “found object assemblage.” That is Unless the artist found it after it had been put together by someone else.
Sorry I’m like this
Duchamp’s ‘readymades’ didn’t have anything done to them at all, though.
That’s not what OP is describing in this post, what THEY are describing, to me, feels closer to upcycling and reworking, than putting a pinapple (or legos) in a glass case. They mentioned readymade vs painting a whole canvas and the level of creativity involved, which made me think like, paint by numbers? How is a canvas readymade unless it’s just a plain canvas? OP talks about the joy of making things but the whole point of readymade is that you don’t make it, you just take something and place it in a different context.
Exactly
Google Marcel Duchamp.
Why?
He’s a surrealist/modern artist and sculptor, no?
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Oh, totally
When you tape a banana to a wall, I can understand that there's a methodology involved in how EXACTLY you place the tape, what kind of banana you like the most, and how you want the banana to be angled, et cetera
Everything tells a story about the artist's process
There are endless variables that go into it, all of which are yours to direct
AI takes all of that away entirely, so to call the end result your own is just... crazy
I’ve never heard anyone say it isn’t! :) (Outside of when people try to explain AI like this, which is a whole other kettle of fish)
I always knew this to be called “found objects” sculpture/collage/etc. I think the phrase “ready made” is demeaning to the creative process. When I hear “ready made” it makes me think of box cake mix that is a low end recipe designed to be fool proof (ie “only an idiot would mess this up”). No one who knows how to bake a decent cake prefers box cake.
Recontextualizing an object isn’t like that at all though
I don't think readymade sounds demeaning at all, in fact I recently posted a picture of my bedroom wall that I stuck various tiny objects to. I proudly call it readymade because, well, all I did was stick things to my wall lol
The point is, my method doesn't define my purpose, and in the end I still made something original
I agree with you! But I say that because it sounds like you didn’t “make” it. And to non-art savvy people, that discredits you. People think “art” is what you “make”. They don’t consider that the “art” is what you did with it or that the meaning is in how you re-purposed it
Well that's why we gotta just own it, and not be afraid to call it what it is. Not using it to describe our own art lends it to the misunderstanding critics, and then it's them who win
Art is art, and what it means to the creator is all that matters. Everything else is subjective and meaningless. That is art in a nutshell. The process, journey, and personal expression culminating in a final piece. There is no objectivity to it at all except the artist's own relationship with it.
But there's creative expression and then there is technical skill and ability. The art you are describing is mostly just expressive, and is generally low effort and ability. That doesnt make it invalid but it certainly makes it less impressive or appealing to most. As casual observers, people want to enjoy looking at art and gluing together trash isn't exactly visually appealing.