is it sculpture

[iron ant]

I was commissioned by the Jewish Womens Auxilary to do a wall sculpture for a new high rise high end elderly retirment home in Atlanta.After I fabricated and forged the wall sculpture,I used the finishes on my art furniture I was creating.Someone mentioned that furniture was not art?Does that meen this is not too?

[oddist]

There are plenty of other things out there claiming to be sculpture that I would question first...

[Araich]

"What’s in a name? That which we call a Rose by any other name would smell as sweet..."

[JasonGillespie]

iron ant,
I would have to offer the opinion that whoever said furtinure can't be art has never looked at some of the furtniture created in centuries past as well as what a few gifted artisans are still doing today. My thought is that just about anything that can be created can be done so in either a utilitarian or artistic way. I would ignore comments like that and just mark them up to ignorance. When it comes to art in this country there is a lot of that going around.

Jason

[ALH]

I'm feeling lazy today and definitions come up now and then so here is the first post I sent to the forum, which also being lazy simply quoted someone else;

from The Real Frank Zappa Book, Touchstone - Simon and Shuster...."

The most important thing in art is The Frame. For painting: literally; for other arts: figuratively - because, without this humble appliance, you can't know where The Art stops and The Real World begins.

You have to put a 'box' around it because otherwise, what is that shit on the wall?

If john Cage, for instance, says, "I'm putting a contact microphone on my throat, and I'm going to drink carrot juice, and that's my compostition, " then his gurgling qualifies as his composition because he put a frame around it and said so. "Take it or leave it, I now will this to be music." After that it's a matter of taste. Without the frame-as-announced, it's a guy swallowing carrot juice.

"....This quote actually uses bold and itallic emphisis, which , unfortunately, I can't replicate here.

I've been straddling this question of craft and art with a new series of sculptures called 'The Sunshine Series'. Shown is SP1, copyright 2000. If I show this in a lighting shop it's craft 'a functional object with emphisis on the function', if I show it in a gallery it's ART.

[fritchie]

I would say furniture canbe art but not "sculpture", to me the term "sculpture" coming from "sculpt" largely means working with a material that is pliable like clay or plaster or wax, so we come to carved stone or wood which is not pliable I think the correct term in my mind might be simply "A stone carving" or "A wood carving"

I kind of feel the term "artist" only applies to one who makes sculptures, paintings, drawings and so forth, basically "ART", yet we all hear the term used for musicians and other trades.


However, Dictionary.com differs with the sculpture concept and says this in part: [etc.]


I keep a copy of Webster’s New World Dictionary nearby, just for times like this. My current edition/date is Second College, 1986, but things like this don’t change with great frequency. This reference say approximately, under “sculptor”: From the Latin sculpere, to carve in stone; akin to scalpere [re scalpel], and so on. The definition under “sculpture” is broader.

Clearly, carving was the original meaning, but as we all know, language grows [and decays] with time, so the meaning today is more general. As far as “art”, I didn’t check that, but the usage is visual art, musical art, semantic art, and so on.

[sculptor]

Once upon a time
and a very long time ago it was:

I met a woman sculptor who primarily modeled busts in clay----and to one of the other sculptors questions about working in stone or wood, she vehemently stated
"I am a modeler not a carver"

as/re ¿is it sculpture?------I would opt for "archetectural ornament"

[iron ant]

Interesting views,but I think sculpting goes way beyong carving marble or forming clay.What about glass artist ect?What cracks me up is "archetectural Ornament".I guess if I formed the metal into an abstract shape and painted it pink with shoes hanging off the end it would be musuem quality sculpture for sure?What makes a realistic bronze figure sculpture over a wall piece that artistically portays a subject,IE the wall sculpture?Just getting yall's brains buzzing......I posted a few visuals of my "functional Sculpture" ?Get to bitchin....... :)

[ALH]

I still go back to the artist intention argument. If an artist claims his wadded dangly booted metal thing is art then that’s how it has to be seen. It may be bad art but being bad (pointless, ill conceived, badly executed, boring, redundant, not to my taste etc.) doesn’t take it out of the context of art.

The question of acceptance of our production as art seems mute as art venues have pushed the borders of definition beyond all horizons. You’d need a pony express rider to bring the news of a further widening now and it’s all become a bit of a shrug; rubber inflatables, stained couches, big piles of dirt, screaming performances with odd props, whatever – its all been done, all been talked about as sculpture.

I wouldn’t strain myself worrying over what this gallery or that viewer thinks is ‘Art’ or ‘Sculpture’, there are plenty of fish in the sea. We’re in a time when you do not have to fit your expression into any particular method, just let your work take you where it will. I work through the figure and how the figure has been used before me but there is nothing saying I have to.

My city commissioned a number of benches as art, which is an answer to the question about your work.

Pictured is either a good 6” ruler, a bad sculpture or both or neither or … who cares it was fun to make and its fun to own.

[tarotor]

simply because it has a functional purpose as well as asthetic value doesn't preclude it from being art.

wearable art: textiles and jewelry are still art IMHO.

[bluedogshuz]

Who cares!!!!!!!!! I once got in a heated discussion with a potter that was kind enough to pick me off the side of the road as to what is fine art and what is craft. Long story short .. we stopped at a rest stop to wee and when I came out she was gone along with my duffle bag and everything I owned!
I am calling myself a fine artist and everything I do is fine art even if it is "functional". I won't argue the point with others either; I learned my lesson well!

[jvc stone]

I carve stone. Some of it is functional (architectural ornamentation). Some of it's just form. To me, it's all sculpture. An early mentor told me to stay out of pointless academic debates about what is or isn't art. Actually what he said was " if you like it, then it's art---if you don't like it, throw it out the back door and carve something else" Iron ant, your furniture is beautiful, I like it, therefore it is art.
JVC

[bluedogshuz]

Stone,
I couldn't have said it better the furniture is beautiful! Love stone carving, but its to slow! I used to teach it and mostly older people signed up for the class. Great way to release energy!!!!

[GaryR52]

There are plenty of other things out there claiming to be sculpture that I would question first...

Yep. Like an unmodified vacuum cleaner in a clear plexiglas case. I saw exactly that in a gallery, back in the eighties, being passed off as "sculpture." The legacy of Duchamp's "ready-mades."

Gary

[oddist]

Vacuum cleaners! I saw two shop vacs stacked over one another in a plexi case at the MOMA a few weeks ago...

Jeff Koons is the Master who does these (http://www.xs4all.nl/~exadega/koons/thenew.html)...

[GaryR52]

Now that you've mentioned him, I think Koons was the culprit I was referring to earlier. I wonder if anyone has looked at his..."sculpture" and thought they had wandered into the small appliances department at Sears? ;)

It wouldn't be so bad if it were part of an exhibit on, say, industrial design, much like MOMA's motorcycle show was, but this is purported to be sculpture, so, is it Jeff who should get the credit, or should the workers at the Hoover plant get the credit?

Gary

[oddist]

After posting about Koons' work with the vacuum cleaners I also got to thinking about who should be credited.

There is a lot that goes into a good industrial design. There are alot of people behind the final product also.

Don't these people deserve credit for their creativity? Sure, they are payed by a large corporation to do a job but everyone would like recognition. I wonder how the person that came up with the canister vac would feel seeing them in the MOMA, with someone getting credit and big big bucks for just stacking the things. And what about the person that displays the items in the store? Don't they deserve to be at the MOMA?

I 'm just not sure this is anything like Duchamps "Fountain." There's something a slight bit out of place with Koons' stuff and others work like his that I just can't put my finger on. At the time, Duchamp was part of a group making a break from traditional art. His "Fountain" was a smack in the face of tradition and the "first"--and of course there's just nothing like being number one.

I don't care how hard the art critics try to explain away work like stacked vacs...it doesn't make it with me. Someone is pulling someones leg for sure. But, maybe that's what modern art has come too?

[GaryR52]

True, Oddist. It will probably never acheive "art historical" status, unless it's as the first of its kind.

Maybe I was disparaging Duchamp a little by comparing what Koons does to what Duchamp did. Afterall, Duchamp did do works other than his "ready-mades," and, to his credit, so has Koons. Duchamp, though, unlike Koons (so far as I can tell, anyway) was making a statement, that even a urinal could be considered "art." He was trying to shock, at a time when the shock value of displaying a urinal, or a snow shovel ("In Advance of a Broken Arm") as an art object had real shock value. As such, Duchamp was an innovator, having been the first to do such a thing and, thus, deserves his place in modern art history. Koons, on the other hand, is just a wanna-be, an immitator.

If the designers at Hoover really deserve the credit for Koons' forms, then there is also the fact that displaying them as his own is a near-violation of Hoover's copyright. That Koons has added plexiglas and a couple of fluourescent lights doesn't really make much difference, in my opinion. He's still displaying a Hoover vacuum cleaner and, in effect, telling the world, "I made this."

Gary

[iron ant]

Actually my dad had a hand in designing the canister vac,his company,Buckeye Vacuum, has been a leader in the industry for 80 years,he is in the manufacturing and parts business for vacuum cleaners.I also thing stacking vacs,tv,s on ladders,ect is a buch of eye candy for the elite who think it is art.Am I an artist or an idiot sence the company was mine for the taking and I blew it off to be an artist?I can't imagine being motivated with all those millions,but it would lead to some interesting toys.

[GaryR52]

Well, you could always sue Jeff Koons for ripping off your dad's ideas, I guess. ;)

Gary

[Julianna]

I carve stone. Some of it is functional (architectural ornamentation). Some of it's just form. To me, it's all sculpture. An early mentor told me to stay out of pointless academic debates about what is or isn't art. Actually what he said was " if you like it, then it's art---if you don't like it, throw it out the back door and carve something else" Iron ant, your furniture is beautiful, I like it, therefore it is art.
JVC

I agree with your mentor, JVC.

Let's leave that debate to the philosophers and art critics ;)