RF2a

"How and where can we discover beauty, whether inside or outside the work?" - Giulio Paolini

Duchamp:

abandoned painting, "conspicuous", "notorious". Graffiti style. Beginning of Dada, later inspired artists such as surrealist Dali. Beauty provided a target for rebellion.

"direct assault on the aesthetics of art."

Duchamp anonymously entered 'Fountain' into Society of Independent Artist exhibition. Was rejected as it was deemed "by no definition a work of art". Others contested suggesting "a lovely form has been revealed, freed from it's functional purpose, therefore a man has clearly made an aesthetic contribution." this however was not Duchamps intention. "when I discovered readymades, I thought to discourage aesthetics... I threw the bottle rack and the urinal in their faces as a challenge, and now they admire them for their aesthetic beauty."

Using modern culture to aestheticise even most unorthodox ideas.

Late 20th Century Artists:

Andy Warhol - pop culture, beautiful subjects regurgitated

Imi Knoebel - Grace Kelly. Beauty through colours and shapes. 'Grace Kelly' beautiful icon, actress, married prince of Monaco. Subject of beauty. Painting seems to have no resemblance to subject. However I think they are linked through beauty.

Grace Kelly Series [1990-98]

Untitled

Face E

Contrasts hard edged, rigid shapes, with soft pastel colours.
Geometric inspiration from Kazimir Malevich and Mondrian

Suprematist Composition, Malevich [1916]

Composition No. 10, Piet Mondrian [1939-42]

Yves Klein

Anthropometry [1960]

Also known for his 'Fire Paintings'

Untitled Fire Colour Painting [1961]

Willem de Kooning

Woman V [1952-53]

Don't want to focus so much on his most famous work. Quite Picasso-esque. Harsh lines and brush storkes. Bold colours and structure. I think some of his less famous work compliments my ideas better.

Standing Woman and Trees [1965]

Woman, Sag Harbour [1964]

More about the application of the paint. Use of pastel, beautiful colours. Rather than bold primary colours mixed with greys. Sets a different sort of mood depending on the colour palette. The actual image may not be so pretty to look at but the colours and movement seem to celebrate the beauty of the woman/women in the images. The first image I showed here I feel does not however hint to ideas of beauty.

Marlene Dumas

The First People, 1991

Lousie Bourgeois

Single III, 1996

Mamelles, 1991

Kiki Smith

Home, 2012

Lilith, 1994

Pipilotti Rist

Open My Glade, 2000

Worry Will Vanish, 2014

Walking in My Mind

Rosemarie Trockel

Beauty

Computer processed portraits, eleven women and one man. Intended to transform the faces into beauty.

Sigmar Polke

Dreamlike, trippy

Lorna Simpson

Wigs 1994

Joseph Kosuth

One and Three Chairs, 1965

One and Three Shovels, 1965

Four Colors Four Words, 1966

Written work 'Art after Philosophy'- grounded argument against the relationship of art and aesthetics.

Beauty has had a rough time in the 20th century.

"For a great many of the most important Artists in the west, beauty and aesthetics have been of secondary concern"

"The impulse of modern art is the desire to destroy beauty." - Barneyt Newman 1948 (abstract expressionist)

"sought to free themselves from the shackles of centuries of aesthetic tradition and expectation"

1997 Documenta X (gallery) "been a barometer of current thinking about art"

"became unusually controversial when the organiser, the respected French curator Catherine David, explicitly and self-consciously limited her selection to artists whose work featured a critical political sensibility at the expense of aesthetics." painting virtually absent from exhibition. no work that could be labelled as formal.

ArtForum published an article "characterising the anti-aesthetic bias of the exhibition"

"for many critics and curators, aesthetic value in contemporary art is today necessarily divorced from meaning"

Vanessa Beecroft - Italian born, NY-based artist. 23/4/98 'Show' closed to the public. 20 models, 15 wore red bikinis, the rest wore just shoes. noted in the press release of the event: "by changing the context in which the viewer sees the models - from magazine, billboard, television or runway to art institution - Beecroft transforms the models into 'ready-mades' of beauty."

one view point: beauty and aesthetics disparaged, politicised and "inappropriate for artistic investigation"

other view point: embrace and except beauty but find new ways to challenge it. "not considered traditional aesthetic ideal... but rather, a complex cultural construct, inseparable from contemporary attitudes towards the human body, sex, and mass media."

the vast difference between these two viewpoints highlights the difficult position beauty occupies in art of today.

Duchamp: much contested.