We seem to sometimes have this concept that for things to be good and worthy of our time, they have to be understood and useful or functional. Although, that has not always been a bad thing, it’s not always the best way to observe art work, as if it was a wild animal or a thing that will give us trouble if we don’t figure out what it is. Why? Because we end up having pre-conceptual ideas of what it is or should be, especially if we have a hard time figuring out what the devil is it. So, sometimes it turns us away from just taking it as it is and letting it be embigious and mysterious to us. When I look at art, especially contemporary, in that similar way, as I would probably observe other objects that I did not know yet, I ask, what is it? Can I use it? Does it work? Is it mechanical in some way? And when it does perfectly nothing towards those intentions…. I say, I don’t get it. It’s stupid. I can make it in ten seconds, and I don’t call it art. I guess I never have to call it art, but it would be nice if I could see it without my preconceived notions of what it should be but sadly what it’s not.
I think every era of art has its moment in history and we cannot stop that. Even if someday we are back in caves, after some immense world war, we will make art again, perhaps in caves again, and it will be called ‘new era cave painting’
It was back in 1917, but perhaps we still need it, we still need Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ and what it is and what it is not or might be. It was functional and it was useful and practical, and then it was something different perhaps. What it brings out in the public eye is outrage at some point and it is not admited to the show. So, what is it? It’s a urinal, a urinal from the men’s bathroom of course, and in the middle of a gallery displaying ‘David’. If I listen to it carefully it might say something too.
“I’m not a urinal, I’m a fountain, whooha, no more kings will ask to draw their faces in ‘their ‘likeness’; I run free with the little horse behind me saying..daaaaadda.”
-R.MUTT aka Fountain
