'Some Relations between Conceptual and Performance art' - Frazer Ward, Summary

Frazer first outlines the typical perceptions that surround performance and conceptual art and their relations to each other, most of all, their differences. He soon begins to outline their characteristics; Conceptual art with its emphasis on the public, rationality and the reverence it gives to language over material and the senses; Performance art confined by its temporality and its strong connection to the physical. But soon after these differences are brought to light, they are completely broken down. The symbiotic relationship that has manifested itself between the two over many decades becomes clearer. Though performance art has never been declared a movement as Conceptual or Minimalist art has, that also means it has had the advantage of being an “undercurrent” of almost all major art movements. After realising the part performance has had to play in art, it doesn’t seem too hard to picture it as a vital element in Conceptual art. Instead of naively observing them as separate entities, we gain insight into the way that the concept can breed aesthetic and physical qualities; and reversely, performance can breed conceptual branches. With these common threads one relies on the other and vice versa. Performance challenges the claims that conceptual art is in denial of its own burden of physicality and publicity while conceptual art incorporates Bochner’s claim that all art has a physical aspect. Even the rationality of conceptual art is questioned through Acconci’s Step Piece which as a performance also has a conceptual base found in the linguistic premise of the work. It shares nothing in common with rationality except for the fact that it possesses intention and carries it out as expected. In this one work the connections between performance and conceptual art become transparently clear.

One though that I had, which doesn’t really have an important connection to the text is the statement that presents the distinct difference in a work that explicitly reveals its ideational premise and an artist who dictates his/her intentions. It made me wonder if one or the other had a greater purpose to serve in contemporary art. Do we need work that gets us started, leaving us to create the work ourselves in a way, or would we benefit from work that tells it how it is without any grey areas. The former suggests a trust is present in the audience to responsibly handle the works potential by themselves; but I think the latter can have the upper hand from time to time, considering the audience isn’t always as well informed as the creator and not as inclined to apply the same attention, consideration or action to the work. The artist might find it more advantageous to just spell it out. I’m on the fence with these ideas but I think it may be an issue better considered on an artwork-to-artwork basis.

Art and Politics - Marcelo Cidade

Cidade is an artist who embraces politics in a less flamboyant or distinct way. He sees even the choice of becoming and artist a political act and that to be political one doesn't need to raise a flag or become a pamphleteer. His work like Direito de Imagem (Image Rights) he uses cardboard imitations of surveillance cameras to comment on the Big Brother complex in society and Amor e odio a Lygia Clark (2006) transforms brass knuckles into a symbol of companionship. I think the simple nature of his work divorces itself from the connotations of politics being a patriotic act really well and brings to light that political art, more than anything else, helps find new way to transform our society.

Art and the Archive

Though their work has probably been exhausted in terms of critical discussion, I thought the McDonald's works by the Chapman Bros. were a good example of artists fabricating their own archive using popular culture. This adaptation of a kind of primitivism to a fast food joint holds this dark and offensive motive towards both McDonald's and the cultures they borrow these styles from. Ironically, the Chapman Bros. have said that they "want to make McDonald's into a religion". In relation to art and archive, it shows how artists, while taking things completely out of context even at the risk of being racist and radically offensive, still manage to raise relevant questions about how we see institutions such as the fast food industry and how we wish to communicate those feelings to future generations. So now the most important question is not so much, how did McDonalds become so ingrained in our lives, but more - now that it is how do we deal with that?

Tim Silver Exhibition

I've only seen Silver's work previously that engages with light ultramarine casts of watercolour pigment or crayon, so Everything in its Right Place was a nice change of pace. I thought he dealt with the death and decay showcased in his work really well. You could see the heads slowly bowing as they cracked and sagged in that sort of melancholy peacefulness. The black casts of tree-knots, the remains of dead limbs, seemed to sag to the floor as they grew from the walls with the same emotive content as the heads through such a different style of execution. Even the use of wood fillers in the heads helps connect them to the tree casts. Issues surrounding our relationship with nature are brought up as our/Tim's heads crumble and the plastic tree casts seem to be here to stay. Through that cross of materials the permanence of nature and the almost inevitable fall of man comes to the surface almost as a premonition.

I think it was a really clever approach unlike some works that just spell out those connections suggesting the audience doesn't possess the ability to consciously and extensively engage with the work critically. He gives us our due credit as observers which is what I think art requires these days; art that almost demands we work for the satisfaction and rewards that each work has to offer and in the process feel we've gained something from it. So I guess I'm just impressed with the way Silver presents notions such as death almost with a subtle directness, which gives you the ability to take the work at face value, or dig deeper, exploring your own issues with mortality and whether or not Everything in your life is In Its Right Place.

Globalsim: Cai Guo-Qiang

Cry Dragon/Cry Wolf 1996


Cultural Melting Bath: Project for the 20th Century 1997






Project to Extend the Great Wall of China 10,000metres: Project for Extraterrestrials No. 10 1993


Cai Guo-Qiang and Globalism

Many Eastern artists today use contemporary methods to attack their own surroundings, or traditional methods to attack the homogenisation of the worlds culture, religion, language, tradition etc. Cai Guo-Qiang instead seeks to inform and unite. He calls on not only the spirits of human beings but the spirits of the universe as exercised in his collection of works Project for Extraterrestrials as if to summon in his audience a belief in something other than what we consciously perceive and consider perhaps that what we do in this life truly does affect what happens to us in the next. A more literal interpretation could posing the question, if aliens were to observe earth, what events, symbols, actions etc would they use to create their idea of the human race.

He alludes to significant and tragic events such as the detonation of atomic bombs at locations including Hiroshima and Nagasaki with hope that these events do not recess into our memories to be recalled as only symbols. Instead to be remembered as pivotal moments in history so they are never repeated. Cai brings the lost elements of culture and history to life once more in such works as Cry Dragon/Cry Wolf: The Ark of Genghis Khan 1996 (inflated sheep skins once used to cross rivers now propelled by a Toyota engine) and Reflection – A gift from Iwaki 2004 (Japanese locals surfacing a sunken ship) that invigorate both the community it interacts with and those who view it’s documentation with a sense of unity and positive change.

His gunpowder drawings and explosive events, that can last a fraction of a second and no longer than a few minutes, search the ephemeral for an experience that captures the infinite. Those short and exciting moments are filled with the aggression of war (Cai is very familiar with the sound of gunfire from his childhood province) yet represent a transformation of matter and consciousness. These explosions/detonations utilise a tool of warfare to return it to its origins of creating new life as it was intended through alchemy. Cai’s later works in the United States show how a shift to more contemporary methods are not to be mistaken as an abandonment of tradition or heritage, but a call for new perspectives granted by new materials, new methods and new institutions. His Cultural Melting Bath shown in Japan and the USA brings people from all nationalities and cultures to share the experience of communal bathing (in a spa located in a gallery space), enhancing the experience with a design for a free flow of energy (chi), birds living in the space and herbal remedies in the water. Cai brings people together only to pose the question “is it important to be connected with other people from different backgrounds?” He embodies change as the world is also in a constant state of flux, as well as encouraging inquisition into the nature of globalisation. He does not take a firm stance on whether this increased interaction is either positive or negative, but suggests that it would serve us well to acknowledge its existence, not losing sight of our need to maintain a quest for peace.

He also helps support this view of togetherness through his work Project to Extend the Great Wall of China 10,000 metres: Project for Extraterrestrials No. 10, lighting a line of gunpowder from the end of the Great Wall of Chine 10km out to the desert. Like Francis Alys' Faith Can Move Mountains, the work doesnt have any useful and tangible product except for the inspirational and harmonising capabilities it holds. It changes a cultural perception of the Great Wall from being imposing and having connotations of keeping people apart to becoming a symbol of cooperation and peace.

Annotated Bibliography

Krens, Thomas, Alexandra Munroe. Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want To Believe. New York: Guggenheim Museum Publications, 2009

This expansive retrospective of Cai Guo-Qiang’s work contains a biography tracing his movements geographically, conceptually and through his use of mediums. It provides an insightful glimpse into the way Cai calls upon art practices and theories of the past to enforce his own work politically, socially, culturally and spiritually. This helped me when addressing Cais interaction with a global context, showing how he adopted such ideas as the Dadaist readymade concept bringing it to the world stage with fresh life (such as his Venice Rent Collection Courtyard or Arbitrary History works). Cai was shown as an avid user of binaries such as destruction and creation, distance and proximity, peace and war which gave me an even clearer perspective on Cai’s practice as I began to understand how this Taoist view provides his work with balance in a global arena often riddled with chaotic events and hostile environments that younger generations are rapidly becoming anaesthetised to. He searches in this way as a bystander with nothing but a humble new view. No judgement or criticism; just a new view. His work does however embody contradiction but accepts it to the point that it becomes almost a necessity as long as there is a sense of unity with people. His work is often most powerful when used as a guide for global harmony.
Over 50 works are then featured with small descriptions of their composition and conceptual voice, which also helped when more information was needed on a certain piece. This book was one of few that had information on Cai’s later USA-based work. These more current works help develop my understanding of Cai’s transformation as he moved from country to country.

Friis-Hansen, Dana, Octavio Zaya, Serizawa Takashi. Cai Guo-Qiang. New York: Phaidon Press Inc, 2002

This publication is less diverse (in respect to both its quantity of text and included works) when compared to the previous source, yet chooses to focus on specific areas of interest and expands on them thoroughly. The books most valuable asset is its inclusion of an interview with Cai himself and Serizawa Takashi’s words that traced his and Cai’s efforts during the completion of the work Project to Extend the Great Wall of China 10,000metres: Project for Extraterrestrials No.10. Both texts promote Cai as a well informed artist; one that has engaged with not only his own homeland, but the outside world, either returning with new methods and ideas, or giving the world a perspective of China that transcends the stereotypes commonly assigned to Eastern culture and art. From this publication there is a sense that Cai often tries to break down the walls that separate individuals such as cultural difference.

In addition to these advantages, Cai is shown as one who has a high respect for his own culture unlike many Eastern artists who use contemporaneous art practices to attack their surroundings. Though violent, rash, spontaneous and surreal, Cai’s work is always aimed at finding connectivity between individuals, transformation of ideas and multicultural diversity executed with the highest considerations for the manner of execution and conceptual basis of the pieces.

Heartney, Eleanor. Art and Today. New York: Phaidon Press Inc, 2008 (Globalism p.290-319)

Heartney shows how the Contemporary art period brings with it increased multiculturalism through advances in technology effecting travel, communication and geo-political development. Artists have had almost no choice but to consider the entire world around them as media, culture etc from ll corners of the globe are ever present in their society. She gives an overview of artists and their works that show a considerable interaction and contribution to the world around them. These works include Alfredo Jar confronting the dumping of toxic waste in Nigeria, Andreas Gursky’s questioning of international commerce, Juan Munoz’s use of homogenisation and Yinka Shonibare’s historically and culturally infused installations that consider the colonisation of Africa.

Most useful for my purposes was Heartney’s focus on Eastern contemporary artists Xu Bing, Wenda Gu and of course Cai Guo-Qiang. Xu Bing seems to question the loss of literary culture implying that losing touch with that section of heritage is a loss for mankind and is ultimately negative and while Wenda Gu promotes unity with his multicultural “hair-pieces”, his work, along with Bing’s, appears in galleries most of the time. Personally I believe Cai Guo-Qiang seperates himself as a globally interactive artist transcending the gallery space, participating in site specific work that calls for and at times demands audience participation. Heartney makes it clear that Cai fuses culture, history and a kind of utopian theory (anchored in a call for unity through inevitable change) with the public space and those who inhabit and interact with that space.


Dawei, Fei, Andrei Ujica. Cai Guo-Qiang. New York: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2000

This publication does not focus on areas that helped me as much as the others, as it often refers to Cia’s works that consider spirituality and outer space. Yet there were a few key words from an interview with Cai that assisted my understanding of his practice and theories. He mentions how he tries to “discover eternity through the ephemeral” which ties well with the fact that many of his works last only moments as the world too changes constantly in almost every respect. He finds parallels with Chinese and Japanese culture where most would find similarities through misleading stereotypes or strict differences, emphasising his search for togetherness. Another asset this book has is the abundance of documentation of Cia’s art which therefore allowed me to assemble a deeper perception of the works.

Art and Spirituality

The first artist I thought about when I saw "Art and Spirituality" was Ken Unsworth. To me his works evade and transcend particular religions and instead, through his manipulation of space and gravity, provoke a metaphysical response that allows anyone to apply their own thoughts regarding spirituality. His choice of materials and use of illusion doesn't suggest a technological interference and therefore continues to extract emotions from his audience that regard their perception of the natural world, both what they are concious of and what they are not. For me Unsworth challenges, asking for a journey of self discovery in the presence of things we don't understand and confuse us.

Art and Architecture

I didn't get to spend a lot of time with the Art and Today book this week, but I did find works by Monica Bonivicini and Andrea Zittel very stimulating. Bonivicini's Don't Miss A Sec (the public toilet with the two-way mirror walls) transforms the act of voyeurism into a visceral and embarrassing act, within the confines of maintaining the participants dignity and privacy. The way she takes space and personal situations and deconstructs their associated conventions reminds me of Felix Gonzales Torres' work Portrait of Ross in LA 1991, where a pile of candy replicated the same weight of the artists late partner who died from AIDS. This pile was freely eaten by the spectators before being told as they left what it represented. In the same way as Bonivicini, Torres forces a reaction by changing how we perceive comfort and cleanliness without actually producing any danger.

I also liked Andrea Zittels Ikea-like works that compacts all of ones individual needs into a single furniture unit. It sometimes seems too furniture-mainstream but once I really give the works thought with respect to things like overpopulation/congestion of space and social, economic and even cultural implications of taking up too much space, I realise how her work promotes the need for compact, low maintenance living in today's society. Though at times it also seems as if she's mocking the use of the Ikea-style furniture that tries to make life so much easier when it sometimes acts as a hindrance by making all of life's tasks banal and almost claustrophobic.

I've never been that interested in architecture when considering ideas for my own work but I do enjoy the effect that glass and mirrors have on an architectural space. Glass allows the space to continue outward past the point of enclosure, containing space but allowing light to travel both in and out which, for me, provides a valuable connection between the architecture and environment surrounding it. And I just enjoy how mirrors give the illusion of space where there of course is none.

Gallery Visits

I really enjoyed the Barton/Dawson show. A few of us talked about the cross cultural styles in Barton’s work using techniques and colours that reminded us of Aboriginal, Japanese and contemporary European painting. I can see why people pay thousands for her work but to me her work hasn’t changed a lot since I first recognised her at the Archibald and it seems a little repetitive now. Marley’s work contrasted the Barton pieces really well and I think his extensive work with motion really culminates well there.

Tell Me Tell Me was my favourite part of the day. Works that stood out to me were pieces by Unsworth, Ringholt, Stellarc and Kim Boem as well as that Watermelon piece with one seed missing. At times it felt a little claustrophobic having so much in the small spaces which made it hard to absorb such varied works as a single exhibition, but it was still good overall as far as I’m concerned.

Art and Narrative

I really like the link that Art and Identity shares with Art and Narrative. I like seeing an artwork that almost makes you feel like you know the creator or the lives of those who are portrayed in the work, best achieved i believe by an underlying narrative. Works like those by Shirin Neshat and Norman Rockwell

Gallery Visits

Artspace - Talking Pictures

The piece I most connected with would have to be Sean Raffety's Fugitive Dreams. I love nostalic items that not only educate about the past but provide lessons and instill caution about the overuse of technology. The immense redundancy of this projector with the film extended out about 2metres just to show a reel of 'coming soon' images through a viewing screen hidden by its dark appearance. This piece just seems so lonesome and out of touch, yet those willing to bond with it share a strong connection. Its size alone gives it presense in a way, the images, notes and files on the outside serving as a backstory to add to its importance in the audiences mind. As a tongue-in-cheek kind of way, Raffety also places those televisions on the back of the 'cinema' as if to mock the use of film and show how fast technology moves. These themes also show in the work of Nicholas Mangan; specifically Some Kinds Of Duration, a concrete cast photocopier.

Thats the feel I got from those pieces, really enjoyed it.

The works a AGNSW were fun too, the ones that stuck in my mind would have to be the simulated transportation creations such as the 'looking out of a plane window' piece. The message that really got through to me as a sculpture student, besides the messages about technology and such, would have to be how versatile objects are, and how convincingly deceptive they can be.

Annotated Bibliography - Identity, Post-Human - Orlan

Pollock, Griselda, Generations and Geographies in the Visual Arts, New York: Routledge Publishing, 1996. [Orlan: artist in the post-human age of mechanical reincarnation: body as ready (to be re-) made, Hirschhorn, Michelle; 110-134]

This chapter regarding Orlan’s most famous work, The Reincarnation of St Orlan could not be surpassed. Not only does it provide a concise and valuable history or Orlans work, but Hirschhorn’s brilliant writing covers almost every conceptual aspect conceivable on Orlans operations. Whether it be on the subject of politics, social, cultural or personal matters, Hirschhorn is detailed and compelling.

Deitch, Jeffrey, Post Human, New York : North American distribution, DAP/Distributed Art Publishers, 1992.

Post-Human is a book that gives a basic and fundamental picture of what the style is all about. It not only describes the main concepts and practices of artists participating in Post Human art but also provides many images by artists who have made a very distinctive mark in this style such as Wim Delvoye and Robert Gober

As of 2011, www.orlan.net

The site directly connected to the artist, this site provides images, video, literature, and information on commissions and exhibitions that covers her work with a large spectrum of mediums and themes. For those who want to know more on Orlan as a person, her biography is also present, as is the bibliography for the site. For pretty much anything on Orlan, this site seems the best.

As of 11 April 2005, http://www.izinsizgosteri.net/asalsayi37/Kubilay.Akman_ing.37.html

This site contains an article that centralises itself around the famous Reincarnation of St Orlan operations. It speaks in a less formal and encompassing manner than the books I used but does allow for a more accessible and relatable read.

As of 29 April 2009, http://theirishcritic.com/new-york-theatre/feminism-and-representation-an-interview-with-orlan/

This interview with Orlan reveals her opinions on feminism within her work, her intentions, political and social views as well as giving an insight to her artist thought processes. It helps when trying to understand Orlan’s intentions and practices as well as understanding her morals.

Heartney, Elanor, Art and Today, London, Phaidon Publishing 2008; Chapter - Art and Identity 242-265

This is a great source for understanding the concept of identity. It includes artists otherwise not necessarily appreciated as artists working with identity as well as other who demonstrate identity’s key role in art. Aspects of life including gender, culture, race and social life are focused on to take the viewers understanding of identity beyond the physical form. It did not help as much when researching for Orlan’s work as post-humanism was not a major focus. It did however help with issues of feminism.

Art Nature and Technology

After searching for information I found these sites which turned out to be really insightful:

http://www.greenmuseum.org/generic_content.php?ct_id=186

This one deals more with the nature of landscape in art and land art in general, also taking a brief historical look at landscape art

http://www.modernedition.com/art-articles/use-of-nature-in-art/natural-process-in-art.html

This website focuses on specific artists and how nature and technology have played roles in their practices like Andy Goldsworthy, Anya Gallaccio and Tonico Lemos Tauad.

http://qag.qld.gov.au/kids/exhibition_archive/nature_machine

This site for the Queensland Art Galleries exhibition The Nature Machine: Contemporary Art, Nature and Technology gives a talk about how we use the natural world and how technology changes our perception of that world.

Art and its Institutions

Don't have too much to say about art and its institutions.

I guess what I'm most disappointed about is how some institutions feel its right to dictate the definition of art. I don't so much have a problem with a gallery rejecting a piece because it doesn't suit the space, or even because the curator just doesn't like the work. What I don't like is an institution deciding something like textiles doesn't classify as art.

Performance Art Part 2 Summary

I think what is gained from this account of performance art’s transformations through the 1960’s is that we are given a thorough and comprehensive view of the changes occurring in performance and specifically dance during these times. We also gain a valid understanding of what caused such changes.

We are enlightened to the facts that revolutionaries Cage and Cunningham gave traditional performers a way of expressing themselves differently in front of an audience more accepting of the new and experimental. These dancers were taken out of their comfort zones and learnt to integrate the aspects of everyday life, including its objects into the performance medium. Dancing became a way of life including the seemingly mundane and unnoticed actions like walking, eating etc.

Another who helped develop the performance of the 1960s include Ann Halprin who encouraged improvisation to unlock the bodies full potential and abandoned conventional technique and pattern, as well as including ‘non representational aspects of dance’ and revolving around task orientated movements

These approaches were taken to the Judson Church and Ruben Gallery where they reached audiences through public performances, in programmes of happenings and events. The performances began to include chance procedures to further the capabilities of dance.

Yvonne Rainer was another to further the performance of the 60s. A dismissal of past and present in her approach to dance led to a set of basic and extreme principles to be applied to performance;

• No spectacle



• No virtuosity



• No transformations or magic or make-believe



• No glamour



• No transcendence of star image



• No heroism



• No anti-heroism



• No trash imagery



• No involvement of performer or spectator



• No to style



• No to camp



• No to seduction of spectator by wiles of performer



• No eccentricity



• No moving or being moved

They may appear problematic and in some cases contradictory yet like an eastern parable, its uses were vast and extremely revolutionary

Though the early 60s had origins bred from abstract expressionism, many could not accept the socially irresponsible attitudes that kept such artists working reclusively in a private studio. Dance was to be a part of and a reflection of life in its purest forms. Dada-like manifestos began and open attacks of typical art values rose. The aspects of minimalism in dance could also be attributed in part to the minimalism present in the contemporary sculpture of the time, encouraging dancers to act as if object and therefore could be carried, picked up etc.

The piece tells of artists and performers Cage, Rauschenberg and Whitman performing in New York to celebrate art and technology in 1966. Performances such as Ken Dewey’s City Scale 1963 leading the audience/participants through the city to view unique performances (model undressing at an apartment window, car ballet in car park, singer in shop window etc), and Rauschenberg’s Pelican 1963 where roller skating partners speed around a slow moving ballet dancer and as she speeds up the skaters slow down with the aid of specially made parachutes, give greater insight into the world of revolutionary performance in the 60s. Rauschenberg’s other innovations came in the form of trying to create costumes that mimicked objects so well that there would be no way to distinguish between object and dancer. \

Writings about other artists such as Oldenburg activating the audience in the aisles (performers using actions of sneezing and eating popcorn as inspiration) and Whitman attempting to widen the gap between audience and performers/stage making time and space major themes of his work provide the reader with the vast possibilities and ambitions of this explosive period in performance.

Art and Popular Culture - Silvia B.

After looking at popular culture I began to realize the crucial difference between pop culture and pop art. It's after making that distinction that I found how my work consists highly of pop culture themes such as the environment, science (bio tech and computer) and consumer culture. I think that pop culture stems from this mass consumption/consumerism society and the surrounding barriers regarding class and status, particularly how we question those barriers (and even how or if people chose to recognize them) to bring art to an equal level for all artists and audiences.

I have come across artist Silvia B (shortening her last name to a B, as if trying to create a persona similar to that of a celebrity like Madonna or Prince). Her work deals with vastly wide themes from race, religion, consumer culture, status, gender and many more. Her sculptures are highly realistic and aids to bring the audience into a world of her own creation and change the conventional perceptions of the aforementioned themes. She breaks down barriers and builds surreal comments about popular culture today in a supremely powerful way

Here's a her website if you want to see her work
www.silvia-b.com/

Abstraction

I've never found myself too awe-struck by abstract art, but I appreciate its context and its purpose. From what I can gather, abstract art was a response, in part, to the psychoanalyst theory and seeks to abandon all perceptions of reality except for what is important and at times completely theoretical or imagined. Its relations to cubism and post-impressionism allows us to see how the artists of the time (Picasso, Braque etc) began to question the importance of traditional painting and other art practices.

In the sculptural world of abstraction it is more commonplace to conisder sculpture as an occupation of space. Yet with abstract art one is forced to conisder fairly often the absence of space and how we react to that. Artists like Duchamp presenting a glass bubble of Pairs air and Gabriel Orozco showing an empty shoe box as an artwork confronts the audience, asking them to consider the simple moments in life and possibly try to concieve the artworks history or tale using little to no incentive.

It's alteration of the world as we currently and traditionally view it allows some of the most subjective art to come to life where a viewer can apply any preconceived ideas previously in their life to the artwork in order to create a completely original approach, whether it be alike to the artist or not. That is where I believe abstraction holds its greatest strengths.

Unmonumentality: Summary

This piece by Laura Hoptman gives a vivid explanation and history of the art of assemblage and its place in the search for unmonumentailty in sculpture. It describes the changes of assemblage from its conception during the pre-WW1 stages of Duchamp and Picasso to the 1960s when assemblage hit its highest point of success; continuing all the way to the Twenty-first century where the act of assemblage is used for widely different reasons.

Assemblage is shown as a bi-product of the Dada and Surrealist movements, adhering to the criteria of destroying a typical perception art to the point of using everyday objects to create anti-art. These ‘ready-mades’ gave way to the idea that anything of any size, created by anyone could therefore be used as art. Assemblage then took the stage as an art practice that relied mostly on the ability to filter and select objects instead of theorise and then create from scratch.

The 1950’s and 1960’s saw the pinnacle of assemblage where individual objects held a quality and story of their own while co-operating together in the same work to form a collective meaning. This type of art making could not be seen much better than in the work of Robert Raschenberg, whose combines, hybrid paintings and sculpture brought assemblage to unsurpassed brilliance. The work did however seem to depend on a certain degree of luck as chance played a colossal role in this process, which many could argue added to the mystery of these juxtaposed objects. As noted in Hoptman’s writing, Leo Steinberg called Rauschenberg’s work a ‘triumph of the immiscible’ as unlikely objects provided physical evidence of a world continuously bombarded with information. It seems as if where Dada art was used to cope with the hardships of war, the 1960s neo-dada assemblage could be a response the excessive abundance of information of the 60s urban culture.

Hoptman later explains how assemblage of the twenty-first century differed quite dramatically from its pre WW1 and post WW2 predecessors. The information available to the contemporary audience of the twenty-first century has clearly grown exponentially, reaching a point of borderline absurdity. The assemblage of contemporary times has therefore become more reliant on choice than the typical use of chance and luck of the Duchamps and Rauschenbergs of past eras. Where the Dada-inspired assemblage searched for anti-art and destruction of convention, twenty-first century assemblage tends to address more direct issues and attempts to conduct a social commentary. The piece continues to explain the relationship twenty-first assemblage or neo-neo-avant garde has with past movements and themes such as the 1980’s practice of appropriation.

The article concludes with a description of the term unmonumental and explains its aspects. It outlines how unmonumental sculpture intentionally decides to rid itself of the characteristics such as massiveness, timelessness and public significance. The availability of this kind of fractured art has brought this form to an extremely large audience as it appears in advertising, marketing, on the internet and in countless other areas of popular culture. For a style of art that tries to abandon properties of public significance it has become a largely popular and successful one.