Marcel Duchamp Toilet and Contemporary Art

Today in class we talked about contemporary art.  First we started off with pictures of people view various forms of art.  This was both interesting and confusing to me at first because I didn't realize how people could put this as a form of art.  I then realized that some of the responses to pieces of art were very unique and interesting and could see how some people liked the pictures.  I really liked this idea because it showed people of all ages responses and you could tell who liked the art and what the art did for them.

We then discussed the different types of art and this was a real surprise to me because I never thought that there were so many different types of art.  I didn't know how much impressionism was from modern or contemporary art.  I have a friend that loves art and she always talks about how much the classes she takes move her based on the type of art she studies at the time.  I know understand where she is coming from after seeing all the different types of art and all the reactions from the people.

Conceptual Art is what exactly you see and you shouldn't have to think about what it means.  We saw a type of conceptual art by Marcel Duchamp where he took a urinal and made it into art.  This was very different for me because I would never think that a toilet could be some type of art.  The critic from the movie we watched was extremely funny with his responses talking about what the urinal actually meant.  I guess now after todays class that I realize how different pieces of art can be from one to another and how different the meanings can be.

(Post was from class on January 26, 2011.  I hit save instead of publish post and just realized.)