Marcel Duchamp\'s Ready Made Art,

¶ … Marcel Duchamp's Ready Made art, the work of Tom Friedman and in Erwin Wurm's One minute sculptures. In the essay, the author will choose one specific artwork example by each artist and briefly describe and interpret each artwork. We will then take the main points from the set of criteria for art and use it to evaluate these three works of art considering Duchamp, Friedman and then Wurm respectively. We will focus on how each may/may not satisfy our definition of art. We will examine how this set of criteria needs to be reconsidered and rearticulated to accommodate these artworks.

The common element among all three of the above artists was their use of everyday objects in their sculptural works. The artworks each had a fresh and "ready-made" quality that was spontaneous and did not fit any standard mold. They are made out of common materials that otherwise would not be art. The conventional definition needs to be reconsidered to accommodate these ephemeral works because they do not presently have a place in it. They have challenged the traditional definition of art and therefore do not easily fit into the old molds.

Marcel Duchamp

A great example of Duchamp's Ready Made art can be seen in the 1917 work, the Fountain. He felt that art was visual and sought out alternate modes of expression. The name is self-explanatory in that they were ready to go. Duchamp limited the yearly output of ready-mades and made no more than twenty in his life. Duchamp felt that by limiting output that he avoid the trap of his own tastes. While he was cognizant of the contradiction of avoiding taste, he also selected an object. Duchamp felt that taste, "bad" or "good," was the enemy of real art (Rougeau, 2008). The interpretation is that all of life is art, it just depends on your point-of-view.

Tom Friedman

Tom Friedman was an American conceptual sculptor known for his works that employ everyday materials such as sugar cubes or toothpick in geometrically intricate arrangements. A good example of Friedman's approach is the 2001 work Papercube Splat. The work has a tactile, spread out effect ("Tom friedman," 2010). It is like a scratch and sniff, one view and that is it.

Erwin Wurm

In the case of Erwin Wurm, the artist has developed a series of what he calls "One Minute Sculptures." In them, he poses himself or one or more of his models in unexpected relationships in close combination with everyday objects close by. This prompts the viewer to question their very definition of what sculpture consists of. Wurm sought to use what he termed the "shortest path" in the creation of a sculpture. He wanted a clear and fast (at times humorous) variant of artistic expression. The sculptures that he created are fleeting and they are meant to be temporary and spontaneous. The images the he captured were only on film or in photography. A good of such a wok is Wurm's is Fat Convertible which is a plastic covering over a care (Syed, 2009). It is a commentary on our obese society.

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