Anti-art is a loosely used term applied to an array of concepts and attitudes that reject prior definitions of art and question art in general. Somewhat paradoxically, anti-art tends to conduct this questioning and rejection from the vantage point of art.David Graver. The aesthetics of disturbance: anti-art in avant-garde drama. University of Michigan Press, 1995, p. 7. The term is associated with the Dada movement and is generally accepted as attributable to Marcel Duchamp pre-World War I around 1914, when he began to use found objects as art. It was used to describe revolutionary forms of art. The term was used later by the Conceptual artists of the 1960s to describe the work of those who claimed to have retired altogether from the practice of art, from the production of works which could be sold.
An expression of anti-art may or may not take traditional form or meet the criteria for being defined as a work of art according to conventional standards.Paul N. Humble. "Anti-Art and the Concept of Art". In: "A companion to art theory". Editors: Paul Smith and Carolyn Wilde, Wiley-Blackwell, 2002, p. 250.Martin Puchner. "Poetry of the revolution: Marx, manifestos, and the avant-gardes". Princeton University Press, 2006, p. 226. Works of anti-art may express an outright rejection of having conventionally defined criteria as a means of defining what art is, and what it is not. Anti-artworks may reject conventional artistic standards altogether,Kathryn Atwood. "The Triumph of Anti-Art: Conceptual and Performance Art in the Formation of Post-Modernism". Afterimage, Sep 1, 2006. or focus criticism only on certain aspects of art, such as the art market and high art. Some anti-artworks may reject individualism in art,Peter Bürger "Theory of the Avant-Garde". Trans. Michael Shaw. Minneapolis: Minnesota. 1984, p. 51An Paenhuysen. "Strategies of Fame: The anonymous career of a Belgian surrealist". In: "Opening Peter Greenaway's Tulse Luper Suitcases". Guest edited by: Gray Kochhar-Lindgren, Image and Narrative, Vol.VI, issue 2 (12.) August 2005. whereas some may reject "universality" as an accepted factor in art. Additionally, some forms of anti-art reject art entirely, or reject the idea that art is a separate realm or specialization.Sadie Plant. "The most radical gesture: the Situationist International in a postmodern age". Taylor & Francis, 1992, p. 40. Anti-artworks may also reject art based upon a consideration of art as being oppressive of a segment of the population.Interview of Roger Taylor by Stewart Home. "Art Is Like Cancer". Mute Magazine. 2004.
Anti-art artworks may articulate a disagreement with the generally supposed notion of there being a separation between art and life. Anti-art artworks may voice a question as to whether "art" really exists or not.Paul N. Humble. "Anti-Art and the Concept of Art". In: "A companion to art theory". Editors: Paul Smith and Carolyn Wilde, Wiley-Blackwell, 2002. Page 244 "Anti-art" has been referred to as a "paradoxical neologism", in that its obvious opposition to art has been observed concurring with staples of twentieth-century art or "modern art", in particular art movements that have self-consciously sought to transgress traditions or institutions."Ernst Van Alphen, a Clark scholar from the Netherlands, suggested that Modernism itself can be characterized as anti-art in that since the earliest gestures of Dada and Futurism, art is seen as transformative and productive, breaking with institutions rather than destructive of images." Source: http://www.berkshirefinearts.com/?page=article&article_id=128&catID=3 Anti-art itself is not a distinct art movement, however. This would tend to be indicated by the time it spans—longer than that usually spanned by art movements. Some art movements though, are labeled "anti-art". The Dada movement is generally considered the first anti-art movement; the term anti-art itself is said to have been coined by Dadaist Marcel Duchamp around 1914, and his readymades have been cited as early examples of anti-art objects.This is one dictionary definition of anti-art: "A loosely used term that has been applied to works or attitudes that debunk traditional concepts of art. The term is said to have been coined by Marcel Duchamp in about 1914, and his ready-mades can be cited as early examples of the genre. Dada was the first anti-art movement, and subsequently the denunciation of art became commonplace—almost de rigueur—among the avant-garde." Note the emphasis on the fact that most art adopts the same principles attributed to the concept of "anti-art". Source: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O5-antiart.html Theodor W. Adorno in Aesthetic Theory (1970) stated that "...even the abolition of art is respectful of art because it takes the truth claim of art seriously".
Anti-art has become generally accepted by the artworld to be art, although some people still reject Duchamp's readymades as art, for instance the Stuckist group of artists,"Glossary: Anti-art", Tate. Retrieved 23 January 2010. who are "anti-anti-art".Ferguson, Euan. "In bed with Tracey, Sarah ... and Ron", The Observer, 20 April 2003. Retrieved on 2 May 2009."Stuck on the Turner Prize", artnet, 27 October 2000. Retrieved on 2 May 2009.
Forms
Anti-art can take the form of art or not. It is posited that anti-art need not even take the form of art, in order to embody its function as anti-art. This point is disputed. Some of the forms of anti-art which are art strive to reveal the conventional limits of art by expanding its properties.Hal Foster. "What's Neo about the Neo-Avant-Garde?". October, Vol. 70, "The Duchamp Effect", Autumn, 1994. p. 19.
Some instances of anti-art are suggestive of a reduction to what might seem to be fundamental elements or building blocks of art. Examples of this sort of phenomenon might include monochrome paintings, empty frames, silence as music, chance art. Anti-art is also often seen to make use of highly innovative materials and techniques, and well beyond—to include hitherto unheard of elements in visual art. These types of anti-art can be readymades, found object art, détournement, combine paintings, appropriation (art), happenings, performance art, and body art.
Anti-art can involve the renouncement of making art entirely. This can be accomplished through an art strike and this can also be accomplished through revolutionary activism. An aim of anti-art can be to undermine or understate individual creativity. This may be accomplished through the utilization of readymades. Individual creativity can be further downplayed by the use of industrial processes in the making of art. Anti-artists may seek to undermine individual creativity by producing their artworks anonymously.Tilman Osterwold. "Pop art". Taschen, 2003, p. 44. They may refuse to show their artworks. They may refuse public recognition. Anti-artists may choose to work collectively, in order to place less emphasis on individual identity and individual creativity. This can be seen in the instance of happenings. This is sometimes the case with "supertemporal" artworks, which are by design impermanent. Anti-artists will sometimes destroy their works of art.Henry Flynt interviewed by Stewart Home. "Towards an Acognitive Culture". New York 8 March 1989. Smile 11, London Summer 1989. Some artworks made by anti-artists are purposely created to be destroyed. This can be seen in auto-destructive art.
André Malraux has developed a concept of anti-art quite different from that outlined above. For Malraux, anti-art began with the 'Salon' or 'Academic' art of the nineteenth century which rejected the basic ambition of art in favour of a semi-photographic illusionism (often prettified). Of Academic painting, Malraux writes, 'All true painters, all those for whom painting is a value, were nauseated by these pictures – "Portrait of a Great Surgeon Operating" and the like – because they saw in them not a form of painting, but the negation of painting'. For Malraux, anti-art is still very much with us, though in a different form. Its descendants are commercial cinema and television, and popular music and fiction. The 'Salon', Malraux writes, 'has been expelled from painting, but elsewhere it reigns supreme'.Derek Allan, Art and the Human Adventure. André Malraux's Theory of Art. Amsterdam, Rodopi, 2009. pp.275-286.
Theory Anti-art is also a tendency in the theoretical understanding of art and fine art.
The philosopher Roger Taylor puts forward that art is a bourgeois ideology that has its origins with capitalism in "Art, an Enemy of the People". Holding a strong anti-essentialist position he states also that art has not always existed and is not universal but peculiar to Europe.
The Invention of Art: A Cultural History by Larry Shiner is an art history book which fundamentally questions our understanding of art. "The modern system of art is not an essence or a fate but something we have made. Art as we have generally understood it is a European invention barely two hundred years old." (Shiner 2003, p. 3) Shiner presents (fine) art as a social construction that has not always existed throughout human history and could also disappear in its turn.
History
Pre World War I Jean-Jacques Rousseau rejected the separation between performer and spectator, life and theatre.North West Arts Association (Great Britain), Alexander Schouvaloff. "Place for the arts". Seel House Press, 1970, p. 244. Karl Marx posited that art was a consequence of the class system and therefore concluded that, in a communist society, there would only be people who engage in the making of art and no "artists".Larry Shiner. The Invention of Art: A Cultural History. University of Chicago Press, 2003, pp. 234, 236, 245,
Arguably the first movement that deliberately set itself in opposition to established art were the Incoherents in late 19th century Paris. Founded by Jules Lévy in 1882, the Incoherents organized charitable art exhibitions intended to be satirical and humoristic, they presented "...drawings by people who can't draw...""...dessins exécutés par des gens qui ne savent pas dessiner..." and held masked balls with artistic themes, all in the greater tradition of Montmartre cabaret culture. While short lived – the last Incoherent show took place in 1896 – the movement was popular for its entertainment value. In their commitment to satire, irreverence and ridicule they produced a number of works that show remarkable formal similarities to creations of the avant-garde of the 20th century: ready-mades, monochromes, empty frames and silence as music.Alphonse Allais: Marche Funèbre Composée pour les Funérailles d'un Grand Homme Sourd, 1884. First exhibited in the Salon des Incohérents, 1884. Printed in: Album primo-avrilesque. Paris: Ollendorf, 1897. [Reprinted in: Guy Schraenen: Erratum Musical. Bremen: Institut Français, 1994.]
Dada and constructivism