Redefining Art

Redefining Art
▪ 2003
by Karen J. Sparks
      Though French artist Marcel Duchamp was credited early in the 20th century with having broken down the boundaries between works of art and everyday objects, by the year 2002 the traditional meaning of the word art had vastly expanded. Art at the beginning of the 21st century was not limited to paintings and sculpture but encompassed a variety of media, including video, performance, installation, digital Internet work, and sound. Some art exhibitions were even devoid of what many considered any art in the traditional sense. A show held in England in 2001, entitled “Exhibition to Be Constructed in Your Head,” featured only what artists called “negative space,” written captions that challenged visitors to imagine the missing artworks. Later that year an installation work by British artist Damien Hirst, consisting of ashtrays brimming with cigarette butts, empty beer bottles, candy wrappers, and art supplies, was disassembled by a well-meaning custodian who mistook the collection for garbage. The action sparked a lively discussion of what is art and what is not, which Mayfair gallery spokesperson Alison Smith declared was “always healthy.”

      Even more controversial was an anatomic exhibition that opened in March 2002 at the Atlantis Gallery in East London. There, several human corpses were on display—including those of a pole vaulter, a dancer, a pregnant woman, a basketball player, and a cyclist. The forms were preserved by a technique called plastination, and some of them were fashioned to simulate motion.

      A kaleidoscope of cutting-edge art forms—or what some considered outrageous imposters—was featured in galleries throughout the world in 2002 and also at a number of high-profile venues, including the Sydney (Australia) Biennale; Documenta 11, held in Germany; Expo.02, in Switzerland; and the 2002 Whitney Biennial, New York City. It was anyone's guess what new direction art would be taking.

Karen J. Sparks is Editor of Encyclopædia Britannica Yearbooks.

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Universalium. 2010.

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