In 1915, artist Marcel Duchamp presented a new kind of art to the world: Duchamp called his pieces “readymades,” which were nothing more than everyday items – most famously, a toilet – taken out of their ordinary context and placed on display. Seen in their new settings, it was possible to appreciate these readymades as aesthetic pieces rather than merely functional items.

Duchamp was one of the earliest artists to deliberately blur the line between form and function. He was followed by the infamous pop artist Andy Warhol, who notoriously painted multiple perspectives of Campbell’s soup cans. Where Duchamp took something ugly and ordinary and called it art, Warhol used ugly, ordinary objects as an inspiration for his art.

Warhol also expressed the desire to create almost an assembly-line of art in an interview with Edward Lucie Smith:

Smith: “You once said…that you thought it would be nice to be a machine.”
Warhol: “I still want to be…I try to turn out as many pictures as I can.”

With his soup-can art and his vision of producing in mass quantities, Warhol, like Duchamp, was addressing the rigid line drawn between art and function. Both recognized, as many artists did not, that that line could be crossed.

Pieces like Duchamp’s readymades and Warhol’s pop art have become ingrained in our artistic consciousness. But now that we’ve grown accustomed to injecting function into our art, we must get used to the idea of crossing the line in the other direction: injecting art into our functional objects.

A few years ago, Target made a stir by enlisting the Michael Graves Design Group to create household objects with an artistic flair. Graves had previously expressed frustration over the high prices of art, and was quoted as saying “I would love to democratize design.” That’s exactly what he did. Graves’ line of artistic ladles, coffee makers and salad bowls added a new beauty and dignity to ordinary household goods. But more than making these objects lovely, Graves made it clear that they were art in and of themselves. Each object was sold with a small booklet, almost like a certificate of authenticity, which explained the artistic ideas behind the piece.

According to the back of the box of Graves’ fondue set, “The Michael Graves Design™ Collection provides an inspired balance of form and function. Sensible and sublime, practical and whimsical, the objects envisioned by this world-renowned architect infuse our daily lives with joy.”

Graves’ fondue set is sold without instructions for assembly. Though customers can easily rectify this by requesting instructions directly from Graves’ website, the idea is intriguing. It’s as if Graves were suggesting that, like art, the fondue set requires no assembly, no instructions. Whether or not they ever use it to melt cheese, the owners of the fondue set can be satisfied with the aesthetics of the piece.

On their website, the Graves Design Group explains that “In designing everyday objects, Graves encourages the impression of familiarity while allowing objects to be seen in a slightly different way. Uniting both symbolic and pragmatic concerns, his products deliver simple utility, functional innovation, and formal beauty.” By granting artistic status to ordinary objects, Graves has taken Duchamp’s and Warhol’s work one step further.

As consumers of both art and functional items, when do we protest the blurring of these lines? Do we need to protest at all? Is it enough for an object to be either functional or pleasing to the eye, or will we now require all objects to be both? And what happens to traditional art when all art pieces must serve a useful purpose as well as an aesthetic one?

In her play The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, Jane Wagner ponders these questions. The play’s central character is a bag lady who is engaged in explaining human culture to a group of curious aliens, and she has real difficulty when it comes to art.

“I show ‘em this can of Campbell’s tomato soup. I say, ‘This is soup.’ Then I show ‘em a picture of Andy Warhol’s painting of a can of Campbell’s tomato soup. I say, ‘This is art.’ ‘This is soup.’ ‘And this is art.’ Then I shuffle the two behind my back. Now what is this? No, this is soup and this is art!”

Artists like Duchamp, Warhol and Graves will continue to blur the lines between soup and art, leaving the rest of us, like bewildered aliens, to unravel the differences ourselves – and to decide whether the two things need to be differently defined at all.

Written by d/visiblecontributor Kris Larson.

Original photo by d/visible contributor Kris Larson; altered photo by d/visible Editorial Staff.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 18th, 2007 at 1:46 pm and is filed under Industrial, Culture, Illustration, Art & Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.