Instruction Based Art
1. Can an idea be a work of art?
an idea can be a work of art , i believe that every piece of art stems from an idea, so really the idea is just an unevolved work of art.
2. Is good art always skilful?
no , as 'good' art can be made by anybody whether they consider themselves an artist or not
the phrase the beauty is in the eye of the beholder could be implied here as many people's definitions of 'good' art are vastly differing from the next person's.
3. If you don't make works of art can you be an artist?
i believe that you can because art is a very broad realm of creativity, for example fashion designers could be classed as artists because most couture pieces can be referred to as art. However people discredit makeup artistry as an artform which it very clearly is.
4. Why might artists ask other people to make work for them?
artists may ask other people to make work for them, firstly as part of a collaborative piece where they would have work by many different people assembled as one collective piece.
or, they could be asking someone to do the more physical aspect of the work whereas the artist thermselfe can be in charge of the planning and creative side of the work.
5. What makes an instruction interesting?
an instruction can be made interesting by using strangely more vague wording so that the person reading the instruction has more control and can create more interesting things with the instruction
6. Does a photographer always have to be the one who presses the shutter?
an idea can be a work of art , i believe that every piece of art stems from an idea, so really the idea is just an unevolved work of art.
2. Is good art always skilful?
no , as 'good' art can be made by anybody whether they consider themselves an artist or not
the phrase the beauty is in the eye of the beholder could be implied here as many people's definitions of 'good' art are vastly differing from the next person's.
3. If you don't make works of art can you be an artist?
i believe that you can because art is a very broad realm of creativity, for example fashion designers could be classed as artists because most couture pieces can be referred to as art. However people discredit makeup artistry as an artform which it very clearly is.
4. Why might artists ask other people to make work for them?
artists may ask other people to make work for them, firstly as part of a collaborative piece where they would have work by many different people assembled as one collective piece.
or, they could be asking someone to do the more physical aspect of the work whereas the artist thermselfe can be in charge of the planning and creative side of the work.
5. What makes an instruction interesting?
an instruction can be made interesting by using strangely more vague wording so that the person reading the instruction has more control and can create more interesting things with the instruction
6. Does a photographer always have to be the one who presses the shutter?
Instruction based art is a from of conceptual art best displayed in exhibitions of the ‘Do It’ project. This offshoot of typical conceptual art allows participants to interpret the instructions they receive when they go to one of these exhibitions, the instructions can be anything from, for example “smile at a stranger” to “make Thai curry sauce". The ‘do it’ project was an idea by artists, Christian Boltanksi, Bertrand Lavier and Hans Ulrich Obrist, while they were sat in a Parisian café in 1993.
For over 25 years now , exhibitions of the project have toured featuring instructions from artists such as Yoko Ono and Tacita Dean. You can even participate in the art project from home via the website (http://doit2013.org) by completing the instruction and uploading an image or a video of yourself having completed the assignment.
I believe the art in this project is the art of interpretation as each participant is going to have interpreted an instruction in a different way than how another participant of the project would have interpreted the instruction and also that the artists themselves are interested in the way that their words can be interpreted and acted upon by members of the public.
I would describe this project as ; fun , interactive , personal and entertaining.
For over 25 years now , exhibitions of the project have toured featuring instructions from artists such as Yoko Ono and Tacita Dean. You can even participate in the art project from home via the website (http://doit2013.org) by completing the instruction and uploading an image or a video of yourself having completed the assignment.
I believe the art in this project is the art of interpretation as each participant is going to have interpreted an instruction in a different way than how another participant of the project would have interpreted the instruction and also that the artists themselves are interested in the way that their words can be interpreted and acted upon by members of the public.
I would describe this project as ; fun , interactive , personal and entertaining.
I think that this instruction is quite straightforward compared to some of the other instructions on the official 'Do It' website, which generally ask you to complete a task deemed as confusing to the average visitor and more accessible for people to complete than others, for example placing a jumper on the lower half of your body with your legs in the sleeves is a much more complicated, yet more entertaining task than sticking newspaper clippings onto public posters as this instruction wants you to do.
I think that these responses are what the artist (Julius Koller) was intending to recieve back from people who has completed responses to his instruction, especially as it isn't a terribly vague request from him.
I wouldn't say that my views on instruction based art have majorly changed , this is because now more than ever I believe that the art behind this type of concept art is the interpretation of the instructions by the individual completing a response.
I think that these responses are what the artist (Julius Koller) was intending to recieve back from people who has completed responses to his instruction, especially as it isn't a terribly vague request from him.
I wouldn't say that my views on instruction based art have majorly changed , this is because now more than ever I believe that the art behind this type of concept art is the interpretation of the instructions by the individual completing a response.
John Baldessari is an American artist and photographer best known for his work using found images. In 1970 in a ceremony he cremated all of the work he had made form the year 1953 to the year 1966, which was relatively early in his career in a bold move to signify the end of an era in his career and begin another in favour of text based art rather than painting, with the ashes from this he created cookies and strangely, to his knowledge only one has been eaten, he kept the rest of them and still has them until this day. After he had done this he focused more on photography especially with found imagery, often incorporating juxtaposing film stills to create collages, some of these are his most well-known pieces of artwork. He often pairs images with captions, an example of this is his 1967 work entitled ‘wrong’ which contradicts a common rule in photography which is not photograph a subject against a tree. Some of his work is literal , for example, “Throwing Three Balls in the Air to Get a Straight Line (Best of Thirty-Six Attempts)” which was done in 1973, this is literally his attempt at getting 3 balls inn a straight line while suspended in air. This piece in particular may relate to instruction based art as he took the images in that book while trying to fulfil something he instructed himself to do.
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response to john baldessari's assignment 10
model in images featuring a person - Liza
model in images featuring a person - Liza
These images are attempts at completing a response to Baldessari's assignment no.10. i think that they are interesting images as even though i have not edited them using Photoshop in any way yet they are still vibrantly coloured, the image colour is something i would usually alter in an image doctoring software to increase or decrease the strength of. I think that my interpretation of the task however, may have been slightly different to what was expected for me to have produced from being given the assignment to complete.
I like that these images do show uncharacteristic viewpoints throughout the majority, as the images that have been shot from underneath drums, cymbals etc are from angles and perspectives that most people who are not photographers simply would not be viewing these objects from. I also like that i have included images that i feel are not the best responses to this assignment by Baldessari.
I , to some capacity enjoyed the project, however I feel as though being shown an example of a response to this assignment would have been helpful in my completion of the task as myself and my partner were confused at certain aspects of this task. such as extreme foreshortening.
However, I would like to improve on these images by selecting my favourite images from this project and creating more experimental images in a second response to this assignment. It would have been even better if I had taken more images that I myself was happy with, as out of 60+ images i was mainly only happy with the images that i have uploaded as part of this response.
I like that these images do show uncharacteristic viewpoints throughout the majority, as the images that have been shot from underneath drums, cymbals etc are from angles and perspectives that most people who are not photographers simply would not be viewing these objects from. I also like that i have included images that i feel are not the best responses to this assignment by Baldessari.
I , to some capacity enjoyed the project, however I feel as though being shown an example of a response to this assignment would have been helpful in my completion of the task as myself and my partner were confused at certain aspects of this task. such as extreme foreshortening.
However, I would like to improve on these images by selecting my favourite images from this project and creating more experimental images in a second response to this assignment. It would have been even better if I had taken more images that I myself was happy with, as out of 60+ images i was mainly only happy with the images that i have uploaded as part of this response.
I like this particular image because I feel as though this matches the definition of an uncharacteristic viewpoint as very little people would view an object from this angle. Looking at this image as though i haven't taken it, I have realised that it would be hard for a viewer to be able to tell what the object pictured is. The object shown in this image is a padlock that has been attached to a gate to lock it. I also think that this image is good because it is so abstract that a viewer could perceive it as any object really, as I myself had forgotten what this image originally had been taken of and presumed that it was a table joint prior to realising that i did remember indeed what is taken it of.
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these images are a refined version of the response i completed in the gallery above this set of images. I took these images in the same style as my favourite image from that photoshoot as i thought that that one best captured the intended outcome of the brief. i like this photoshoot more because this edition of the work is , i feel in another league to the attempts i had done previously. I took risks here as i tried to distort the viewers understanding of my work here as much as i could without hindering myself from completing the piece they are unusual because as i said , i obscured it as much as i possibly could without completely destroying the image. they are not the sort of images that i would usually take as i prefer street photography and portraiture work as i feel i have less and in a way more creative control over the outcome of these types of images. i approached this task differently than the first one because here , i had a clear image in my head of what i wanted to achieve which i did not have for the first set of images that i took as a baldessari response.
these six images are my favourite amongst the two photoshoots because i fee as though they are abstract in the best way , which is what i think Baldessari intended to gain back from his class completing this assignment piece.
I interpreted the instruction I got given by my classmate in two different ways, one was rotating an image i had in my head then photographing it and the other was to take an image from all 4 rotations by rotating the camera.