ART & ORGANISM

“FOUND ART”

objets trouvé

 

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(Arguably, Goethe’s “object seized from nature” is not so much removed from nature as relatively isolated, perhaps decontextualized, and will always be tethered, more-or-less connected.  The same thing applies to photographs — things of more or less meaning or interest that were seized upon by the eye and  transformed in the mind of the observer, the artist — like all found objects they might be catalysts–the seeds of an artist’s vision, bringing it to some kind of fruition — or simply metaphors, objects of meaning only in the mind of the observer’s unique cognitive ecosystem.)  

In other words, Is an item of “found art” (objet trouvé) an artifact in the same way as a work of art?  As something intentionally created to get and hold your attention? to speak to your feelings?

All creative art starts with something. The creative eye can select anything it experiences, including from within itself.  As Goethe put it in this page’s epigraph. Then cognitive processes–many of which may be nonconscious or unintended–transform it into a more-or-less satisfying object: the artifact that includes the influences of memory, its history traversing the nervous system from raw stimulus to complex concept, and its expression as an action or construction.    It is always, as Emile Zola said “a fragment of nature seen through a temperament” (1866). Similarly, as Joseph Wood Krutchput it, “Even when it is most determinedly realistic, it is conceived in accordance with the laws and limitations of the human mind…..even the most desperately `naturalistic’ art…is, at its most literal, nature passed through a human mind….” (1932).   And the “something” that one starts with might not be extraordinary: Ralph Waldo Emerson famously wrote that “Even in the mud and scum of things, something always, always sings.” “A leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time,” he wrote, “is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole. Each particle is a microcosm, and faithfully renders the likeness of the world. . . . So intimate is this Unity, that, it is easily seen, it lies under the undermost garment of nature, and betrays its source in the Universal Spirit. . . It is like a great circle on a sphere, comprising all possible circles; which, however, may be drawn, and comprise it, in like manner.” [Emerson, Nature, 1836].  Emerson’s circle resonates with Blaise Pascal’s thought: “Nature is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere.” (from Pensées (1670).  In this spirit, we can recall Longfellow’s “Art is the . . . revelation of nature, speaking through man” (Hyperion, 1839) But never forgetting, as we suggest in A&O, humans themselves are part of nature).  Framed another way,  Carl Sagan once said “we are a way for the cosmos to know itself” (Video series, Cosmos: A Personal Journey, 1980).

FOUND ART  Can an item–man-made or natural–that is “found” by chance or serendipity  be regarded as a work of art ?

DOES ALL ART begin with something found?  Something experienced which is more-or-less adjusted to the artist’s projective or receptive artistic ambitions?  Such an experience might precipitate a vast undertaking, or the finders (the artists?) may feel their needs  better served by leaving it for others to discover and perhaps interpret in a particularly meaningful way.

Your thinking about FOUND ART may profit from observing how the brokers of art interpret findings:  Read Laura Preston’s reporting on the background to th FOUND OBJECT SHOW at a pop-up gallery in New York:  “Incidental Masterpieces.”  

 

FOUND OBJECTS, are stimuli, like all stimuli that evoke perceptions, are constrained by development (of the perceiver), ecology (in which the perception occurs), evolution (of the organism and its resources for perception), and physiology (receiving, distributing, and deploying responses to perception).   The cognitive management of the information provided by a stimulus that we come to possess and represent within ourselves, may then treat it in a diversity of ways from metaphoric implications to reflexes–most likely a complex more-or-less integrated collaboration. 

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Does an object found in nature represent creativity? A certain “state of mind?” (what would Goethe say?)  Is it enough that the object of your attention is somehow “special?” (that would meets Dissanyake’s criterion). 

Now I’m starting to wonder if there is anything which is NOT art? (at least potentially).   What would Emerson say? 

And art can be found anywhere! “Even in the mud and scum of things, something always, always sings” (Emerson; and see notes from the Tate).

We can, in fact, argue that objects in nature–landscape or gutter–become artifacts and potential portals to the imagination the second they are found.  Goethe again: “By the artist’s seizing any one object from nature, that object no longer is part of nature. One can go so far as to say that the artist creates the object in that very moment by emphasizing its significant, characteristic, and interesting aspects or, rather, by adding the higher values.” – (Goethe. Propylaea, introduction, 1798).

But in another important sense,

does this qestion speak to a unique form of mindfulness?

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what makes a work of art? by Alina Cohen 2018  |  more examples of found art from ARTSY

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So, do all artifacts involve human agency?  Artifacts are still created by human artists even when they are found fully formed. (relate this to the view that Intentions are common criteria for art).   Many theorists of aesthetics feel that to qualify as art, there must be evidence that a person, an artist or craftsman, has intentionally gone “beyond what was strictly necessary for utility.” (Sandars 1985:34) –from A&O notes on ART and ARTIFACT)  .  For Dissanayake, on the other hand, it is sufficient that an object be “made Special.” (read this excerpt from Dissanayake).  

A pebble on the beach, a curious twisted branch, the twisted core of a seashell whose outer shell has been worn away… more-or-less deviations from the norm shake our perceptions from the “lethargy of habit” — but we are not limited to interesting anomalies. 

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  Does your found pebble remind you of something? 

STONES: 

• What is the The Makapansgat pebble (3 million YBP)
• What is the Venus of Berekhat Ram? (230,000 YBP) (see examples of Paleolithic figurines)
• What are Scholar Stones?  What is the ‘Stream and Grottoes’ stone (Qing Dynasty, 1644-1911) (go to:  https://neilgreenberg.com/ao-art-artifact-scholar-stones/ ” (Gongshi) including Robert Mowbry’s brief guide for bidders at a Christie’s auction of scholar stones in 2015) 

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Look at the figurine dated from  24,000-22,000 years BCE at a KhanAcademy site: THEN read Bryon Zygmont’s essay about the Venus of Willendorf.  In Zygmont’s view, artifact is “anything created by humankind, and art is a particular kind of artifact in which beauty has been achieve through the application of skills.” 

 

BUT, phenomena in nature (a pebble, a landscape, a flower, a giant sequoia) are also artifacts in that they are the consequences of actions –perhaps the selective attention of the perceiver.   (beauty in the mind of the beholder?)  …  AND perceptual phenomena can be profoundly moving.  This raises the issue that while art can be a kind of communion between a person and nature, it is also potentially communion  between artist and audience.  Many artists have reflected on the idea of the unknowable becoming manifest using a kind of more familiar proxy (God represented by a burning bush).

• Notes from the Tate   Discussed at A&O: ART & ARTIFACT   (is the product more important than the process?)
  • what makes a work of art? by Alina Cohen 2018  |  more examples of found art from ARTSY

CANONICAL DEFINITIONS:

RELATED:  objets trouvé are often integrated into more complex art objects that involve connections : “assemblage” 

 

Environment itself as an art form:

“An art form in which the artist creates a three-dimensional space in which the spectator can be completely enclosed and involved in a multiplicity of sensory stimulations—visual, auditory, kinetic, tactile, and sometimes olfactory. This type of art was prefigured in the Merzbau of Kurt Schwitters and in the elaborate decor of some of the Surrealist exhibitions of the 1930s, as well as in certain types of entertainments at funfairs, but as a movement it originated in the late 1950s and flourished chiefly in the 1960s, when it was closely connected with happenings. The leading figures who have worked in Environment art include Kaprow, Kienholz, and Oldenburg, and one of the most celebrated works in the genre was created by Niki de Saint Phalle. The term has been loosely used, and confusingly it has sometimes been applied to Land art or its analogues—that is, to type of art that manipulates the natural environment, rather than creating an environment to enfold and absorb the spectator.”  Neglecting “LAND ART?  find and read excerpt at https://www.oxfordreference.com/search?q=land+art&searchBtn=Search&isQuickSearch=true