'One minute sculptures' is a book created by Erwin Wurm in the late 1990's. It contains all different kinds of drawings and instructions. These instructions the audience to 'become the artwork' for 60 seconds instead of looking at the art, they themselves are the art.
A collection of images were taken by Wurm of people creating works of art on the spot based on these instructions, using whatever they had in the room or with them. Wurm is well known for his use of anything and everything in terms of materials. He uses whatever is near to him or whatever he has and still manages to bring his ideas to life using sometimes basic and minimal materials. The actions captured are very sponatneous and random looking. Wurm is also known for being a rather humorous and playful artist, this definitely shows in his images. I really like the outcome and the images Wurm has taken as they are so obscure looking and without context they really make you think and wonder what is going on in the image, making you look more and analyse the photographs for longer. I also really like the colours within the images and the overall style of them, I know that Wurm may not have done this on purpose, but I just really like the faded 90's look of the photographs. |
Involved with Dadaism, Cubism, conceptual art and the anti art movements, Duchamp is quite an experimental and abstract artist that uses photography, sculpting and a vast range of many different materials in order to create pieces that communicate his thoughts and feelings and convey a message. Sometimes these are bold, political messages, other times they are personal. The Art of Instruction is also something Duchamp was involved with after creating his piece 'Unhappy Readymade'.
This piece was an instruction that was sent as a wedding gift to his sister, Suzanne and her partner Jean Crotti. He instructed them to hang a geometry book outside so that it could be transformed, torn apart beaten by the unpredictable weather over a period of time, so that all of its details would be erased. Suzanne then photographed it after hanging it in the 1920s. She later painted it with oil paints on canvas. This piece by Duchamp is seen by a lot of people has having two artists, Marcel himself and his sister. However is it seen as his by the majority of people has he is the one who assigned the instruction to her. Duchamp has a series of Readymades, another well known one is 'Fresh Window', which was concerned with themes of looking and invisibility. 'Unhappy Readymade' is about chance and unpredictability, as a lot of the outcome relied on the weather and how the paper was transformed by the natural elements. This piece is purely the outcome of an obscure instruction given by Duchamp which his sister then decided to follow. I believe that he is the owner of this piece as art is made up of ideas and concepts, and this was his idea, his sister Suzanne created it physically, but it was not her idea so I don't think that she truly owns it. |
The 'do it' compendium is a book curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, one of the main figures of the movement. It started out as a conversation between Obrist and two other artists, Boltanski and Lavier in Paris, 1993. Obrist was discussing art and became concerned with exhibitions and how they could be more flexible, interactive and open ended. This was the start of 'do it'. The artists were thinking about an idea regarding instructions and orders and every time they are carried out, a new unique piece would be created as the outcome of obeying this order. From this you could suggest that Obrist must have been intrigued by the human mind and how we react to orders and the way in which we decide to carry them out. He must have been concerned with our interaction with the world and others around us and how the events our unique lives have influenced us to think, speak and act differently from each other.
Obrist invited twelve artists to carry out instructions that were sent around and translated into nine different languages. Almost twenty years after the first conversation, 'do it' had been featured in fifty different places worldwide. The whole idea and drive behind the constantly evolving exhibition is portrayed perfectly through a quote from Marcel Duchamp - 'Art is a game between all people of all periods'. 'do it' known as the most far reaching and longest running exhibition ever, as the possibilities are almost endless and anyone can become a part of this exhibition just by simply reading, following and documenting any instruction from this book. It is so interesting just to watch how we all have our own way of thinking and we all process things in different ways. The amount of different products and outcomes that could be made from exactly the same instruction is also just crazy to think about, how just one collection of words can be interpreted in thousands of different ways. |