What Artists Do. Leonard Koren

to illustrate these six

       things.

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      All of the artists featured in these vignettes, with at

       least one notable exception, make visual art with a

       pronounced conceptual bias. In other words, they are

       just as—or more—concerned with the ideas and

       concepts on which their artwork is based as they are

       with its physical expression. These artists, and the

       inspirational and influential artworks they produced,

       represent only a narrow spectrum of artist types and

       artistic media. They are, nevertheless, meant to serve

       as rough proxies for the contemporary artist archetype

       and for all works of art in all media.

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      “The process of painting is a series of moral decisions

       about the aesthetic.”

       —Louise Nevelson, artist

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      1. Determine what art is

      Almost everyone agrees that artists make art, but few

       people agree on what, exactly, art is. Art continually

       appears in new and previously unimagined guises. The

       art of today may bear little resemblance to the art of

       the past. As a consequence, “art” is a word that is often

       intentionally left undefined.

      How then, or rather who, determines what art is and

       isn’t? For instance, who decides what is exhibited in art

       museums and art galleries? In effect it is those who

       make the art, i.e., artists.³ With every new artwork, an artist brings a new manifestation of art into existence. However, if this new manifestation deviates too far from previous ones, there may be a problem. The artist then has to persuade others that what they have brought into existence is, indeed, art. One artist who expertly did this—got others to buy into his unusual conception of art—was Marcel Duchamp (1887–1969).

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      “. . . art may be bad, good, or indifferent, but,

       whatever adjective is used, we must call it art,

       and bad art is still art in the same way as

       a bad emotion is still an emotion.”

       —Marcel Duchamp, artist

      20

      “The reality in an artist’s existence is to

       question answers.”

       —Lawrence Weiner, artist

      21

      Duchamp was born and raised in France. In 1915, in his

       late twenties, he came to live in New York. Duchamp

       made a number of noteworthy paintings and sculp-

       tures, but his major preoccupation was making art that

       questioned the philosophical premises of the domain

       of art itself. Duchamp asked through his art: Do artists

       really have to fabricate art artifacts with their own

       hands? Are certain materials more suitable than others

       for making art? What makes an artwork different from

       those things that look similar but are not works of art?

       And what, really, is art?

      During his first decade in the United States, Duchamp

       worked diligently on what he hoped would be his

       masterpiece, an artwork that incorporated elements of

       painting, sculpture, and collage. It was constructed out

       of varnish, oil paint, lead film, dust, cracked glass, and

       aluminum foil―and was altogether encased in a wood

       and steel frame. It was titled “The Bride Stripped Bare

       by Her Bachelors, Even.” (It was also known as “The

       Large Glass.”)

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      While working on the “The Bride Stripped Bare . . . ,”

       Duchamp also experimented with a new genre of

       artwork he called the “readymade.” A readymade was an

       ordinary mass-produced functional object, or a combina-

       tion of such objects, bought from a store and minimally

       modified. Sometimes Duchamp added nothing more

       than a signature, a date, and a title. His first readymade

       was actually created in Paris before he came to Ameri-

       ca. It was a bicycle wheel mounted atop a wooden stool.

       His first New York readymade was a snow shovel. He

       suspended it from the ceiling of an art gallery and titled

       it “In Advance of the Broken Arm.”

      Two years later Duchamp fashioned what was to

       become his most famous, or infamous, readymade.

       It was an ordinary white porcelain urinal purchased at

       a heating and plumbing supply showroom. Duchamp

       added a date and signed it using the pseudonym

       “R. Mutt.” (This was probably a play on the name of the

       business where it was acquired, J. L. Mott Iron Works.)

       He titled it “Fountain.”

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      Duchamp loved playing games, particularly word

       games and games of strategy.⁴ In a very real sense, making art was a game for Duchamp. The readymades represented a move, not unlike a bold chess move, intended to advance his position in the game of art.

      Duchamp played his game of art primarily in the

       context of arts institutions. Around the same time

       Duchamp created “Fountain” he also cofounded an

       organization whose stated purpose was to exhibit any

       and all works of art without judgment or restrictions. It

       was named the Society of Independent Artists. Any

       artist who paid a