Different Domains Of Conceptual Art: Comparing Artistic Styles Of Marcel Duchamp And David Shrigley

Artists interpretations of the world are demonstrated through the work of Marcel Duchamp and David Shrigley, both from very different art movements. Marcel’s artworks are associated with re-contextualising an everyday object or combining objects together to create a new piece on the other hand, David’s work was informed with peculiar and absurd, dark humour jokes.

Duchamp was a French artist, born July 28, 1887. Duchamp studied Fauvism, Cubism, and Impressionism, and was attracted by new approaches to color and structure. Duchamp broke down the boundaries between works of art and everyday objects. Marcel Duchamp was part of the Dada movement, a movement that questions what art should be and how it should be made. The first readymade Marcel created was the bicycle wheel, he fastened a bicycle wheel to a kitchen stool in 1913, he called this the “assisted readymade” as most of Duchamp’s Readymades were individual objects that he repositioned or signed and called art.

When the readymade was first displayed he encouraged people to spin the wheel, because he claimed when the wheel turns it’s very soothing and comforting. Marcel is known to be idealistic when it comes to art and he is generally considered to be the most famous artist in conceptual art, “It was always the idea that came first, not the visual example,’ from what Marcel said. Marcel purposely chose ordinary, functional and rather dull objects, he put together these objects and put a title to them which recontextualised them and gave them a ‘new thought’ and new meaning. By cancelling the ‘useful’ function of an object it becomes art. Through the art movement in the 1800s is when art really began to change with Impressionism and Expressionism. Duchamp’s art was constrained by the world because art back then was so traditional. Duchamp’s artworks protested that and pushed boundaries as it was triggered by the war. As a result of duchamp’s artworks during the dada movement that concluded in the 1920s, the audience began to acknowledge and accept Marcels artworks rather than seeing them as an insult to the art culture, this is due to the audience questioning what art should be in the contemporary society as there are different views and interpretations that are used for the term “art”. Duchamp really believed the world deserved “ugly” at that time due to WWI

Furthermore, another readymade artwork that emerged from the Dada movement is the sculpture that was named “fountain” . This readymade is one of the most famous artworks that was made by Marcel and it is widely seen into the twentieth century. It’s a standard urinal which was presented on its back and was signed and dated ‘R. Mutt 1917’. By pacing the urinal in its upright position it gives the appearance of a fountain. The signature was written in black paint and the urinal was made from glazed earthenware and painted to resemble the original porcelain. Marcel was inspired by the art movement cubism, it embodied and accepted notions of art for which Duchamp became known. Marcel tries to deliver a new way of creating art with not just paint, by using a type of sculpting structure but with combining objects together and giving it a name. Marcel wanted to test people’s beliefs about art, choosing a urinal and entitling it “fountain” to deliberately stir up controversy because it also drew people’s attention and made people question “what is art.” The intention behind this piece was to rather send a shocking message to the audience, duchamp’s audience viewed his artworks as an insult or an attack on the general belief of art.

Marcel Duchamp and David Shrigley are both considered to be conceptual artists but they are extremely different from one another due to them being in opposite time periods, Marcel being in the dada movement and David being in pop art culture. Marcel’s interpretation of the world at his constrained time and place was evident in his readymade, to which uplifted a huge controversy and was seen as an insult to the audience in his time. Moreover, David’s work is straightforward but rather challenging to comprehend, people didn’t seem to take him seriously, his interpretation to the world still goes on in today’s society.

David Shrigley is an artist and illustrator best known for his mordantly humorous cartoons. Self-branded as an outsider in the art world, Shrigley is known for making flat compositions that take on bizarre, dark humorous jokes. David Shrigley was born in 1968, His work still implies to today’s society as he is a modern artist, he started in the 2000s the art movement pop art and in pop culture in the 20s decade. David ignores the professionalism of much contemporary art. David’s Introduction to art was designing record covers, his intentions are very clear in his work as his humour makes people laugh. David claimed that he’s artworks don’t need explanation, in his words “it is what it is.” David’s artworks are very strange but also fascinating. In one of them it shows a rock that has swallowed a person with the title “alien life form comes to earth and eats you. You should be flattered.” Yet another shows two snails moving in opposite directions with the captions “east” and “west”. His drawings were simple and not perfect and this made him successful because the whole point of this art is to engage people, he studied environmental art at Glasgow School of Art. After graduating he began publishing books of quirky, doodle-like drawings.

Shrigley created a sculpture “I’m dead” from 2010 that shows a dog standing on its hind legs and holding up a sign that has these words “I’m dead”. David repeats this line many times “the opposite of seriousness is not humour. The opposite of seriousness is incompetence,” not many people take his work seriously because it’s funny. Due to David’s work being about dark humour it also takes on life and death because his work is varied through conceptual art and comic book. This highlights the absurdity of his dark humour which connects to his work of art that replicated into our everyday lives.

To conclude this statement, David’s interpretations to the world were quite clear as his message to other artists is to expand the knowledge on art which is what Marcel tried to do and successfully did get the message across, that “art” isn’t just about painting on a blank canvas but art is extraordinary as it comes in different forms because of how we live in a modern day world you can call anything “art”.