Dear Feminists,

 

    This is a brief follow-up to a topic we discussed at the March meeting.  When Emily told us about her recent trip to Chicago, and a visit to an art exhibit there, we briefly discussed modern art and our opinions about Dennis Hopper and Jackson Pollock.  Then we got onto the topic of "junk art" or "found art."  Since I mentioned Picasso's famous "sculpture" of a bull's head made from found objects, I thought I'd pass on a photo of it.  This is Picasso's "T?te de taureau" [Bull's Head] (1942) found in the Mus?e Picasso in Paris.  It is a bronze casting of a bicycle seat and handlebars.  Marcel Duchamp also made a lot of "found art" sculptures and is famously quoted as saying, "It is art because I say it is."  [Hmmm, a little bit of hubris there?]

 

 

 

    Further in our discussion, I mentioned one of my university art history professors who subscribed to the "Conceptual Art" movement of the late 60's/early 70's.  Don Celender exhibited at the OK Harris Gallery in New York for many years.  His Corporate Letters series of conceptual art was just one of his many projects.  His premise was to write to major corporations (e.g. IBM, General Foods, etc.) wherein he would propose that the corporation sponsor a "major art project" that was either ridiculous or impossible (e.g. wrap a cliff in saran wrap, fill the fountain at Rockefeller Plaza with jello, etc.).  Sometimes a corporate spokesperson would reply in the same humorous vein, sometimes they would reply in a snooty serious vein, and sometimes there was no reply.  Don's exhibits then consisted of his letters and the corporate responses.  With his Cultural Art Movement, Celender sent outlandish proposals to 25 museum directors, suggesting for example that Sherman Lee, director of the Cleveland Museum of Art, drop by parachute 1,000 works of Asian art from the museum's collection, one at a time, onto the state of Alabama.  Mr. Lee replied that since art was in the mind of the beholder, he had "mentally performed" Mr. Celender's idea.

 

    Is this "Art" with a capital A?  I leave it to you to decide.  [As a sidebar, Celender attended Carnegie Mellon with, and became friends with, Barbara Feldon--who played Maxwell Smart's sidekick in the old TV series "Get Smart."]  In doing a brief Internet search of him today, I discovered that Celender was far more famous than I ever realized.  His Artball Trading Cards were featured on the cover of the magazine "Art in America" in July, 1979.  You can read a very good article about Celender's work at:  http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/davis/davis07-11-05.asp

 

One of Celender's letters:

     

 

 

A response:

      

 

A response:

 

 

Regards,

Kathryn