Courses in art history inspire new career path for columnist
John Jordan
Tuesday, April 12th, 2005
Of all the classes I have taken, none have made me think and wonder more than classes in the history of art.
Not being an artistic person by any means, I still found I can’t get enough of art history classes. There’s beautiful art, important art, funny art, obscene art, confusing art, stupid art, ugly art and sarcastic art. And behind all of it, there are geniuses, funny stories, drunks, history and fantastic ideas.
However, my experience to art has been almost totally in an academic sense. Nearly all the art I’ve seen has been projected on a wall in a classroom in the Spencer Museum.
I know there’s more to art than slides, books, lectures and tests and instead of trying to learn more by leaving the classroom, I’ve decided to take the plunge.
I made the decision to become an artist.
This decision stems from my studies in the art we call modern.
What’s modern art? It’s not the religious paintings or naked statues. It’s the splattered paint, distorted faces and block sculptures and a lot more.
A short and dirty description, but it’s essentially the truth. Art became modern when it started to do new, unusual things.
Examples include Marcel Duchamp, who a teacher of mine called the greatest artist of the 20th century along with Picasso, painted a mustache on the Mona Lisa. Another painter, Yves Klein, sold invisible paintings. Invisible paintings that people bought with gold. What does one do with an invisible painting, I don’t know.
These are two extreme examples of modern art, examples that make my dad say, “What are they teaching you at KU?” Nonetheless, they lead to the question modern art raises: what is art? One can’t easily define art and the dictionary definition leaves much to be desired. But they gave us a definition in modern art history class: Art is what the artist decides it is, and, to a lesser degree, what the art community accepts.
This definition can lead to art that only focuses on art itself — art for art’s sake — and ignores the good things art can do: inspire, cause change, amaze, etc. Nevertheless, it does help define these peculiar pieces as art.
More importantly, this definition lets me, now as an artist, decide what art is. It’s an empowering definition. The numerous classes I have taken, the art I have studied and seen, and the history that I know put me in a position to produce art. So, now I would like to introduce my first work as an artist.
I, John Jordan, am now presenting as art three pages of art history notes taken on white, lined notebook paper, 8-by-11 inches, with black ink, on March 28, 2005 and signed by the artist. The work has of yet not been exhibited but is for sale for three weeks on eBay starting at $25,000.
The work combines my 15 hours of art history study with an emphasis on academic study of art and a focus on an understanding of what art is.
The price comes from a comment by a teacher who is a curator at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and wanted to buy a conceptual painting she had always loved for ‘only’ $25,000 but couldn’t secure the funds to do so.
My hope as an artist is this work confuses and enlightens the viewer/buyer on the question of art. Hopefully the same will happen to me as the artist.
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