Hey guys, welcome back to another blog post. PLP 11/12 has just finished a project on the Manhattan Project. Yes thats right, this blog post is about the Manhattan Project project. Our driving question was “How did the development of the atomic bomb change the world” and our form of presentation was conceptual art. This project was quite a step out of my comfort zone, as I don’t consider myself the greatest artist, but thankfully this means I had a lot to learn so lets get into it.
Something that really interested but also disgusted me a bit is the idea of conceptual art. Conceptual art pushes and attacks the idea of what qualifies as artwork. Rather than focus on the physical aspects of the art piece, conceptual art focuses on the concept, the idea. The goal with conceptual art is to make the viewer think about what the art piece means. One of the first creators of conceptual art comes was a man known as Marcel Duchamp and his ready-made art. What is ready-made art you may ask? Well its exactly what it sounds like. Art that was not physically built by the artist. An example of this is the art piece “In Advance of a Broken Arm”. The piece consisted of a shovel. That’s it. The true artwork comes in the idea that the piece represents.
This was a challenging idea for me to understand at first. It seemed sort of lazy honestly. Wouldn’t it be possible for a conceptual artist to just pump out ideas based on any idea they have? I mean there is literally a piece of artwork that is just cans of human poop. And it sold for £124,000 too! It really just seemed like a dumb idea that was an excuse for crazy artwork. This would not always be my opinion however. I think there were two main things that shifted my view on conceptual art
The first thing that helped me understand conceptual art better was a field study our class did to the Vancouver Art Gallery. The Vancouver Art Gallery had an exhibition on Yoko Ono, a renowned conceptual artist and John Lennon’s wife. Something that stood out to me was that her artwork had a message or a purpose. It wasn’t just a cool idea or something that was mind-bending, it was an idea with a true purpose. Maybe it was the fact that she’s spent most of her life in activism, but a lot of her art tackled issues like gender inequality or global peace. I think that this added a level of depth and thought in what she created that really made the art piece interesting.
The second thing that helped me appreciate conceptual art was when I made it. Going through the thought process and trial and error really made me appreciate what a conceptual artist must go through when trying to create a new art piece. Ultimately, I think I was wrong to think that conceptual art is lazy. I think it can be quite clever, but I still think some conceptual art pieces are not my thing.
Going to the Yoko Ono exhibit at the Vancouver Art Gallery helped me make my art piece as well. Like I said before, Yoko Ono’s purpose and message was what made her art stand out to me, so naturally I tried to do that with my own art. I hope you can find what my message is by reading my artists statement below. Now I don’t know if I succeeded, ultimately that’s up to the audience (you), so let me know what you think of my artwork in the comments below.
If I were to do this project again, I would want to spend more time refining my idea for my conceptual art piece. Something that helped me shape an idea initially was reading and discussing Hiroshima by John Hersey, which is a good read. Reading Hiroshima gave me ideas on what I could focus on, like a Japanese perspective or the lasting effects of the atomic bomb, but something I wish I did more was decide on an idea earlier and then refine and revise it so i finished with a strong idea when I went to create my art piece. Doing this would allow me to have a stronger idea, but it would also allow the audience to form their own opinions. A strong idea would allow me to present it without a big written explanation, which would in turn allow the viewer to form their own opinion rather than being told what the concept is.
This was a fun project. I enjoyed learning about the Manhattan Project, something that I find quite interesting. I also enjoyed learning about conceptual art, even if I found it odd sometimes. This project really pushed me creatively, something I wished I did more often. This was a good project to have our first in person exhibition of the year, hopefully we have another one later on this year.