What Is An Artist?

What is an artist in today’s world? Better yet, what is art? In today’s world, it has become difficult to define the line between what is, and what isn’t considered artwork. For some, everything can be art, and for others, only a sculpture or a painting can be art. The limited idea of what art actually is has been a part of our history, but luckily it is quickly changing.
Many things can be considered a piece of art. For instance, take a simple chair. Is it art? It functions, like many things in our society, in the home. The chair’s function is a stable object that one can sit on. It can be something to look at like the chairs, tables, and silverware that has been on display at the Milwaukee Art Museum from the American Decorative Arts and the Chipstone Foundation. The functional object has now become the art object. This is the same for artist Marcel Duchamp who created a piece of art called Fountain in 1917 just by using a ready-made urinal. The question still lingers on if it is actually art, but that is the point since art always seems to give a different meaning to objects.
Another object that functions in everyday life is the human body. Can the body be considered art? Many artists have been able to use their body as a tool for an art piece because it is readily available and, in this economy, inexpensive. Philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty explains “for us the body is much more than an instrument or a means; it is our expression in the world, the visible form of our intentions. Even our most secret affective movements, those most deeply tied to the humeral infrastructure, help to shape our perception of things”* Many do not think about the many movements that our bodies are making throughout the day. To some, these movements are a gift; to others, it’s just no big deal. The following artists, Marina Abravomic, Richard Serra, and Bruce Nauman travel into the idea of the body and the simple moves that it can make. Videos that directly focus on movement were made to express these functions. The viewer cannot help but be drawn into what the artist is doing.

*Nemser, Cindy. "Subject - Object: Body Art (1971)." Phaidon Press Limited (2000): 233. Print