Discussion Topic: Can you recycle art?

Who makes art? Who owns art? These are some of the questions weā€™ll discuss here and in class. See how contemporary artist John Baldessari recycles images to produce art. Would you consider his work art?

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12 Responses to Discussion Topic: Can you recycle art?

  1. Michael M. says:

    John Baldessari use of recycle images to produce art has endless possibilities, for those who want to recreate a piece of art in their own vision. Simply best put “One man trash is another man’s treasure”. Without a doubt I consider his work to be art, because if I gave out the same picture of grass landscape to two different people, and told them to add their own personal touch. I wouldn’t get back the same picture because they wont share the same view. After all isn’t art suppose to personify to each their own inspiration? Art isn’t own by anyone it’s more of a authentic name tag of the artist that is attached to its masterpiece that makes it owned literally. (Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa). Figuratively speaking no one owns art because others might think its not art at all. Vise Versa I could hate what I created but another person might appreciate for what it is. The question “Who makes art?” comes across to me that the answer has to be a specific person & routine. The reality is the world is your canvas, there is no right way of making art that’s whats great about it. The answer is clearly everyone. I can mold something out of clay, you may paint a portrait, you can collect trash and glue it to the cardboard box. Finally its the effort that you put in your creation that makes it worth your while.

    • jessica says:

      i agree with the phrase ā€œOne man trash is another manā€™s treasureā€ one picture might seem useless to me but to another it may be a blessing to another. We might see the same images and be presented with the same ideas but because we are different and unique we are going to perceive those ideas differently. Art is not owned is like John Baldessari said ” art is part of our world its like owning words, how can you own words when its stuff you can use?”

    • sammy says:

      John Baldessari said ā€ art is part of our world its like owning words, how can you own words when its stuff you can use?ā€ I definitely agreed with that quote, without art our society would be totally different; art is light to our lifeā€¦couldnā€™t have said any better ā€œOne man trash is another manā€™s treasureā€. I consider his work to be art either it is oral, literary or visual, art is shaped from prior work scan, and I think that art can be recycled.

  2. Ever since I was a little kid I have always had more fun making a giant castle or base out of a simply card board box rather then playing with just regular toys so this video hits home with me. I agree with John Baldessari discussion because I feel art can be anything and how you create art is the beauty of it all. Sure you can own art in the since that you paid for a piece but some one can never own the style or way you created it. Art is like a giant puzzle but the difference being instead of having the puzzle laid out for you with shapes your the creator in how the shapes are placed whether they fit or not. I think this video should be seen by more people because I feel in the phew peeks at his art work that I saw my mind thought of all the things I could of made myself. This video showed me how one sided I was seeing and making my own art work. In conclusion whether your a artist or not you should always look at something twice because you may see it in a different light

    • rey1701 says:

      Yes, art can be recycled. It has been since the first time a human made a representation of something. Later, someone came along and thought, ā€œHey, I can take this and improve on it!ā€This scenario is still playing today. Movies, songs, books, paintings, sculptures and other forms of art are often based on previous works and ideas. Recently I went to see the Diego Rivera murals exhibit at MOMA and came across sculptures and framed art pieces made out of recycled materials in another area of the museum. Upon close inspection of the info card on one of the pieces I learned about The Art of Assemblage exhibit in 1961. Art created from non-traditional materials, mostly recycled and unrelated to each other. These works challenge our perception and criteria of what art should be and how we judge it. Christopher, like you, I used to create my own play things from a collection of unrelated parts. It was a lot of fun!

  3. nazaris26 says:

    Whether it is visual, oral or literary, I feel all art is build upon from previous works. People find inspiration in all things and we all share the same human experience the differences are in the ways we choose to express that . I think the key issue with this particular artist is he chooses to recycle images others don’t want, which makes it difficult to say whether or not he is wrong in what he is doing. If the images he decided to use happened to be Pulitzer prize winning photograph I’m not so sure it would be taken so lightly. With the sample of work that were presented its clear that he does give the images his own voice and they are his inspiration to creating something else.

  4. stgdrums says:

    Can art be recycled? That is a tough question. In the case of John Baldessari I guess you could say yes. Though, I don’t think he is necessarily recycling art, but creating his own art with photographs taken by other people. As he states, “Images can’t be owned, they are a part of everyone”. But, on the other hand, someone can’t take a piece of a painting by Matisse and put it together with a piece of a painting by Sadie Rosenblum and call it their own. Or for that matter, call it recycled.

    • jbernal3 says:

      I ask myself the same question, can art be recycled? I agree with what you said about Baldessari creating his own art. To be honest when i read recycled art I thought I was going to see sculptures made of plastic bottles or other recycled materials. But I just saw a man gathering pictures thrown out in the trash or streets and using it as a foundation to his idea, something to help him start with. I do agree with Baldessari that imagery shouldn’t be own because it could mean many things to different people expressing the phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words”.

  5. Giovanni almandoz says:

    Yes art can be recycled, and it has time and time again, I went to an event called comic con, the I saw artists draw a bunch of super heros on a background of shreded comics I thought the work and final drawing look ed amazing, there are many pictures and even structures that that been recycled as well, example the egyptions and the azetecs had similar structures that coukd have been recyled

  6. rmorales says:

    Ofcourse art can be recycled, that is how insperation starts. Most of the time styles just dies out and in 10 years later people decides to do it again. The mohawk, skinny jeans, and wearing converse are one of the few things that used to be heavily worn back then but for some reason it was brought back. Wearing clothes is one way to express yourself, now i believe is the same way with art. Someone may not appreciate their little painting and throw it out but if the person sees it and wants to add in a little bit of their style to it, it would make sense if he/she claims it. The only problem is that people wants to claim ownership after people starts following trends or ideas that they decide to sell.

  7. pamela says:

    yes art can be recycled, back in high school my senior project was based on creating a piece of art from materials that have been used before, we could built sculptures from almost anything such as ,cans bottles,boxes,notebooks,paper,wood and ect.
    my teacher decided to do this project to show people that art is not only a famous painting or sculputure you worked on for a really long time but something that catches peoples attention when they walk in the room that sends a message to who ever is watching not even that but different people have different taste in the kind of art they find interesting . my kind of art would be more of recvled interesting and unique work.

  8. ljvasquez89 says:

    I find recycled things that may have been reused as art is a very interesting way of building something either on purpose of finding something that already is shaped or sculptured. I remember in high a classmate built a whole replica of the Manhattan Bridge with the tops of soda can openers. I believe this kind of art is very useful and Green! lol.

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