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Argument › No. 15/2023

Ready-made object and material as found

https://doi.org/10.54508/Argument.15.07

  • / Ph.D., Paris 8 University, Saint-Denis, FR

Abstract

The topic of Concept and Materiality is discussed here from two points of view: in relation to recent art and architecture theories and as a resonance to current art practices. The first part starts from Marcel Duchamp’s concepts of Infra-thin (Inframince) and Ready-made as materialised in his Large glass, and continues with two architecture projects by Le Corbusier, one from his Purist period and another demonstrating his tactile use of concrete. The expression As found, formulated by the architecture writer Reyner Banham in 1955, further discussed by the architects Alison and Peter Smithson, is not only part of the visual language of New Brutalism, but also of a responsible Postwar ethos. Opening the perspective towards recent critical texts and iconography, we shall question what appears as opposition between Ready-made and As found, and focus on their respective relationship: between an object and its Ready-made quality and between material and its situation, As found. Then the title “Ready-made object and material As found” suggests a new reading of the relation between Ethic and Aesthetic, different from that formulated by Banham.

The second part is dedicated to the current art scene, still holding some Postwar resonance of the notions of Ready-made and As found. The focus will move from The Independent Group’s statements to Arte Povera and to the contemporary artist Giuseppe Penone working with both aspects, Ready-made and As found. It is not possible to analyse here the rich historical background of an entire shift of concepts, but just discuss subjective aspects emerging in my practice and theoretical approach. Influenced perhaps by the discussions in the academic circles where I had worked in the 1990s, one is an installation consisting of two laminated glass panels with transparent images inserted in-between layers and another, a “cloud” of transparencies hovering freely above large format monochrome paintings with insertions of As found materials.

Keywords

Aesthetic, As found, Ethic, Iconoframe, Infra-thin, New Brutalism, Ready-made

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