Why The Brillo Box
Why The Brillo Box
Why The Brillo Box
GIZELA HORVÁTH
them can be a work of art while the other is just a simple object. Andy
Warhol did not change the way we look at things, but the way we think
about them. That is, the key innovation is not a new kind of aesthetic
experience, but a new philosophy of art.
Starting out from Warhol’s case, Danto reaches two conclusions:
the first is that perceptual features do not play a part in the defining of an
object as a work of art. The second one is that works of art are made
possible by theories of art. „What in the end makes the difference between
a Brillo box and a work of art consisting of a Brillo Box is a certain theory
of art” (Danto, 1964, 582). The theory of art is, similarly to religion, that
which ensures the transfiguration of everyday things into works of art. Just
as the act of baptism does not only give a name, but regenerates the
person, so the object changed by art theory also has a new ontological
status.
a. The fight against the beautiful, moving the beautiful out of the
centre of art.
b. The exclusion of the aesthetic from the definition of art.
not different from everyday things through their perceptual traits, but
through their art historical context. Whether something is a work of art is
decided along a theory of art. With this we reached the end of art, when
anything can be art if the right art theory is available. Following Hegel, art
has reached its end, it has become one with its own philosophy.
Danto’s complex theory has much simpler versions. These are set
along a scale where from the simple sharp separation of the “artistic” and
the “aesthetic” (Best, 1982), we reach the influential institutionalist theory.
George Dickie, who signs institutional theory, defines the work of art the
following way: “a work of art in the descriptive sense is (/) an artifact (2)
upon which some society or some sub-group of a society has conferred the
status of candidate for appreciation” (Dickie, 1969, 254), noting that it all
depends on the institutional setting. The problem with institutional theory
is on the one hand, that it is circular—it defines the “agent” of the artistic
world and the work of art with each other, on the other hand, it lacks any
quality criteria, while common sense suggests that the status of candidate
for appreciation has to be earned somehow. We can meet this type of
simplifications in Timothy Binkley’s 1977 writing, which states that art
need not be aesthetic. On the other hand, he protests against the kind of
perception of “artwork” that expects of the work of art to be an aesthetic
object, which has such aesthetic qualities as beauty, repose,
expressiveness, unity, liveliness. As opposed to this, he comes up with a
very modest proposal: he calls the work of art a “piece”, and states that “to
be a piece of art, an item need only be indexed as an artwork by an artist”
(Binkley, 1977, 272). Anybody can be an artist if they use the conventions
of art, states Binkley, and aesthetics has nothing to do with art. The
question does not arise whether there are quality criteria of art or of the
definition of the artist. Binkley’s disarming example is Duchamp’s “piece”
called L.H.O.O.Q. Shaved, where a common postcard, with Mona Lisa’s
portrait, becomes a work of art when Duchamp, without changing
anything on it, names it L.H.O.O.Q. Shaved, referring to his previous work
entitled L.H.O.O.Q., where he drew a moustache and beard on one of the
copies of the incriminated Mona Lisa postcard. L.H.O.O.Q. Shaved is a
work of art while not being perceptually different from the common
postcard.
question: “Why live with dull anesthetic objects? Why not objects as
beautiful as Brillo Boxes?” (Danto, 2009, 66).
It seems that in Andy Warhol’s paradigmatic case, which proves
that the difference between ordinary objects and works of art is not
perceptual, and “highlighting” the works of art among everyday objects is
not based on aesthetic criteria, the aesthetic qualities still count, as much
in Andy Warhol’s artistic experience, as in Danto’s art theoretical point of
view. Is it possible to win back the aesthetic for art (philosophy)?
The recovery of the aesthetic is hard to achieve by returning to
“significant form” as a principle. This requires the presence of the
beautiful or some other positive aesthetic quality, which was problematic
already in the case of Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, not to mention
Duchamp’s Fountain. On the other hand it presupposes the identification
of works of art by significant form, lacking any theoretical mediation. This
is hard to achieve not only in the case of the Brillo Box, but also in the
case of such concept works as Kosuth’s One and Three Chairs, or Roman
Ondák’s The Loop. Thus Lind’s attempt, who wants to put back the
aesthetic object and the aesthetic experience in the centre of art
philosophy, is not very convincing (Lind, 1992).
Danto’s argument that art theory is “so powerful a thing as to
detach objects from the real world and make them part of a different
world, an art world, a world of interpreted things” (Danto, 1981, 135) is
completely acceptable. “Transfiguration” happens to a common object
through the effect of art theory; it only becomes a work of art in the
context of the art world. However, this does not mean that “aesthetics
hardly touches the heart of art and certainly not of great art, which is
certainly not the art that happens to be most beautiful” (Danto, 1981, 173).
I would like to oppose a critical comment and a proposal to this
conclusion.
The critical comment is about that in this passage Danto, who in
other instances deals with the difference between the aesthetic and the
beautiful so scrupulously, here confuses these terms. Indeed, great art is
probably not the most beautiful art, but we cannot state that it could not
hold aesthetic value (even such that Danto lists in connection with the
Fountain: ugly, surprising, daring, outrageous, witty etc.)
And the proposal is to accept that aesthetics does belong to the
essence of art, namely, the essence of art constituted by art theory. The
aesthetic quality of works of art could generically be called “artistic”, and
by this we mean the aesthetic mediated by art theory.
Gizela Horváth 7
Conclusion
Arthur C. Danto convincingly argued that works of art are not
differentiated from common objects by aesthetic properties. With this he
broke down the system of aestheticism, which discussed art as a sub-
category of the aesthetic experience, looked for the universal, historically
and culturally unconditioned significant form in works of art. At the same
time, Danto’s theory can also be read as one considering the aesthetic
point of view irrelevant for the essence of art. The paradigmatic starting
point of Danto’s theory is Andy Warhol’s Brillo Box.
In this text, it was the Brillo Box that created the opportunity for
the questioning of this anti-aesthetic consequence: both Andy Warhol,
when he created the Brillo Box, as well as Arthur C. Danto, when he chose
it to be the starting point of his art philosophy, were driven by aesthetic
motives.
This inconsistency can be resolved by accepting that common
objects are “transfigured” in the framework of an art theory, while adding
that from the moment they have transfigured into a work of art, their (new)
aesthetic properties become substantial.
Above proposal keeps the independence and primacy of art
philosophy over aesthetics, on the other hand it solves the paradox that art
becomes its own philosophy without being identical with philosophy.
Joseph Kosuth raises the philosophical question of the modes of existence
in One and Three Chairs, similarly to Plato. Still, it is not philosophy,
because it does not approach the question in a discursive manner, but
makes it possible to be aesthetically experienced. Firstly, we need an art
theoretical framework to decide that the chair in Kosuth’s work belongs to
a different rank of existence from the chair to be found next to it, on which
the guard rests. But starting from this, such classical formal points of view
become relevant as form, proportion, structure, colour, etc., which
represent the traditional points of view of aesthetics.
The aesthetics mediated by art theory explains why the Brillo
Box is chosen as a paradigmatic work of art.
References
8 Why The Brillo Box?
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