Consider Duchamp's Fountain and Boccioni's Unique Forms of Continuity in Space. Identify the movement(s) with which these artists are associated. How does each artist differ in his relationship to issues of technology and to the traditions of art?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The Dadaist with the most lasting impact on American art was Marcel Duchamp, whose "ready-mades" probed the border between art and life. A ready-made is a work of art that is not made but designated. Fountain, an inverted urinal, raised philosophical questions regarding the art object. Duchamp thought that art and life could regularly trade places. Boccioni belonged to a group of Italian artists, the Futurists, who decided that motion itself was the glory of the new 20th century, especially the motion of the new machines. These artists strove to reflect this feeling of motion into their art. Boccioni's Unique Forms of Continuity in Space represents a striding human figure as the Futurists imagined it would be in the light of contemporary science: a field of energy interacting with everything around it. Sculpture must give life to objects by extending them in space and making them palpable, systematic, and plastic.