Theory of Knowledge - Course Companion for Students Marija Uzunova Dang Arvin Singh Uzunov Dang

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chapter explores the human encounter with art, including the practices through which we
This
it and the experience of being profoundly affected by it. We will examine the idea and
produce
of the art world, and the various roles of people and communities of knowers within it. At
workings
where the arts intersect with culture, politics, religion, technology, language or science, we ask
points
so doing, we critically reflect on who gets to decide what art is and is not, what makes for “good
In
what it is worth, and how those decision-makers acquire and keep their power.
art”,
history of art reveals that almost every time
The
art critic, historian or philosopher has come
an
with a definition of art, an artist or an entire
up
movement has challenged that definition,
art
successfully. Let’s consider the case
sometimes
Marcel Duchamp; you may have heard about
of
urinal that shook the art world. Fountain was
the
to the Society of Independent Artists
submitted
New York for an exhibition in 1917. All artists
in
$6 were told that they could exhibit their
paying
was the only one rejected. The rejection
Fountain
Duchamp’s resignation from the
provoked
had submitted Fountain in secret,
Duchamp
the pseudonym “Richard Mutt”.
using
argued positions from both sides of
Passionately
debate surfaced in response to what became
the
as “the Richard Mutt Case” and the art
known
it belonged to, Dada. “’Fountain’
movement
The arts
what gets included and excluded from the domain of art, and why.
I . S C O P E
Society, and a flurry ofreactions.
may be a very useful object in its place, but its
work and yet, of over 2000 submitted works,
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