Industry Art It was a time of assembly lines and factories, booming population and industrialism, it was the 20th century and it was building speed. As the suburban American family turned the doorknob to their brand new, mass-produced, Levittown house they were clueless to the impact that their Model- T Ford would summon on the new modern art era. Hundreds of artists filled the modern era, but Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol and Banksy were among the few who were influenced by the new industrial world to change the face of art. In 1887, Marcel Duchamp was born to an artistic family in France. At age sixteen, he desired to be a painter (Stafford). Duchamp was introduced to the Dada art movement that sprung up in 1914. Leadership, bourgeois culture and support of war disgusted the Dadaists and they eliminated the act of labeling art (The Art Story Foundation). So Duchamp moved to New York in 1915 to begin production on his new readymade art. He took everyday objects, a bicycle wheel or snow shovel, put it in a gallery and let the consumer deem it art. The most notorious work of Duchamp, and considered the most influential piece of modern art (Higgins), a urinal turned on its back and renamed Fountain shown at an exhibition for the Society of Independent Artists in 1917 (The Art Story Foundation). A urinal, undoubtedly plucked off an assembly line months before, intended for public usage, was sitting in a gallery underlining the interdependency between art and realistic life. Duchamp's concept straight off the industrial conveyer belt that reality is art opened doors for other artists. Modern artist, Andy Warhol made his own twist on realistic art. As a child, Warhol showed interest in photography and drawing. After graduating college, he moved to New York and found a career as a commercial illustrator for magazines such as Vogue and The New Yorker (Moffat). The turning point in Warhol's career began in the 1960's when he began making screen prints of American products such as Campbell's soup cans and Coca-Cola bottles in his studio named The Factory (Fischer). The screen printing process included pushing ink through the holes of a silkscreen to achieve the desired print. Between the years of 1967 and 1968, Warhol produced multiple screen-prints of the big-screen actor Marilyn Monroe. However, these prints are different, there are countless images, in high-saturated colors. The machine-like repetition depicted a resemblance to an assembly line and the colors used on Ms. Monroe's face were echoes to the booming TV age. Warhol had mass-produced the image of a household name. The star that made a career starring in movies that were produced for mass audiences was now being mass-produced as art. Andy Warhol's commercial art as commercial art with notes of metallic industry pushed the "reality is art" concept all the way to the 21st century. With the booming Industrial Age of America came capitalism, which led to growing politics that often resulted in war and poverty. Many artists of the time latched on to this subject matter for their artwork. Graffiti or street art emerged on the scene, gangs primarily used graffiti to mark their territory, but with the rise of civilian distaste for war and politics, street art was picked up by many political activists. The most infamous, who made his career doing just that is London based artist known only by the pseudonym, Banksy (Raychaudhuri). His "tags" surfaced in the 1990's and well into the 2000's, Banksy was spraying his opinions on peace and politics on the UK walls (Fadhley). The Mild Mild West located in Bristol, England is just an example of the satire Banksy uses to fill his pieces. Subject matter fueled by industry, Banksy also used a commercial technique by displaying his images as billboards or advertisements. There is no need to stand in line at a museum or purchase a ticket because his work is available to any and everyone who happens to open their eyes. His artistic ability and flair for comical interpretation won over the pockets of many art lovers; Banksy now sells his pieces in underground art shows and galleries (Raychaudhuri). Using the reality of politics and social problems, Banksy's street art resonates the same innovative usage of industry and commercialism that Duchamp and Warhol depicted through their art. The American Industrial Revolution created a revolution of a different matter that swept through the art world of the 20th and 21st century. The time of industry produced artists like Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol and Banksy that used manufactured products, assembly lines, and the resulting effects to make art that ultimately generated a new concept. Whether it be the products we use, movies we see or the challenges countries face today, art can be found in the realities of our lives.
Works Cited
Fadhley, Christine. "Banksy, Much More Than Just a Graffiti Artist." 13 August 2008. Suite101. Web. 29 November 2012. .
Fischer, Lucy. "Prince of Pop." TIME Magazine 18 February 2002. Print .
Higgins, Charlotte. "Work of art that inspired a movement... a urinal ." theguardian 2 December 2004. Print .
Moffat, Charles. "The Prince of Pop." November 2007. The Art History Archive. Web. 25 November 2012. .
Raychaudhuri, Anindya. "'Just as good a place to publish': Banksy, Graffiti." Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities 2010: 51-58. Print.
Stafford, Andrew. Making Sense of Marcel Duchamp. 2008. Web. 20 November 2012. .
The Art Story Foundation. "Marcel Duchamp." 2012. The Art Story.Org. Web. 25 November 2012. .