Operational Art

The Purpose of Contemporary Postmodern Art

One of the primary functions of Art is to invite discourse. For something to be considered Art, the individual who created it does not necessarily need to be considered an artist. However, does that mean that because somebody defines himself or herself as an artist, that what they create is Art.

Early in the 20th century traditional notions of the ‘identity’ of the artist were thrown into disarray by Marcel Duchamp, a French / American artist most closely associated with the Surrealist and Dadaist movements.

Duchamp challenged the idea of Art by declaring that a urinal is Art and calling it ‘Fountain’. Through this act he declared that anything could be Art in the appropriate context. It was through the then, current ideals of modernity that this could be challenged.

"The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act."1

It is through this quote of Duchamp that Art and Landscape merge. Nevertheless, is Landscape Architecture really Art, or just another way of interpreting the world? Contemporary culture in first world countries is fighting to shed current approaches of authority over nature that has created repercussions of waste, unplanned urban sprawl and pollution. It is these liminal spaces that gave Michael Desvigne and Christine Dalnoky an opportunity for creation, for Art. While Dalnoky examined the ideal geometric forms that determined layout, Desvigne began with observations of the landscape, to develop movable bulkheads that would alter alluvial deposits in a streambed. While “contemporary art always ends up running into the question of the purpose of its existence,”2 creation of landscape architecture shares its origin with the land and therefore itself has purpose, and through this way of being, becomes operational, if not useful.

1. Marcel Duchamp, from his lecture: "The Creative Act" given April 1957 in Houston Texas

2. Desvigne, M & Dalnoky, C. Desvigne & Dalnoky - The Return of the Landscape. Whitney Library of Design, USA, 1997. Page 13.

the fountain - Duchamp

disused land is strategically acquired, the emergent forest is a living marker of transition and urban reprogramming

Desvigne and Dalnoky

jardins elementaires, rome, 1986-1988

Desvigne and Dalnoky

Bibliography

Desvigne, M & Dalnoky, C. Desvigne & Dalnoky - The Return of the Landscape. Whitney Library of Design, USA, 1997.

Beardsley, J. Art and Landscape - A Project of Spoleto Festival USA. Spacemaker Press, USA, 1998.

Desvigne, M. Intermediate Natures - The Landscape of Michel Desvigne. Birkhäuser, Germany, 2009.

Pringle, L. Crop Circles - Art in the Landscape. Frances Lincoln Limited, Singapore, 2010

http://www.e-flux.com/journal/view/109 accessed: 12/8/10

http://freeassociationdesign.wordpress.com/category/terrain-vague-derelict-urbanism/ accessed: 15/8/10

http://www.facebook.com/pages/MARCEL-DUCHAMP/109853735705 accessed: 12/8/10

http://www.ekac.org/cwang.html accessed 17/8/10