Inherited Traits discussion

We are taught from an early age that art is the result of the creation process and a product that an artist creates. Traditionally this art followed a cannon where one could gauge the success of the piece by following set expectations. Today the definition of art has expanded through different art movements and new technology available. Conceptual art has lead greatly to the push for the thought process behind the work to be just as important if not more important than the product. To me art is a combination of these two schools of thought. While there should be some skeletal framework of artistic elements at play the thoughts behind the resulting piece should be taken in great consideration. Genealogy of the Supermarket echos this balance of what art was and what art has become. Most importantly the definitive mark of today's art is to create emotion. It could be anger, regret, loneliness,uneasiness, fear, pride, or happiness. What part of the process is considered art today, seen in the exhibits, is a combination of what we are shown with what we are told about the piece. There are those pieces that one could argue that in their sheer creation becomes the art with elaborate setups such as Transplant or Trace by Heidi Kumao. The sheer manipulation of the projection onto a tag within a bell jar or a blank book placed in front of the screen. Another trend in art is that the piece is not necessarily entirely constructed by the artist. In Nina Katchadourian's The Nitegown pictures she uses photographs that had been taken of her mother and combines them with photos that she had taken. In the talk we discussed the commonality of the artist not printing their own work so one could argue that it is the more the creation of the idea and setup that encompasses the art rather than the piece that hangs on the wall. In her piece Accent Elimination the viewing experience of the piece became just as much a part of the artwork with Katchadourian giving specifications of the pedestals, size, and types of TVs for the art to be displayed on. The art of today has grown into something that is a result of many things that the artist controls although not all of them the artist may physically create.