#3 Midterm Marx Flashcards
Define Marx’s concept of use value and exchange value.
Marx’s concepts of use value and exchange value are:
Use value - function (it satisfies human needs)
exchange value - social relation between people expressed as social relation between things (when something has exchange value it becomes a commodity).
What is the commodity fetish?
The commodity fetish is when the producer behind the commodity becomes anonymous. From this social powers are transferred to the producers and the items that they produce. It is the producer who decides the value. This leads to the lust for commodities and leads to an economic gain for the producer.
What is the readymade?
A ReadyMade was sprung from the artist Marcel Duchamp. It is art via selection. Essentially Duchamp picks random items or objects from the store and calls it art.
How does Duchamp’s readymade Fountain, 1917, use the form of the commodity to comment on, or critique our understanding of art?
Duchamp’s ReadyMade Fountain, 1917 was a randomly selected urinal. He calls it art because he chose it and signs it under the name R. Mutt. He wanted to eliminate the “window to the artists soul” portal that prior artwork creates. He wanted to attack authorship and eliminate that fantasy. Using everyday objects that he chose and signing it under another name and removes the viewer from the fantasy of seeing the artists mind. This is because you are not really seeing the artist’s mind. Art is because we our interpretation of it being art. The fantasy of seeing into the artist mind is really the viewer creating their own meaning.
Describe, in general terms, the aims of the Dada movement.
Dada movement wants to eliminate logic, rationality, and systems. It was sprung after WWI. Artists part of the movement were brought into the war because the government brought forth “rational” and “logical” reasons convincing them to fight. After participating in the war they saw how horrific and meaningless it was and found the reasoning to be unfulfilling. From this they felt that logic, rationality, and systems are wrong. They were against rules and order because they believed that it always led to something terrible, such as war. They expressed this in their art, eliminating order, system, and rules to creating.
What is the chance operation, and how does it fit into the Dada program (name at least one specific work art work that does this in you answer).
An example of this is the chance operation, which is an art technique based on chance. An example of this is Duchamp’s “ 3 Standard Stoppages,” which is 3 pieces of wood slabs in which they were cut into shapes based on dropping string down randomly. Where the strings landed Duchamp traced the shape in the wood and cut them.
