Duchamp & Dada – Lecture

“Artists in the 20th century radically reinvented their subject matter and their material and mode of making art. In so doing, they exploded the boundaries of art’s very definition. In the 1960s and 70s, the accepted paradigm for what makes something art shifted dramatically away from its 500 year Renaissance-born traditions. For many, this shift in the character and nature of art and the accepted notions of what can be called “art”, has been not only enigmatic but maddening. The often repeated response by the general audience is: ”How can this possibly be Art?” There is, however, a logic to the emergence of new art, or what is often referred to as “contemporary art”. I will discuss how these three figures shaped the contemporary art of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.” – Dr. Wesley Hurd