Art from all Angles

For freshman Patrick Felts, the red sculpture on the lawn of the IU Art Museum is nothing more than a meaningless shape.\n"It looks like a circle to me," he said.\nBut that big circle is Charles Perry's "Indiana Arc," one of several pieces of abstract art that exists on IU's campus. \nDiane Pelrine, curator of African, Oceanic and pre-Columbian art in the IU Art Museum, said the sculpture is an effective example of abstract art because its subject isn't recognizable or inspired from "the natural world."\nAbstract art receives criticism for its simplistic appearance and the assumed lack of execution inherent to, for instance, a single dot on a canvas, said Jenny McComas, curator of Western art post-1800 at the IU Art Museum.\nThe arc isn't the only example of nontraditional art on campus. Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain," a repurposing of a urinal, which he simply signed "R. Mutt," is displayed inside the art museum. Pelrine said Duchamp wanted to make a statement and his piece is often synonymous with Dada, an "anti-art" movement of artists who reject conventional ideas of art. \nAs for interpreting abstract art, Pelrine suggested viewers think about what was important to the artist.\n"The thing to do is to just look at it and think about the artwork in terms of color and line and texture and appreciate it for the patterns or hints of representation," Pelrine said. "The artist abstracted or simplified something sometimes."\nThough the art community originally rejected "Fountain," it is now considered an important piece of modern art. Pelrine explained that while "Fountain" is more Dada, it's considered "found art," not abstract.\n"Abstract art is featured as nonrepresentational," she said. "The artist might have taken something in the natural world and abstracted it, as the name says. He simplified it down and distilled its essence. With the 'Fountain,' the artist has taken the object and (made) you look at it in a new and different way."\nStill, outside the art community, "Fountain" does not meet everyone's standard of art. Evan Boggs, a sophomore majoring in psychology and international studies, described art as a "two- or three-dimensional expression of human creativity" focusing on pigments and media.\n"Almost all art requires a fair amount of hard work and signing your name on a urinal does not," Boggs said. "I would call that a whim."\nBut even some with authority to speak on pieces of art reject the urinal, such as senior Brian Vlnicka, a major in art education.\n"I think ('Fountain') is ridiculous," Vlnicka said. "Art's a way to express yourself creatively. ... I don't think that's very creative."\nVlnicka, who describes himself as a "pretty classic guy," said he prefers the "big three" of art -- Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael -- but says abstract art has its place.\n"I do like Jackson Pollack; his art at least takes effort," he said. "He actually created it. If Duchamp made his urinal, (I'd accept it as art)."\nPollack, whose "Number 11" is displayed in the museum, dripped paint on the canvas to create his famous splatter style. \nThe painting reinforces an attitude McComas calls the "my-kid-could-do-that" mentality, which is based on the idea that any art that doesn't have the explicit use of "artistry" is regarded as a finger painting. But there's a tremendous amount of planning and execution involved in these pieces, McComas said. She advised considering and focusing on the materials used and the layers of the painting, rather than dismissing it as pretentious or highbrow.\n"We want people to realize there's no secret meaning in the art, to enjoy the pieces, like how the colors have been arranged," McComas said. "Abstract art just transforms reality to something different."\n--Arts Editor Michelle Manchir contributed to this story.