Art criticism and Art History

Case Study: The use of assemblage and the found object in historical and contemporary art practice.

The origins of the practice of assemblage can be traced back to its early twentieth century roots based on ideas presented by Dadaists. The Dada movement was a literary and artistic movement during the First World War and further developed as a non-art movement. The main idea of Dada was to not follow a uniform rule of what an artwork entails in order to be valued. This movement was significant in the development and history of art as it challenged society with new ideas therefore provoking change in our perspective of what can be classified as aesthetically pleasing and all the possibilities of what art …show more content…

This demonstrates Rauschebergs’ movement from abstract expressionism to pop art. Raschenburg’s process of art making involved entailed walking around a block of area in his studio and collecting junk and rubbish, as demonstrated in “Combine”. This artmaking practice was seen as a further development of Dada’s use if rubbish and readymades. Raschenburg is now considered to be a neo-Dadaist due to these unconvential traditions.
His works such as “Combine” are subjective as they are personal works expressing thought and imagination.

Claes Oldenburg’s “Giant Hamburger” is another example of the found object’s re-emergence in pop art as it reflects his concerns of making art materials from products of the commercial world and succeeds in showing the everyday complexity of 1960’s American culture, being that of fast food. “Giant Hamburger” is unconventional in its subject matter and materials as it simply displays a massively oversized American icon at 132 cm high and 213 cm wide. The use of imitating a symbol of American culture enhances the impact of this work and the soft texture of the sculpture also challenges the idea that a sculpture’s form must be solid and hard. This artwork is cultural as it highlights a the American culture that has become fast food and is subjective as Oldenburg sums up his ideas of fast food in hope of provoking a response from audiences, therefore creating a link between the artist and