As I watched Exit through the Gift Shop for the first time, I was expecting to learn and examine the mystery of the famous street artist named Banksy. After watching the film, not only was I fascinated with the mystery of Banksy, but I also created many questions and concerns about the aspects in the movie. The film has many transitions that open up many different perspectives about the mystery of this story. One very specific thought that absorbs my full attention after watching Exit though the Gift Shop is the question, ‘What is art?’. Everyone defines Art differently, but I would say that Art is original, unique, and beautiful in any kind of way.
Art is a field of creativity and feelings. It can be used to explain something that cannot be explained with words. Art consists of many things; it does not have to be interpreted or translated to be appreciated. Art can be broken down into these different types: representational, abstract and nonrepresentational art. Representational art is often the first type that comes to mind for many people.
This is Campbell’s Soup (I), which was originally created by Andy Warhol in 1962. This particular piece in fact belongs to a collection of Campbell soup Illustrations, which can be referred to as just ‘Campbells Soup Cans’. This collection is built up of thirty two individual canvases, each measuring 51 centimetres in height and 41 centimetres in width (which converts to 20 inches height by 16 inches width). Although technically not a painting, but a screen printed Illustration, it is an extremely iconic piece of work belonging to both Andy Warhol as an artist, and the pop-art context. Despite the tomato soup can being a part of a collection, it is commonly considered as ‘the recognisable’ one, and has become the most iconic - in fact, the general conception is that this was simply an individual piece and that only those who had either researched or experience in the history of art generally or specifically in Andy Warhol’s artistic career.
Their works also urged him to expand his "palate" of art. This eventually led to his involvement in the pop art movement. In the earl 60's, Andy began creating artwork using advertisement pictures and super hero comic strips. His "Campbell's Soup Cans" became one
Andy Warhol was a leading artist in the movement. Among his many painting are his CampBell 's soup cans and Heinz Ketchup bottle. He painted everyday object over and over again to prove America was a consumer Society (Gyure 1). Warhol’s subjects were everyday products and famous movie stars. Andy Warhol was an important individual in American Art, because he started a new movement in art called Pop Art.
Andy Warhol’s birth name was Andrew Warhol. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1928, his parents, Ondrej and Julia were immigrants from Miková in northeastern Slovakia. Andy Warhol was a 1960s pop icon famous for his extravagant persona and attention grabbing artworks such as his famous Campbell’s Soup painting. Warhol was one of the central players in a powerful wave of art and music that swept over our planet in the 1960s and 70s – looking into his life gives a fascinating snapshot of this period. In 1957 Warhol won the prestigious Art Director’s Club Medal for a shoe advertisement.
200 Campbell’s Soup Cans by Andy Warhol Figure 2: Andy Warhol, 200 Campbell's Soup Cans, 1962. Synthetic polymer paint on thirty-two canvases, (Each canvas) 51 cm × 41 cm, (Entire piece) 182.9 x 254 cm. Museum of Modern Art, New York (). 200 Campbell’s Soup Cans done by Andy Warhol consists of 200 silk screen printed canvases, one of each of the canned soup varieties the company offered at the time of creating the artwork (Collins 2012: 136). You find two focal colours on the cans, these being red and yellow.
Andy Warhol is recorded as saying, “Everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.” However, Warhol had much more than fifteen minutes. His new artistic creativity and inventive ideas secured him a place in artistic history alongside others such as van Gogh and da Vinci. From painting stars who were in the public eye, such as Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley, to painting everyday objects, such as soup cans, Warhol invited people to review what they see everyday, and see them in a new light. When he was given an art pad as a bedridden child with the rare disease Sydenham Chorea, a spark was lit inside of him, and he drew all that he could.
Everywhere we look there is some type of art, we are surrounded by art the moment we were born into this world that God created with his own two hands as stated in Genesis 1:1 “ In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”. You may be asking“ What is art?” art is the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination. We see art as just painting or sculptures, but it's much more, for example how photographers want to capture the beauty of nature into a simple picture to retain for souvenirs and share with others.
Where we see the Marilyn Monroe symbol everywhere on the wall of an art house in films and we see a lot of Paik's television artworks on MTV. Their quirky vision of art is what draws the viewers to the art itself. Where they both use mediocre things like society's everyday television and America's staple groceries items to look at it in a different way and create something so complex as defining what is considered art nowadays? Viewers see that Andy Warhol has an impact on the art society when we see Nam June Paik's "Andy Warhol Robot," (1994). A sculpture of a robot that is made out of television sets with short videos made by Paik and the other parts of the TV was filmed projector of canned soup and Brillo box sculpture made by Andy Warhol.
Formal Analysis The artist Andy Warhol created 32 Campbell 's Soup Cans from 1962, intrigued of the meaning, many inquired about what caused the desire to paint something so plain yet unique, he simply replied, “I wanted to paint nothing. I was looking for something that was the essence of nothing, and that was it”. This painting has a dearth of emotion and personality to it. This painting is exactly a soup can, a painting of modern art.
Being a five-foot tall Hispanic girl, I literally see the world from a different perspective. I was never the type of person to feel confident under my own skin because I belittled myself instead of embracing my physique, culture, and gender. As a young girl, I was inspired to run for president after reading a biography of George Washington, become an astronaut after seeing Apollo 13, and a computer scientist after learning about Bill Gates, but I was discouraged to pursue those careers because I am a girl. When the teacher would ask what we wanted to be when we were older, some boys would say, “You can’t do that! You’re a girl!”
Art is seen by people in different ways. Some people believe that art is simply paintings, others believe that art can be seen as anything in the real world. A simple box could been seen as a work of art and others see it as just a box. Arthur Danto set out to find the meaning of art and give art a full definition.
What is art? Art can be represented through the use of anything from a painting to a photograph. In my mind art is the inside of the creator’s brain. It is a visual of what I am thinking, who I am, my views, my dreams, and my interests all complied into different works. My reasoning behind this is because even if I primarily enjoy drawing fashion sketches I believe you can feel my emotions through my work.
Art has been around and a part of humans lives since the beginning of time. The first forms of recognized art were paintings on the side of a cave wall; art has slowly matured and become more sophisticated as time has passed. Works of art come in many forms and can take hours or simply a few minutes. Also, anybody can consider anything art. From some people’s perspective a dot on a piece of paper is the most magnificent artwork in the world.
