Marcel Duchamp was a French artist who combined talent and everyday objects to produce meaningful art and paintings. Duchamp broke down the difference between everyday objects and art. His father was a notary, and his older brother, Jacques Villon, was a painter. Fauvism and Matisse greatly influenced Duchamp’s earlier paintings, and he later settled for a personal brand of Cubism (Dali, 2021). His brand combined visceral and mechanical forms and earthly colors. It portrayed a movement built both on Futurism and Cubism. Duchamp devised his famous ready-mades due to his conventional aesthetics irreverence.
In 1913, his Nude Descending a Staircase, No.2, 1912, caused a sensation. The ready-made pieces of art were ordinary but slightly altered everyday use objects designated by Duchamp. This artwork includes Advance of the Broken Arm, a snow shovel released in 1915, the 1913 Bicycle Wheel, and a bicycle on a wooden stool (Dali, 2021). The concept of ready-made revolutionized art since many people view it as an assault on the conventional understanding of the status and nature of art. Additionally, Duchamp used the concept as a secret symbolic language. According to him, fabricated objects made him flexible since he was not tied to a particular taste or art style.
Salvador Dali was an influential Spanish printmaker and surrealist painter who was famous for exploring subconscious imagery. Dali started displaying exceptional technical facilities and assimilated several artistic styles when he was an art student in Barcelona and Madrid (Dali, 2021). However, until the late 1920s, he began showing mature artistic styles after discovering Sigmund Freud’s compositions about the erotic importance of subconscious imagery. During this period, he was also associated with writers and artists known as the Paris Surrealists. This group emphasized creating a greater reality of subconsciousness over meaning. He began acting hallucinatory to portray the image of his subconscious mind. Dali described his hallucinatory state as paranoiac critical. His paintings depicted a dream world that was deformed, juxtaposed, and metamorphosed in an irrational and bizarre fashion. These objects were portrayed realistically and meticulously, placing them in a landscape resonant of Dali’s homeland, Catalonia. The 1931’s Persistence of Memory is perhaps Dali’s most famous artwork.
Marcel Duchamp and Salvador Dali influenced many artists, including the upcoming artists, in the 20th century. As Duchamp challenged the notion of art, Dali inaugurated a new imaginative expression generation. Although they were viewed as opposites in every aspect, their lives and artistic styles resembled. It can be seen on many levels in their respective pieces of artwork (Dali, 2021). Although Duchamp was a quiet character and Dali a self-proclaimed genius, they were committed to individual freedom. The two artists disputed conventional views of life and art through skepticism and humor and pioneered found objects in artwork.
The Fountain remains the most famous piece of art produced by Duchamp. Although it faced a lot of criticism and debate, Duchamp invented a conceptual piece of art that disconnected the association between the supposed merit of work and an artist’s labor. Many argue that Duchamp discredited the authority and position of virtuoso artists by inverting the urinal and putting it forward as a piece of art (Dali, 2021). Having originated from a small town near World War One battlegrounds, he was also discrediting the judgemental critics in similar ways the atrocities of the battle discredited authority. The Fountain revolutionized art and posed questions such as what is art? And Who is an Artist?
Salvador Dali’s art, The Persistence of Memory, is a rare artwork that the mention of melting clocks can elaborate. The image reflects a dream experienced by Salvador Dali, and the rocks typify how people experience the passing of time in sleep. The painting has an orange clock covered by ants at the bottom, symbolizing decay (Dali, 2021). Additionally, a fly is sitting on the watch close to the orange watch. The sun hitting the fly makes it appear to be casting a human shadow. Dali applies the precision of realist artistic technique to describe imagery similar to those in dreams than consciousness.
Reference
Dali, S. (2021). “The Persistence of Memory”: The Power of Memory. In Perspectives of Power (pp. 95-104). Routledge.
Panopticism And Michel Foucault On Education
Michel Foucault was a French philosopher, writer, and political activist whose theories mainly revolved around the relationship between power and knowledge. Foucault’s thoughts have significantly influenced people, particularly on cultural and communication studies, as well as sociology. Educational institutions, specifically schools, are understood as panoptic spaces by social researchers. They are centers where power is practiced through constant surveillance and monitoring. Generally, Foucault’s ideas and works have received significant acknowledgment in the field of education, where the availability of new knowledge is of particular importance.
Education can be considered a moral orthopedic, which means that it helps in shaping learners’ discipline. Positive relationship between teachers and the pupils is an indication that there is quality tutoring. Schools were developed by separating classrooms and distributing the pupils according to such factors as age or character traits. Schooling not only taught proper hygiene, but also punctuality and reading (Foucault, 2008). Education explains how communication is regulated, how teaching and learning occur, and what differentiates prisons, hospitals, and armies from educational institutions.
The American people needs a professional response to the spread of the coronavirus pandemic to handle the situation. The government acted aggressively to protect and support families, first responders, small businesses, most vulnerable people, and caregivers in facing the challenges. It has also ensured that all Americans have access to regular, reliable, and free testing. Taking note of Foucault’s teachings, different challenges are experienced but what matters is how to respond to them. There is a need to understand the effects of education, the kinds of institutions involved, and interactions used in education.
Reference
Foucault, M. (2008). Discipline & punish: The birth of the prison. Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts, 2(1), 1-12. Web.
Rittenhouse Case Highlights The Nation’s Deep Division
Summary
The article highlights the key events and issues resulting from the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse because of the homicide and attempted murder associated with the August 2020 shootings in Kenosha, Wisconsin. According to Thrust (2021), the major issues that mired the Rittenhouse case were the unlawful ownership of a military-style semiautomatic weapon, the country’s controversial problems of race and the duty of self-defense, and the subject of gun regulation and the right to carry. For example, the dismissal of the felony charge, which had potential imprisonment of not less than a year, was merely a footnote in the context of a much larger systemic failure in the case. However, it served as a caution that, in addition to contentious issues of race and the right to self-defense in the U.S., the Rittenhouse case emphasized the rising abundance of weapons on American streets and the futility of efforts to implement even minor new gun regulations.
Gun legislation, in general, has been more lenient, with open carry being permitted in many states. However, the Rittenhouse case has sparked debates about gun regulation and the right to carry. According to Thrust (2021), if Kyle had been sentenced, it would have had a chilling impact on individuals carrying weapons in public. Furthermore, Dominic Black’s case, just like Rittenhouse’s, was still pending in court due to “racial prejudice”. The Rittenhouse’s case decision, on the other hand, was seen as a “… win for the fringe” (Thrust, 2021). As a result, the state should clarify its position on gun control, as Wisconsin sits atop Republican-controlled states that lacked gun restrictions and right-to-carry policies and Democrat-controlled states that have been gradually enforcing severe limits.
Analysis
The article employs several public relations (PR) terminologies to convey its message to a wider audience. According to Howard and Mathews (2013), the usage of terms like “loss of human life” or “property loss” is considered newsworthy. In this case, Thrust (2013) explores the notion of loss of life concerning the individuals murdered by Rittenhouse at Kenosha, along with issues of property protection as employed by the defendants in the case. In the post, Rittenhouse was merely attempting to assist people to secure their properties, exposing him to gun-related violence in his effort for self-defense. As per Howard and Mathews (2013), the deployment of such concepts as “infographics” and “links to related items” is intended to “push out news,” thereby increasing media relations to newsreaders. For example, the article uses “tossed out a charge”, “run on ammunition”, “ghost guns”, and “strike down” among others.
Articles containing stories related to powerful people in society have greater coverage. For instance, news with prominence and reference to a society’s top member tends to have a longer record of accomplishment in terms of diffusion (Howard & Mathews, 2013). Thrust (2021) cites the opinion of U.S. President, Mr. Joe Biden, on the issue of the Rittenhouse verdict. In this regard, the Thrust understands that the President has many followers on social media and would track a wider coverage towards their news outlet. Moreover, publications about the affluent, powerful, popular, and infamous persons in society receive more attention (Djafarova & Trofimenko, 2019). Finally, the articles feature conflict, personalization, and unexpectedness concerning anti and pro-gun regulation, Kyle Rittenhouse as a personality, and the verdict decision, respectively, to boost the spread of the use (Howard & Mathews, 2013; Thrust, 2021). As a case in point, the key question raised by the Rittenhouse case is why or why not gun-control legislation illegal in light of the Second Amendment’s “right of the people to keep and bear arms”.
References
Djafarova, E., & Trofimenko, O. (2019). ‘Instafamous’–credibility and self-presentation of micro-celebrities on social media. Information, Communication & Society, 22(10), 1432-1446.
Howard, C. M., & Mathews, W. K. (2013). On deadline: Managing media relations. (5th ed.). Waveland Press.
Thrust, G. (2021). Rittenhouse case highlights the nation’s deep division over gun rights. The New York Times.