Highbrow – Intellectual, cultured or exclusive in taste.
Not Highly intellectual or cultured – Lowbrow
In preparation for this lecture we had to find one piece of work that we think of as highbrow and then one piece that we consider lowbrow. The way the class as a whole debated all of the chosen pieces proves that some of the time there is a strong argument for why a piece can be considered to be both. The printed pictures were arranged on the wall with highbrow works higher up and lowbrow works closest to the floor. Not only was it interesting and expanding to hear my peers viewpoints on the topic of highbrow and lowbrow but this lecture opened my eyes to a whole range of new artists that people had discovered as well as the artists that I had researched myself. It was great to share our findings collectively.
The art pieces that I chose to share were Sophia Chang’s interactive installation of fabric tunnels and Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, with Duchamp’s Fountain being my lowbrow option and Chang’s tunnels being my highbrow option.
Architect and artist Sophia Chang’s interactive installation explored the boundaries between inside and outside, taking people out of context and represents the feeling of being on the other side of a thin wall to something unknown. It is because of these concepts and how philosophical they are in nature that makes the work highbrow as opposed to lowbrow.
I chose Duchamp’s Fountain to present as a lowbrow artwork because during a similar activity in college it got very divided reviews on whether the piece was even art or not. I personally think the Fountain is an interesting piece in terms of subverting an objects purpose however I do consider the piece to be lowbrow. I think that, instantly, the urinal’s vulgarity places it in the lowbrow category. The subject matter isn’t cultured, intellectual or exclusive in taste.
THIS is an interesting article on the subject of highbrow and lowbrow in art, questioning who defines the quality of art.
