Conceptual Notes Caught Between Art and Graphic Design
We have certain definitions that we find ourselves holding onto, and eventually, we accept them as if they have always been that way and must always be that way: 'Graphic design is a discipline of communication. It is functional. It responds to a problem. The reason is that it is demanded. It has an employer. It speaks on behalf of others. Art, on the other hand, is purposeless. It has no client. It does not explain itself; it asks questions. It does not have to justify itself. Art is created simply because the artist wanted to create it. It doesn't exist at first, then suddenly, it does.'
When the debate arises about where art and graphic design separate (or whether they do), we recite these confident definitions one after another. Often intersecting, sometimes tangentially related, and therefore unable to escape absolute contact, these are two distinct sets: art and graphic design. There comes a moment when these two distinct sets intertwine to the extent that trying to determine which side the defining lines belong to becomes meaningless. Thus, the stability of definitions disappears. So, what happens if we swap the positions of these ready-made definitions in our minds?
'Graphic design can exist without a client. It does not necessarily have to respond to a problem. It may not always need an employer; the designer can initiate the demand. It does not have to sell a product; the design itself can be a product. It does not have to be accountable; the designer created it simply because they wanted to design something. In other words, the designed object can be the reason for its own creation. A work of art, on the other hand, has a customer, someone who commissions it. An artwork can communicate, be functional. Its artistic statement may lie in its functionality. It may point to a problem. It speaks on behalf of others. It is demanded. It can inquire as much as it can answer. After a while, it can also turn into a product and sell itself.'
It seems that these conditions and requirements assigned to two different disciplines can easily overlap and merge into a unified set. Moreover, each proposition has multiple representations, but I will provide examples in the second part of this article.
Certainly, these definitions inevitably arise from another unchanging question: "What is art?" Moreover, if we continue to ask this question, which has maintained its popularity throughout the ages, we can still say that we do not have a definitive and absolute answer. It is not necessary either. Ultimately, seeking an unchanging definition is as erroneous as claiming that the world hasn't changed.
All possible answers that can be given depend on when you ask this question in the history of art. Let's take a quick look at the history of this discipline, which lies in its lack of a single and similar answer and its constant susceptibility to questioning: In Plato's ideal state, art had no special place due to its limited practical utility. Artists could draw a chair, but they couldn't make a real one. The more art imitated, the more 'artistic' it became. Then came the concept of the 'ideal representational form.' For a painting to be a valid work of art, it had to be indistinguishable from real life. In the second half of the 19th century, all the beauties of the Renaissance disappeared, and, in Arthur C. Danto's words, the end of a certain period of art arrived, giving way to a new and magnificent era. The 20th century tells a different story. First, artists abandoned the idea that a work of art is a representation tool and showed that the work represents only itself. Art became more abstract than ever. Then, they set aside the instruments that made art art and turned to everyday materials. Danto argues that asking what art is now is even more challenging than in times when art was 'mimetic' because artists are no longer concerned with imitation or the beautiful, as Marcel Duchamp has already shattered these two fundamental principles. The subject that interests the artist is now the idea, or more explicitly, the 'idea of being art.' This leads us to a completely new style from the 1960s onwards, where art is exempt from aesthetics, and its backbone is formed by concepts rather than the artist's skill in using hands but rather the ability to use the mind. Asking what art is today, given the entropic changes in art since Plato, has almost lost its significance.
Today, whatever we define as art selects its ways of thinking and producing, its materials, methods, sources, and content from an infinite pool, and artists or aspiring artists are also part of this source.
On one hand, Donald Kuspit believes that art ended with the postmodern period. I don't go so far as to claim this in this article. In fact, postmodern art, which is sometimes seen as lacking the aesthetic value provided by pure art and described as emotionless and insightless, according to Kuspit, can sometimes find a more rational place today. Since design is concerned with reason, the current state of art at least excites me from this perspective. I don't find it enough to admire a work just for its talent; I want to see the intelligence embedded in that enjoyment.
Therefore, by considering art and graphic design as directly related by accepting them as the 'place where the mind is read,' I prefer to use the term 'work' rather than categorizing them as art or design products, with a good mind (abundant analytical thinking and a bit of coincidence).
Graphic design, like art, has undergone transformation based on its era and has answers that throw the questioner into many places due to differences in style; however, it is challenging to look at it from such a historical distance as art. We are talking about a profession that has kept up closely with the sociological and technological changes in the world since the beginning of the 20th century, starting to gain professional recognition in those periods, and has had to change its entire order and habits from scratch several times. Although definitions change during the century's transformation, there seems to be an almost innate agreement, that is, graphic design is 'functional'; however, even this is not considered an unchanging judgment. Graphic design is a profession not yet practiced as much as art; therefore, in the face of the historical dimension of art, it is almost like a child of yesterday. However, comparing graphic design with 20th and 21st-century art, which can be considered its contemporary, we see that neither the end of history is too far nor are the definitions so disconnected. It might even be possible to say that they are like cradle mates.
The ways of thinking and producing graphic design have undergone a transformation parallel to the flow of art since the beginning of the 20th century. From the 1970s onwards, the rigid communication norms of the modern world had already begun to be questioned and rejected. Instead of solving problems, we attempted to create the problem itself. We became authors who mixed with the content rather than being direct conveyors of the content. We developed individual styles and began to speak about graphic design. We were no longer just individuals looked at for what they did but individuals 'read.' Instead of revealing meanings at first glance for fear of 'overlooking,' we started hiding them in details. Our tools developed, our material repertoire expanded. Thus, our manipulation skills also improved. To enrich meaning, we could apply more than one typographic expression to a text simultaneously. We could even decide on the content. This attitude was not foreign to us even then. Avant-garde movements such as futurism, Dada, and constructivism had already shown us the limitless and, figuratively, 'brazen' possibilities of communication. Moreover, artists, writers, and designers were doing it together. Design benefited from all the philosophical questions posed by modern art. For example, even though suprematists and constructivists had different views, they were developing visual repertoires together. Today, we witness this dialogue happening between contemporary art and design, and sometimes both of them speaking simultaneously.
If we need to give an example at this point, we can look at Ayşe Erkmen's work "Typed Type." It's a typeface produced by an artist to be an artwork, and it needs to be converted into a font for use. The initial representations of the work are created using the pangram "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," which is used to introduce a font family. This piece, created by forming all the letters of the alphabet using punctuation marks of a typewriter, is reused with different texts at different times. Finally, it accompanies the "Beyazımtırak" exhibition at Arter both as a work and as an exhibition text, and it is even printed as a cover for the exhibition catalog. In short, it's a graphic design product transformed into an artwork, or an artwork created as a graphic design product.
The artist (Erkmen) can freely borrow and use all the materials, language, and communication methods belonging to graphic design and create her work with them. Therefore, a graphic designer can naturally use the autonomy of art as an existential criterion for the design object; in other words, a graphic design object can produce discourse. This is why I believe graphic design is about to shift away from being perceived solely as a profession dealing with goods indexed to their expiration date. For this reason, we need to discuss more the possibilities of turning a graphic design channel into a discourse.
This discussion is taking place in different fields of art and design. "Sometimes art transitions to the space once considered for architecture, and sometimes architecture transitions to the space once considered for art," says Hal Foster in his book "The Art-Architecture Complex." In the context of graphic design and contemporary art, we might rewrite this sentence as: "Sometimes contemporary art transitions to the field once considered for graphic design, and sometimes graphic design transitions to the field once considered for contemporary art." Foster talks about the convergence of plastic arts, design, and architecture in spatial and formal terms, presenting them all as 'visual art.' To witness this approach, it's enough to take a look at Olafur Eliasson's works. Perhaps the design of industrial products, architecture, graphic design, sound-image-light design, and all the artifacts that make up an art activity might converge to create a single art experience. For example, during the significant breaks in the history of art and design in the 1930s, El Lissitzky brought architecture, art, and design together in their most refined form with "Kabinett der Abstrakten."
Indeed, contemporary art has become an expressive form containing many elements of graphic design and benefiting extensively from its language. Moreover, we frequently encounter examples of exhibitions and biennials where archives are displayed, and written or printed sources serve as a basis for an artwork, allowing the entire artistic content to be read through the communication channels of graphic design. In this context, I want to point out that the reverse of this change is also possible: graphic design can use the discourse-producing ability of contemporary art. I'm not talking about the artistic status of a guide helping us navigate an exhibition, but there's no obstacle preventing the catalog carrying the content of a biennial from being considered and designed as an artwork that can be experienced at the biennial. For instance, the visual identity designed by Onagöre for the 16th Istanbul Biennial not only serves the communication channels of the biennial but also communicates a message about the biennial theme – according to their own statements, they are looking for their seventh continents in the theme of "tracing the path of humanity and the traces it leaves behind in the Anthropocene era." In this quest, we don't just look at vector visuals assembled to illustrate the seventh continent; we also understand that this visualization is based on research, or in other words, a 'text.' Designers don't hesitate to produce discourse through various communication channels by seizing the opportunity of orders for a range of communication media.
A graphic design job serves all communication channels needed by the client and the event and, at the same time, conveys its message about the biennial theme through the media it serves, following the initiative of the designers who produce the work. There's no difference between this and an artist who speaks their word through an artwork at the biennial. If art can use all the communication channels and methods of graphic design to speak its own word, why shouldn't graphic design use the privilege of speaking the word of art?
When I showed Olafur Eliasson's "Ice Blocks" to my students as an example and asked, "Why should there be a distinction between an artwork and a design object that show no difference in their approach to content and issue?" one student pointed out the physical and spatial effect that an artwork has on the viewer. If Eliasson's idea had been thought and designed as a social-themed poster, would it lose its essence? I understand from the answer that a graphic design work printed on paper cannot create the impact of a massive installation on the viewer
Source : @Thereaqerx https://www.turkhackteam.org/konular/sanat-ve-grafik-tasarim-arasinda-kalan-dusunsel-notlar.2043674/
We have certain definitions that we find ourselves holding onto, and eventually, we accept them as if they have always been that way and must always be that way: 'Graphic design is a discipline of communication. It is functional. It responds to a problem. The reason is that it is demanded. It has an employer. It speaks on behalf of others. Art, on the other hand, is purposeless. It has no client. It does not explain itself; it asks questions. It does not have to justify itself. Art is created simply because the artist wanted to create it. It doesn't exist at first, then suddenly, it does.'
When the debate arises about where art and graphic design separate (or whether they do), we recite these confident definitions one after another. Often intersecting, sometimes tangentially related, and therefore unable to escape absolute contact, these are two distinct sets: art and graphic design. There comes a moment when these two distinct sets intertwine to the extent that trying to determine which side the defining lines belong to becomes meaningless. Thus, the stability of definitions disappears. So, what happens if we swap the positions of these ready-made definitions in our minds?
'Graphic design can exist without a client. It does not necessarily have to respond to a problem. It may not always need an employer; the designer can initiate the demand. It does not have to sell a product; the design itself can be a product. It does not have to be accountable; the designer created it simply because they wanted to design something. In other words, the designed object can be the reason for its own creation. A work of art, on the other hand, has a customer, someone who commissions it. An artwork can communicate, be functional. Its artistic statement may lie in its functionality. It may point to a problem. It speaks on behalf of others. It is demanded. It can inquire as much as it can answer. After a while, it can also turn into a product and sell itself.'
It seems that these conditions and requirements assigned to two different disciplines can easily overlap and merge into a unified set. Moreover, each proposition has multiple representations, but I will provide examples in the second part of this article.
Certainly, these definitions inevitably arise from another unchanging question: "What is art?" Moreover, if we continue to ask this question, which has maintained its popularity throughout the ages, we can still say that we do not have a definitive and absolute answer. It is not necessary either. Ultimately, seeking an unchanging definition is as erroneous as claiming that the world hasn't changed.
All possible answers that can be given depend on when you ask this question in the history of art. Let's take a quick look at the history of this discipline, which lies in its lack of a single and similar answer and its constant susceptibility to questioning: In Plato's ideal state, art had no special place due to its limited practical utility. Artists could draw a chair, but they couldn't make a real one. The more art imitated, the more 'artistic' it became. Then came the concept of the 'ideal representational form.' For a painting to be a valid work of art, it had to be indistinguishable from real life. In the second half of the 19th century, all the beauties of the Renaissance disappeared, and, in Arthur C. Danto's words, the end of a certain period of art arrived, giving way to a new and magnificent era. The 20th century tells a different story. First, artists abandoned the idea that a work of art is a representation tool and showed that the work represents only itself. Art became more abstract than ever. Then, they set aside the instruments that made art art and turned to everyday materials. Danto argues that asking what art is now is even more challenging than in times when art was 'mimetic' because artists are no longer concerned with imitation or the beautiful, as Marcel Duchamp has already shattered these two fundamental principles. The subject that interests the artist is now the idea, or more explicitly, the 'idea of being art.' This leads us to a completely new style from the 1960s onwards, where art is exempt from aesthetics, and its backbone is formed by concepts rather than the artist's skill in using hands but rather the ability to use the mind. Asking what art is today, given the entropic changes in art since Plato, has almost lost its significance.
Today, whatever we define as art selects its ways of thinking and producing, its materials, methods, sources, and content from an infinite pool, and artists or aspiring artists are also part of this source.
On one hand, Donald Kuspit believes that art ended with the postmodern period. I don't go so far as to claim this in this article. In fact, postmodern art, which is sometimes seen as lacking the aesthetic value provided by pure art and described as emotionless and insightless, according to Kuspit, can sometimes find a more rational place today. Since design is concerned with reason, the current state of art at least excites me from this perspective. I don't find it enough to admire a work just for its talent; I want to see the intelligence embedded in that enjoyment.
Therefore, by considering art and graphic design as directly related by accepting them as the 'place where the mind is read,' I prefer to use the term 'work' rather than categorizing them as art or design products, with a good mind (abundant analytical thinking and a bit of coincidence).
Graphic design, like art, has undergone transformation based on its era and has answers that throw the questioner into many places due to differences in style; however, it is challenging to look at it from such a historical distance as art. We are talking about a profession that has kept up closely with the sociological and technological changes in the world since the beginning of the 20th century, starting to gain professional recognition in those periods, and has had to change its entire order and habits from scratch several times. Although definitions change during the century's transformation, there seems to be an almost innate agreement, that is, graphic design is 'functional'; however, even this is not considered an unchanging judgment. Graphic design is a profession not yet practiced as much as art; therefore, in the face of the historical dimension of art, it is almost like a child of yesterday. However, comparing graphic design with 20th and 21st-century art, which can be considered its contemporary, we see that neither the end of history is too far nor are the definitions so disconnected. It might even be possible to say that they are like cradle mates.
The ways of thinking and producing graphic design have undergone a transformation parallel to the flow of art since the beginning of the 20th century. From the 1970s onwards, the rigid communication norms of the modern world had already begun to be questioned and rejected. Instead of solving problems, we attempted to create the problem itself. We became authors who mixed with the content rather than being direct conveyors of the content. We developed individual styles and began to speak about graphic design. We were no longer just individuals looked at for what they did but individuals 'read.' Instead of revealing meanings at first glance for fear of 'overlooking,' we started hiding them in details. Our tools developed, our material repertoire expanded. Thus, our manipulation skills also improved. To enrich meaning, we could apply more than one typographic expression to a text simultaneously. We could even decide on the content. This attitude was not foreign to us even then. Avant-garde movements such as futurism, Dada, and constructivism had already shown us the limitless and, figuratively, 'brazen' possibilities of communication. Moreover, artists, writers, and designers were doing it together. Design benefited from all the philosophical questions posed by modern art. For example, even though suprematists and constructivists had different views, they were developing visual repertoires together. Today, we witness this dialogue happening between contemporary art and design, and sometimes both of them speaking simultaneously.
If we need to give an example at this point, we can look at Ayşe Erkmen's work "Typed Type." It's a typeface produced by an artist to be an artwork, and it needs to be converted into a font for use. The initial representations of the work are created using the pangram "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," which is used to introduce a font family. This piece, created by forming all the letters of the alphabet using punctuation marks of a typewriter, is reused with different texts at different times. Finally, it accompanies the "Beyazımtırak" exhibition at Arter both as a work and as an exhibition text, and it is even printed as a cover for the exhibition catalog. In short, it's a graphic design product transformed into an artwork, or an artwork created as a graphic design product.
The artist (Erkmen) can freely borrow and use all the materials, language, and communication methods belonging to graphic design and create her work with them. Therefore, a graphic designer can naturally use the autonomy of art as an existential criterion for the design object; in other words, a graphic design object can produce discourse. This is why I believe graphic design is about to shift away from being perceived solely as a profession dealing with goods indexed to their expiration date. For this reason, we need to discuss more the possibilities of turning a graphic design channel into a discourse.
This discussion is taking place in different fields of art and design. "Sometimes art transitions to the space once considered for architecture, and sometimes architecture transitions to the space once considered for art," says Hal Foster in his book "The Art-Architecture Complex." In the context of graphic design and contemporary art, we might rewrite this sentence as: "Sometimes contemporary art transitions to the field once considered for graphic design, and sometimes graphic design transitions to the field once considered for contemporary art." Foster talks about the convergence of plastic arts, design, and architecture in spatial and formal terms, presenting them all as 'visual art.' To witness this approach, it's enough to take a look at Olafur Eliasson's works. Perhaps the design of industrial products, architecture, graphic design, sound-image-light design, and all the artifacts that make up an art activity might converge to create a single art experience. For example, during the significant breaks in the history of art and design in the 1930s, El Lissitzky brought architecture, art, and design together in their most refined form with "Kabinett der Abstrakten."
Indeed, contemporary art has become an expressive form containing many elements of graphic design and benefiting extensively from its language. Moreover, we frequently encounter examples of exhibitions and biennials where archives are displayed, and written or printed sources serve as a basis for an artwork, allowing the entire artistic content to be read through the communication channels of graphic design. In this context, I want to point out that the reverse of this change is also possible: graphic design can use the discourse-producing ability of contemporary art. I'm not talking about the artistic status of a guide helping us navigate an exhibition, but there's no obstacle preventing the catalog carrying the content of a biennial from being considered and designed as an artwork that can be experienced at the biennial. For instance, the visual identity designed by Onagöre for the 16th Istanbul Biennial not only serves the communication channels of the biennial but also communicates a message about the biennial theme – according to their own statements, they are looking for their seventh continents in the theme of "tracing the path of humanity and the traces it leaves behind in the Anthropocene era." In this quest, we don't just look at vector visuals assembled to illustrate the seventh continent; we also understand that this visualization is based on research, or in other words, a 'text.' Designers don't hesitate to produce discourse through various communication channels by seizing the opportunity of orders for a range of communication media.
A graphic design job serves all communication channels needed by the client and the event and, at the same time, conveys its message about the biennial theme through the media it serves, following the initiative of the designers who produce the work. There's no difference between this and an artist who speaks their word through an artwork at the biennial. If art can use all the communication channels and methods of graphic design to speak its own word, why shouldn't graphic design use the privilege of speaking the word of art?
When I showed Olafur Eliasson's "Ice Blocks" to my students as an example and asked, "Why should there be a distinction between an artwork and a design object that show no difference in their approach to content and issue?" one student pointed out the physical and spatial effect that an artwork has on the viewer. If Eliasson's idea had been thought and designed as a social-themed poster, would it lose its essence? I understand from the answer that a graphic design work printed on paper cannot create the impact of a massive installation on the viewer
Source : @Thereaqerx https://www.turkhackteam.org/konular/sanat-ve-grafik-tasarim-arasinda-kalan-dusunsel-notlar.2043674/
