A State of Utter Idiocy?

1. Has art really become obsolete and "too sluggish and too opaque to be able to keep in touch with the world us?" (334) If has indeed become obsolete, is there a real need to "make a clean break" with it? Does that make modern art a fruitless pursuit? Can't we still appreciate it even though it is supposedly outdated?

I don't see why people have such negative opinions about art. So what if it's archaic? Just because we now live in the world where technological media is accessible everywhere, that doesn't mean we need to abandon the traditional idea of art. Kids still doodle without anybody telling them to. What does that mean? We practice art naturally. School teacher still do art projects in classes, because it is fun and it encourages creativity, which we value highly in our society. Surely these are of no comparison to high-level art, but shouldn't art be something that we can all enjoy? It is one of the last connection to the world before all these technological advances dominated the world. Why purposefully seek to destroy that?

2. Reijnders says "Most painters and their supporters regard [Duchamp] accordingly as their sworn enemy" (395) and "...Andy Warhol is another figure who is regualrly associated with the end of painting" (336). Are they really the reason for the end of painting, or is it the society as a whole (introduction of photography, gradually digital images etc)? What about Duchamp's claim that "all modern paintings in the world are basically assisted ready-mades" (395) since the artists used paint tubes?

I had actually never thought of modern paintings as "assisted ready-mades," but I think Duchamp had brought up a good point. We never defined how much of producing and creating must an artist participate it in order to call the artwork a "painting" or a "ready-made." Because technically, if I buy the paint, the canvas, and the brush and paint, doesn't that make my artwork a semi-ready made? If so, then the era of modern painting already brought upon "the end of painting" even before Duchamp and Warhol came around. Also, I don't think they really initiate the end of painting, because a large part of it was the society's technological advances and the introduction of digital media etc. Did we actually even come to the end of painting?