[Music] this is Judy Chicago's 1970s installation the dinner party it's a setting for a banquet representing 1,038 women from history some have seats of Honor like writer Virginia wolf an abolitionist Sojourner Truth the place settings have embroidered place mats gold ceramic chalises utensils and porcelain dinner plates that look quite a bit like Georgia O'Keefe paintings including the plate dedicated to O'Keefe herself then and now the plates can evoke strong emotions but unlike most works of art you could feasibly eat off of some of these they could actually serve a practical purpose so how would we categorize these things are they works of art or are they something else entirely hi I'm Sarah urist green and this is Crash Course art history [Music] we might call Chicago's plates a work of design an object meant to improve some aspect of the world or solve a problem in the same Spirit as a button or a zipper to figure out the overlap between Art and Design let's vend diagram this situation in the design Circle curators Scholars and collectors might put objects made for a practical purpose think toasters Furniture buildings in the art Circle they might put object objects created for a museum or Gallery like paintings and sculptures meant to evoke an emotional or personal reaction according to these definitions it's the intention behind the objects that forms the dividing line but of course an object can be useful and evocative at the same time what about fashion Pottery quilts handcarved spoons or stain glass lamps this little mug with a frog at the bottom that I've had since I was a kid is still useful and also gives me all the feels so if Art and Design have so much in common why do we separate them at all well to dig into that we're going to have to go back in time boom we're in medieval Europe craft was the name of the game here we're talking objects with a domestic function that require technical skill to make things like Metal Works lace and tapestries that were made either collectively or anonymously but fast forward to Renaissance Europe and the idea of art reflecting individual creativity took hold and so did questions like are painting and sculpting more than skilled crafts are they expressions of intellect Talent perhaps even genius the scales tipped in the latter Direction and elevated artists to a whole another level but the boundaries between Art and Design were far from settled in 18th century France decorative furniture became All the Rage porcelain factories churned out extravagant creations that wealthy collectors just had to have like this Swan candal abam or this vase of fake flowers both made with porcelain or check out this Wedgewood vase with handles carved to look like snakes fighting over an egg I mean that's so fancy I think you have to pronounce it vase but Enlightenment thinkers debated what to call these functional yet expressive objects did they count as art in one corner French author Deni dero drew a hard line it took brains to make art he argued placing it on a higher plane than design which was quote more of the hand than the mind like those people who only like highbrow or art housee films where everything is sad and nothing really happens but it gets nominated for lots of awards but the Marquee de laor a French banker and politician thought it was time to get rid of the distinction between Art and Design altogether he thought art should broaden to include all of life supporting both our intellectual and physical needs clothes Furniture Swan candelabrum it all counts he's more like those who can appreciate art films but can also appreciate all the great fantasy sci-fi and comedies that rarely get nominations by the 19th century the industrial revolution had taken off and the Arts and Crafts movement was big while that phrase might call to mind friendship bracelets and crocheted pot lifters it was much more elaborate it celebrated the handcrafted skill behind useful beautiful objects like Furniture textiles wallpaper Ceramics and jewelry and the art Nuvo movement blossomed at the same time it featured soft wavy lines inspired by nature in the artistic designs of cabinets houses Paris Metro signs and this incredible coffee pot that looks like a fennel bulb with a beetle for a knob these objects meant to be both functional and expressive complicated the art versus design debate it was N Easy to put a door like this into just one category so those ideas that began in Renaissance Europe praising some materials as art and others as lesser than started to break down actually lots of artistic design exists outside of this eurocentric story think about weaving a method of textile production that combines two sets of threads to form a fabric weaving is useful decorative and often categorized as Folk Art a broad term for handmade objects and materials that often serve a function or reflect a shared culture weaving has been a form of art making for Millennia and we know this because ancient tools and even thread have survived and In some cultures woven textiles signify important cultural values and ideas take this work from the Indonesian island of Sumatra it's called tampon a woven image exchanged by families in the lampung province to celebrate important life stages from births and deaths to building a new house this one depicts an enormous ship manned by a captain crew members and musicians it floats across a sea filled with fish Turtles and even a crab symbolizing safe passage to the next phase of life to a 19th century viewer in lampung the tampon evoked reverence which is emphasized by the artist use of red a sacred color in that region while people of all classes use tampon for rights of Passage this one's opulence shows that it was made for a noble family and while tampon is mainly an art form of the past wealthy lampung women have continued wearing woven tippies skirts for centuries usually for ceremonial purposes so textiles are an excellent example of meaningful art that serves a purpose you can wear it but the different ways people wear and style clothing can also convey artistic meanings let's head to the drawing board meet the sapers clad in designer clothes they strut the streets of brazaville and kinasa mixing colors patterns and luxury labels sapur command attention in the mostly lower income communities where they live they're local celebrities buying to outdo each other while projecting confidence and joy they're part of a movement called laap short for Society of ambiance makers and elegant people it's also French slang for clothes LP's Origins hark back to the 1920s when wearing European clothing was one way congales people could Garner respect while living under French and Belgian colonial rule but lasa truly took off after Independence in the 1960s some congales started traveling to Europe bringing back expensive designer clothes and remixing French fashion became a way of expressing identity and political resistance at once sapers have been playing with their image ever since in ing themselves and inspiring others through ART you can wear the suppers curate functional clothing that expresses complex ideas and cultural identity so while the Art and Design worlds argue over boundaries artists keep doing whatever they want to do creating Innovative forms of culture that blur the lines between both like French artist tii Jano with his 2010 work green transmutation what looks like crystal is actually hundreds of carded plastic bottles collected in Mexico City and formed into a functional light source it's actually kind of similar to the swan candal abam we saw earlier with its wavy lines that take inspiration from the natural world but the two Works speak to very different cultural contexts while the 18th century artist was inspired by Nature elevating it to the level of Art and Design the contemporary artist peels away that illusion of art as luxury objects made of fine materials in order to highlight environmental concerns and finally let's return to Judy Chicago's dinner plates some denounce the work as overthe line even pornographic influential critic Hilton Kramer dismissed it as failed art that was crass solemn and single-minded but the plates are just one element of a densely layered and meaningful work of art Chicago's installation makes space for women who had been largely left out of History she gives them a seat of the table literally Chicago used techniques often coded as craft or design like embroidery Ceramics and China painting all historically considered women's work and ranked below High art in that tired old European hierarchy by merging elements of Art and Design Chicago pushes the boundaries of both and she raises fascinating questions about how history itself gets constructed and told I think this calls for the the Canon Canon so the centuries long debate of art versus design comes down to a difference of opinion it's a battle between what's considered high brow and low brow not unlike arguments you find in the depths of Reddit but when we spend so much time trying to define something as subjective As Art and Design we can miss the amazing stuff that falls in the middle the experimentation with form the Innovation with new materials and the messy complex and always shifting messages that art can convey these label defying Works show us this kind of black and white thinking isn't a useful measure for all times and places because if there's one thing we do know for sure it's that human creativity is too vast and varied to be limited by our pesky urge to Define it next time we'll explore how colliding cultures to set off an explosion of new Styles collectively known as Modern Art I'll see you then thanks for watching this episode of crashcourse art history which was filmed at the Indianapolis museum of art at newfields and was made with the help of all of these uncategorizable people if you want to help keep crash course free 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