Creative Credentials

OH how I love our post 9-11 world! Trying to take an interesting and engaging photograph on a Brooklyn street (in the style of Walker Evans), I was met with suspicion from many individuals and ultimately aggression from one in particular. I tell my creative attacker that I am an artist. The dispute ends, but I am left wondering what proof I can offer to my claim. In this situation, the first amendment might cover my activities to capture, portray and realize a creative expression of the human/American predicament, but that does not ease my sense of danger. This conflict resolves only if I can provide credentials of my artistic authority/capacity. Have you driven through Battery tunnel? When you approach the tunnel entrance, your vision is accosted by signs declaring "it is illegal to take photographs" and "Photography Prohibited".

How do we define artist, etymologically after terrorism? Simiarly, in the realm of praxis, how do we define the artistic endeavor? Law, social and self-censorship act as horizons and problematics in who/what can be considered artisitc. Alot of questions here, but as a further bit of evidence...

LONDON (AP) -- A porcelain urinal is the most influential work of modern art, according to a survey released Wednesday.

The poll of 500 arts figures ranked French surrealist Marcel Duchamp's 1917 piece "Fountain" - an ordinary white, porcelain urinal - more influential than Pablo Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon," Andy Warhol's screen prints of Marilyn Monroe and "Guernica," Picasso's searing depiction of the devastation of war.

Duchamp pioneered the use of everyday objects as art, an aesthetic that questioned the nature of art itself.

Art expert Simon Wilson said the choice of Duchamp's urinal "comes as a bit of a shock."

"But it reflects the dynamic nature of art today and the idea that the creative process that goes into a work of art is the most important thing - the work itself can be made of anything and can take any form," he said.