Questions: Arthur Danto: The Artworld and Transfiguration

Question 1

Andy Warhol's Brillo Boxes are visually indistinguishable from the actual Brillo boxes stored in a supermarket warehouse. According to Danto, what determines that Warhol's version is art and the warehouse version is not?

• A. The materials — Warhol used higher-quality wood and paint than the commercial boxes
• B. The intention alone — any object becomes art when its maker intends it to be
• C. The artworld context — Warhol's boxes are embedded in art-historical theory and institutions that allow them to mean something as art
• D. The location — placing an object in a gallery automatically makes it art

Answer: (C)

Danto's central point is that arthood cannot be determined by perceptual or material properties, since the two objects are visually identical. The difference lies in what he calls 'transfiguration' — Warhol's boxes are embedded in an artworld context (galleries, critics, art-historical discourse about commodity culture) that allows them to be about something, to function as art. Option B is too weak: mere intention is insufficient — Danto's view requires the artworld framework that makes the intention interpretable. Option D makes location do all the work, but an object in a gallery is not automatically art.

Question 2

Duchamp's Fountain (a signed urinal) could not have been submitted as art in 1817, even though the same act in 1917 launched a major chapter in art history. According to Danto, why would the 1817 submission fail?

• A. Because urinals were not manufactured in 1817
• B. Because the artworld of 1817 had not developed the theoretical resources to make such a gesture interpretable as art
• C. Because art in 1817 required craftsmanship, which is a timeless criterion for arthood
• D. Because Duchamp was not yet recognized as an artist in 1817

Answer: (B)

Danto's framework makes arthood historically contingent. What counts as art depends on where the artworld is at that moment — the accumulated theories, precedents, and practices that make certain gestures interpretable. In 1817, there was no tradition of questioning what art is through appropriation of ordinary objects, no institutional space where such a question could be posed. The artworld had not developed the theoretical 'atmosphere' in which a urinal could be seen as challenging assumptions about craft and artistic skill. Option C imposes a timeless criterion Danto explicitly rejects.

Question 3

According to Danto, an object can be art in one historical era but not in another, even if it is physically identical across both eras.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: True

This is a direct implication of Danto's artworld theory. Because arthood is conferred by the interpretive framework the artworld provides — and that framework evolves historically — the same physical configuration can be art at one moment and not at another. Duchamp's gesture was interpretable in 1917 because decades of avant-garde practice had built the theoretical context to receive it. The same object presented before that context existed would simply be incomprehensible as art. Arthood is not an intrinsic property but a historically contingent status.

Question 4

Danto's artworld theory implies that anything placed in a gallery automatically becomes art, making the artworld an institution with fixed membership criteria.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

Danto does not claim galleries automatically confer arthood, nor that the artworld has fixed boundaries. The artworld is a living, evolving network of theories, practices, and precedents — not a fixed institution with membership rules. An object becomes art through transfiguration, which requires an interpretive framework capable of making sense of it as art. The artworld is also permeable and historically changing: what can count as art expands as it develops new theoretical resources. Danto's point is about the necessity of interpretive context, not the sufficiency of institutional location.

Question 5

What does Danto mean by 'transfiguration,' and why is the artworld a necessary condition for it to occur?

Model answer: Transfiguration is the process by which an ordinary object becomes an artwork — not through physical transformation but through being embedded in the artworld's interpretive context. The artworld is necessary because it provides the theoretical framework, historical references, and institutional practices that allow an object to mean something as art, in a way an identical ordinary object does not.

Without the artworld, there is no framework within which an object can carry art-relevant meaning. Warhol's Brillo Boxes work as art because the artworld had developed theories about pop culture and the nature of art itself that made Warhol's gesture interpretable — as a comment on commodity culture, as a challenge to the distinction between high and low art. The warehouse boxes have no such framework around them. Transfiguration is not mystical; it is the process of an object acquiring status within an institutional and theoretical context that makes it 'about' something in the relevant way.