1. PHILOSOPHY 105 (STOLZE) Notes on Stephen Davies, The Philosophy of Art, chapter 4

2. Some Issues Raised in This Chapter What is the Ontology of Art? Artworks as Public Items Are Artworks Created or Discovered? Are All Artworks Potentially Multiple? Multiply Instanced Artworks New Works Based on Old Ones The Ontological Variety of Works of Art Is the Identity of an Artwork Fixed or Evolving?

3. What is the Ontology of Art? Ontology “is concerned with the matter, mode, or manner in which things exist. If you ask, Is it animal, vegetable, or mineral? When trying to guess what item another person has in mind, your question is about the ontological character of that item” (p. 81). Some Ontological Positions on Art: – Ontological Idealism – Ontological Platonism – Ontological Contextualism

4. The Matter Replicator Thought Experiment Described on pp. 86-7 What is the point of Davies’ thought experiment?

5. Damien Hirst, Away from the Flock (1994)

6. Sandy Skoglund, Spirituality in the Flesh (1992) This is a photograph of a mannequin sitting on a stool and wearing a blue dress. The mannequin has blonde hair, but her skin, the stool, the ground, and the background is entirely covered in ground beef.

7. Francis Picabia, The Fig-Leaf (1922) “Picabia painted The Fig-Leaf using glossy household paint over another work entitled Hot Eyes. The original painting, which was based on a technical drawing of a turbine brake, caused a scandal when submitted for an important Paris exhibition in 1921. The figure in the new image is derived from Oedipus and the Sphinx (1808), a neo-classical painting by Ingres, with Picabia’s addition of a fig-leaf (the French say ‘vine leaf’) as a reference to censorship. The inscription DESSIN FRANÇAIS (‘French drawing’) sarcastically mocked the contemporary revival of interest in traditional art skills.” (From the display caption July 2008 at the Tate gallery website: http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?work id=11848)

8. Robert Rauschenberg, Erased de Kooning (1953)

9. An Application Colorization of Photographs and Movies Ex: Ansel Adams’ Photographs of Yosemite

10. Ansel Adams, Moon and Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, California (Negative date 1941, print date 1980)