Artists have always used their imagination to try to shake people out of the safe confines of their lives, views and assumptions. From composer John Cage of the avant-garde school (he produced the famous 4’33”, a piece in which a full symphony orchestra assembles for 4 minutes and 33 seconds and sits in silence) to Marcel Duchamp of the Dada art movement (he produced The fountain, which was actually a common men’s room urinal) artists of every generation have always tried harder and harder to challenge their audiences. Some, though, go so far as to make people wonder if what they come up with is still art. Here are three examples.

A piece of work

In 1961, Italian artist Piero Manzoni had a bizarre idea for a new kind of artistic expression — he canned his own feces in 90 tins, gave each an exclusive serial number, signed it as genuine and auctioned them all off at Sotheby’s. Not only did they sell, they fetched their weight in gold. Since then, the cans have repeatedly changed hands, generating excitement and major investment whenever they appear at auctions. In 2007, for instance, one can sold at Sotheby’s at more than €120,000.

As a general rule, owners of these cans do not open them — considering that an open can would attract concern over possible contamination, genuineness and weight lost to evaporation and result in lost value. Apparently, though, the tins do actually contain the contents described on the label — in 1994, when an art collector in Denmark lent a can that belonged to him to a museum in that country, improper handling by the museum led to leakage and a major odor problem. The museum was made to pay the collector the equivalent of $45,000 as compensation.

This work of art has been variously interpreted with connections drawn to Marxism and as a statement that explores the relationship between artistic production and other types of human creation.

Your art is your baby

Parents often see their children as a blend of who they are as individuals. Jacqueline Mary Breyer (1969-2007), an American musician and nurse, had the idea in 2004 to create such a blend, but in a different way.

Shortly after she married a fellow musician who went by the stage name Genesis P-Orridge in 1993 (and changed her name to Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge), she and her husband were seriously injured in a fire. When they won a large legal settlement for the injuries they suffered, they decided to apply it to turning themselves into their art through cosmetic surgery. Their idea was to have doctors work on them to make each look like the other. By this act, they saw that they gave up their own identities and became a new, third entity — a blended being called Breyer P-Orridge that lived in two separate bodies.

Unconventional art from someone on the inside

Wafaa Bilal, an Iraqi-American, is an artist who is unconventional in two ways — to begin, his art does frequently turn bizarre. The other part is unconventional by rebel-art standards — he is a conventional art professor. He has worked in that capacity at both the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Tisch School of Arts at NYU.

Bilal is known for two major works of art: Domestic Tension and The 3rd I. Domestic Tension was a 2007 live art installation at the FlatFile Galleries in Chicago. In this installation, Bilal confined himself to a room at the art gallery for a 30-day period. Inside the room was a web-controlled paintball gun and a WebCam that broadcast the proceedings in the room, nonstop. Anyone in the world could log on to the WebCam, see Bilal live and shoot at him with the paintball gun. Each shot would go off with a deafening blast and actually cause mild injury.

The purpose of the art installation was to artistically demonstrate the evils of remote-controlled warfare. At the end of the 30-day period, Bilal suffered posttraumatic stress disorder as if he had actually emerged from a war zone.

The 3rd I was even more controversial. In this art installation, Bilal surgically embedded a camera in the back of his head. The images that it captured as he went about his life were streamed live. The aim was to capture the choices that he left behind every moment that he went forward with the choices that he accepted. While the project was meant to run for a full year, he had to abandon it two months in, for reasons of unbearable pain.

Does shock art matter?

Critics have been debating the value of shock art for decades. Such art often does attract a great deal of curious interest. The Art Newspaper, though, has an interesting viewpoint. When conventional art makes a shocking change, people essentially still relate to it as the art form that they’ve always cared about. Since they care about the art, they care about the change and force themselves to consider what it means.

Shock art, though, tends to be more shock than art; since nearly no one is able to relate to it, they are unlikely to think about it. In this way, it can fail to help anyone change the way they think.

You have a product that you have designed by hand and your talents in the field of arts and crafts have received praise from your friends and family. It may be an oil painting or a wooden sculpture of an animal which you have painstakingly created. Maybe your intention is to sell it and others like it. Your only problem is that although you have drawn acclaim for your work locally, you want to promote it to a larger customer base. Luckily there are various techniques for accomplishing this.

First of all, it is a good idea to show that you are capable of variety. Creating distinct pieces of art will demonstrate originality to potential customers, but also show that your abilities are not restricted to one area. The variety could be the subject of the piece or the medium itself. For example, you may have produced some watercolour paintings of natural landscapes, so perhaps create some others with an emphasis on architecture or the human form. If you forge mostly metal sculptures, then consider constructing some from wood or plastic with different themes.

Taking lots of good quality photographs of your work from many different angles is a prudent measure. If you feel that you are unable to for whatever reason, consider enlisting the assistance of an experienced photographer. This will complement your work and its quality and demonstrate your proficiency wherever these photographs are shown.

Using the photographs you have acquired, compose a small booklet of your work, complete with information on the pieces: the titles, dimensions, prices and the medium. If you travel around a lot visiting art galleries like Artmajeur Gallery and craft fairs, make sure you have a few of the booklets handy along with some business cards. Due to the social nature of these places, you may end up attracting new customers, resulting in a potential increase in sales or even an exhibition.

It is essential to have a good working website with an up-to-date portfolio of your work, including plenty of photographs and a concise and informative biography. A well-composed page about your background and experience and how you came to form your business can be a key factor when it comes to a customer purchase. Consider setting up a dedicated email address for the business which matches the name of the website. Contact information should be placed considerately, so customers can contact you with inquiries easily.

Making your business known on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest is probably the best way to generate a buzz around a large amount of people. Join arts and crafts groups online and spread word of your business on art directories. Again, post photographs, be descriptive and promote the name of your business. Attach relevant tags and share these posts around, linking them all back to your website.

When you are adding content to your website and social media profiles, it is best to hold some of it in reserve. Not showing people all your work at once will allow you to add new posts in the future. This will give the impression that you are active, creating new and exciting pieces on a regular basis. An added advantage of this is that you will have time to spare on other aspects of your business.

As your work begins to gain in popularity, you may have people contacting you with requests for a piece of artwork with their specifications. Being prepared for this and anticipating demand is all part of it. For example, you may be given a deadline by a customer seeking an item for someone’s birthday or other celebrations. Ensure that you have all the materials needed and have taken costs into consideration when pricing. This will make the task less stressful and more straightforward.

These may be some of the most effective approaches for developing a small arts and crafts business. However, the success you are looking for with your work depends very much on you, your confidence in it and how well you can handle its promotion. A combination of these assets and the preceding tips will almost certainly reward you with a favourable outcome.