What is Art?
“Some of you will continue in your education. Some of you will continue with your interest in art. Some of you will have interests other than that. If we’ve learned nothing else this year, I hope you’ve learned the stupidity of the statement that art belongs to the world. Cause art belongs to the cultivated who can appreciate it. The majority of the great unwashed does not fit into this category… and neither, I’m sorry to say, do most of you.”
Dr. Jonathan Hemlock
(Clint Eastwood in The Eiger Sanction; 1975)
This discussion originally began as another topic. After I had written a couple of pages of text, I went back to the start to reread and ensure that I was staying on point and realized I had completely strayed from the subject and veered in an entirely different direction. Not wanting to scrap either topic, I decided to separate the two issues and discuss each on its own, and the idea of defining what is art seemed like a good and logical starting point for these Pop Talks… videos and essays. So, let’s get into it.
The question, what is art, may seem a curious one to ask at first glance. After all, things in a museum are art, obviously. Things in an art show are art, also obviously. If someone paints a picture and hangs it on their wall that is art, maybe? A painting by Da Vinci is art, but is a print of a painting by Da Vinci also art? It depicts the same image, but it is a mechanical reproduction. Does it still count? If it doesn’t, then what does that say about the work of artists such as Andy Warhol, who worked very much with screen printing and mass reproduction of images and objects, even to the point that he wasn’t actually involved in a lot of the production process. It was done by machines operated by technicians. It is easy to see then, even with just a few examples, that the question is not so cut and dry as one might think. Is it such that art must be made by a person officially deemed an artist, and if so, does this mean that every visual object they create is art?
Let’s look at one type of situation of how an object receives a certain designation. This is only one type of example of a designation and is admittedly a very specific and highly regulated example, however, the principle is still applicable in that there is a verified and accepted process of designation. For this example, we will use medicines. Doctors and scientists conduct research and experiments to formulate medicines, which are only considered as such after a great deal of development, testing, review, and certification by a recognized entity. However, grandma’s stomachache remedy that she learned from her grandma and so on also exists, and for all intent can be considered to have the same functionality as a medicine. Grandma just can’t legally charge the public for her remedy as a medical treatment or even call her remedy a medicine. There are a lot of weeds to work through here in terms of legalities and regulations and such as it being a product that affects people’s health and safety, which cannot be said of art. The main takeaway, however, is that there are two products that serve the same basic function, yet one is classified as a medicine, and the other is not, through a regulated legal process. Art has, of course, no such required legal constraints. Thus, in the case of medicines, there are clear and regulated parameters for what can and cannot be called a medicine. Do any such parameters exist for art, even if not legally regulated ones? What makes something art? What is art? To discuss and process these questions, we need to look at certain events and transformations that occurred in the history of art. This will shed some light on how art is viewed and by whom.
Although there was a general movement in art over time towards figuring out how to accurately depict objects and space realistically, especially in Western art, this was never the overarching narrative for the most part. Various cultures developed styles and traditions in the depiction of objects that were meant to express their concepts more symbolically than literally. This was done through a variety of methods and techniques. One of the more common of these, still used today, is the use of color as symbolic of certain values or qualities. For example, the color blue may symbolize royalty or spirituality, the color white for purity or innocence, and so on. Knowing this allows us to interpret images created in the past or in other cultures a little more clearly. Another example is a hierarchy of forms. A king may be depicted as a large figure, while others are depicted as smaller and smaller, according to decreasing social status and position, and not as a circumstance of positional perspective we are used to today. Although realistic depictions, such as depictions of perspective space, took quite a while to figure out formulaically, in many cases it can’t simply be stated that they did not know how to do it, which could be true, but also that realistic spatial depiction was not a desired outcome. The same can be said of a lot of Modern and contemporary art of today, but herein lies the difference, intention and audience.
Art, like most creative pursuits, has always had its esoteric elements. It had its Easter eggs, but in general it served the purpose of communicating ideas to the typical members of the society in which it was created. It was meant to be seen and understood by and large by the majority of the viewers of the applicable culture. As an example, Egyptian paintings and sculptures during the Pharaonic dynasties, were designed to be understood and meaningful to the Egyptian populace that viewed them. This is not the purpose of capital “A” art today. Contemporary art is not made with the purpose of being viewed and understood by the majority of people. It actually strives to be ambiguous or vague to most people. It is a conversation meant to be limited to the confines and understanding of a discrete group. It would not be a stretch to say that most artists are not pleased when the general public claims to understand their work and make comments and judgements on it, and will quickly say that no, you do not, in fact, understand. You have it all wrong, but I will explain it to you. If an artwork actually can be understood outside the art community it is said to be too accessible, too obvious, and to lack subtlety and nuance. The average person is not expected to understand what they are viewing but still expected to respect it. So how did this massive change occur? How did art go from a visual device speaking to an entire culture to a secretive, coded, partisan conversation within an exclusive group? Let’s explore.
With threads and roots in the 17th and 18th centuries, art began to purposefully change in the 19th century, and this continued throughout the 20th, with the process accelerating as the decades went by. For this discussion, we will not get into the decisive political pigeonholing among the vast majority of artists that took place, despite this being a contributing factor that cannot be understated, as it relates to the mindset of the people involved. The discussion of the political aspect deserves its own critique, which I hope to explore at a future time. Suffice to say here that most people know the collective political stance of the overwhelming majority of artists, so you can draw your own inferences and arrive at your own conclusions as to how and to what extent this unilateral political position affects the issue we are discussing, at least until we have that later conversation.
The issue is actually quite the convoluted mess, and the simple question- what is art, actually cannot be succinctly answered. After writing this line, I paused for a considerable amount of time to ponder how to proceed to unravel the mess created by the question. On the one hand, art historians consider objects made to be functional, such as pottery, to be art objects, but generally only if they are really really old. A Mesopotamian vase with a bit of design on it, found on an excavation, will be put in a museum and called art. A similar piece of pottery, created today, could be put in a museum and called an art object, under certain conditions, but then again, it might not. Is the age of the object the main factor here, or is it once again, all in the intent? We need a little context.
As I said previously, the roots of this issue reach all the way back into the 17th and 18th centuries and culminate in the 19th century with the existence of, in the case of Western art, organizations such as the British Royal Academy and the French Salon. These organizations held curated art exhibits, at least annually. Artworks were judged and awards were given. As such, these organizations developed standards by which to judge the artwork, as well as deciding which objects presented for consideration met the criteria to be displayed in the events. These standards led to some works, which did not meet these requirements, to be rejected. This did lead to a degree of stifling of innovation and experimentation, at least in public forums, of various movements and directions that were becoming increasingly explored at the time. Movements such as Impressionism, for example, were not seen by these organizations as serious artworks. This, of course, offended the artists whose works were rejected, and eventually led to the establishment of alternative exhibitions; a reasonable, logical, and acceptable occurrence. Almost immediately there began a tug of war for the power to determine what was art and what was not, as well as who was qualified to make this determination. It can be said, at this point, that artists seemed to gain the upper hand, as the history of art begins to largely follow and celebrate these experimental, abstract and non-realistic forms, such as Cubism. This allowed artists the freedom to create what they wanted and have it acknowledged as a legitimate artwork. There are other details and layers to this that can be explored, but we will jump forward to the early to mid-20th century, as the original debate pops up again. There are still juried art shows, supposedly more inclusive, yet artists find to their surprise that, yes indeed, there are still standards as to what is allowed into the exhibitions, i.e., what is considered art. Once again there is dissension and backlash, the most famous example of this is Marcel Duchamp’s submission of a public toilet urinal to a juried exhibit. He signed it anonymously, it was rejected, and then it is revealed that he, a famous artist, is responsible for the entry. Did it then become art? Apparently so, since this story, with accompanying photographs, is a common inclusion in art historical texts and studies. The urinal, in a meaningful way, has been officially certified as an art object, again under certain conditions.
Progressing through the 20th century we arrive at an inevitability, and the response to it. As art became less representational and more experimental, the general public found itself in the position of not understanding what it was looking at anymore, both in form and meaning. They looked at a Rembrandt, and despite perhaps not fully grasping the entirety of the meaning due to being removed from that historical social circumstance, could appreciate it as a highly skilled, well crafted, enjoyable to look at, and probably important work of art. What were they to do with a series of red circles, blue squares, and yellow triangles? To most people, this did not look like art. At this point it had become obvious that art was not for anyone and everyone but had evolved into its own highly symbolic language meant for a specific circle of people. In and of itself this is not a completely negative or even unexpected evolution. Art had, in effect, achieved a degree of self-awareness. This is true for a number of intellectual or creative pursuits; although unlike music, literature, and theatre, which must, to some degree, appeal to enough people to remain economically viable, art could continue to be a resource that was limited to its particularly affluent community members. This does not mean that every artist could make a comfortable living easily, but unlike an author, who might write a book or two a year, and would need to sell thousands of copies, a successful artist could create a few pieces a year and manage to live quite comfortably. Art was not beholden to public support, though it demanded it, so it did not need to appeal to the general public. This is a generalization, but it applies well enough to be considered and distilled to its essence meant that art did not need large numbers of adherents to survive. It just needed enough of certain people. Examining the complete story of how art, both intentionally and unintentionally, decoupled itself from general society and positioned itself as an endeavor only fully understood by certain people, while maintaining its cultural importance as a whole is fascinating but detailed research, so we will move on. The important thing to remember here is that art has disconnected itself from accountability to society as a whole, as well as any specific definition, but retains its general relevance as important to society and the human condition.
We are also introduced during this time to the proposition that everyone is an artist and that anything can be art, but that not everyone is an artist and that not everything is art. This seems very egalitarian, and was a clever way to sidestep the issue of having set and clear parameters for art, but is also very confusing, because where does this leave us? How can we tell if something we are looking at is an art object or not? If there is no clear and understood standard, how can we merely look at a visual object and determine whether or not it is art? The short answer is, we can’t. We must be told, or at least you must be told. As an artist, historian, and critic with degrees and certifications to prove it, I am among those with the ability to label an object art or not. And even this is subject to disagreement, which eventually boils down to a numbers game or a popularity contest. If I say something is not art, but if Modernist art critic Clement Greenburg, as an example, says it is, he likely wins.
This is why, if you go to the art supply store to buy a canvas, and see one with a tear in it, this is a defective product and not art, but if an artist cuts a slash in a canvas and hangs it in a museum, it becomes art. What is the difference? Well, one was cut intentionally, and one was the result of being dropped, obviously. This is the difference, and, it is argued, the important distinction between the two. One was done intentionally to make a statement or a point using the esoteric language of the visual arts, the other an everyday accident. However, if someone secretly switches the places of the two, then the art becomes trash and the trash becomes art, and no one is the wiser. Art professionals would now argue the validity of the accidentally damaged canvas as an art object, and the intentionally constructed one would be discarded. This is an extreme example, but a very plausible one. Case in point is the found art object. An artist finds something that looks interesting to them, places it on a pedestal or hangs it on a wall in a museum, and suddenly it is art and has a given meaning. I will say, as a qualifier here, that hundreds of people may have passed by that very object and that only the artist saw it as interesting and having possibilities. I do not want to delegitimize or downplay the importance of imagination and creativity in the art process, and there are any number of things that most people see no value in that another might find worthy of commentary, but still, that is most likely limited to some aspect of social critique on inherent value, consumer culture, or the like, and it has been done many times over. Also, the fact does remain that said object was not created for the purpose of being an art object, it was simply appropriated as one.
So, what does all this mean? What is the effect of this chain of events and rationalization? Where does this leave us as to our definition, the question we are trying to answer? Quite simply that there is no definition of art, other than that what those in the art community say is art. There are no inherent qualities that an object possesses, or even can possess, that make it art. There is no definition of art that can be used to objectively evaluate whether a thing is art or not just by looking at it. It is determined rather by particular group of people, with a certain set of training, and a certain mindset that utilizes an often arbitrary and continually evolving set of conditions and parameters. The average person is deemed unqualified to be able to distinguish as to why a well-executed and lovely oil painting of flowers is not art, while a stained mattress with rumpled dirty bedclothes laying on the floor is. It is simply that way because the learned experts say it is.
Godspeed,
