What isn't "art?"

[John Kasaian]

I meant to say "...marble statue of a nude...";-)

[Scott Fleming]

I don't think we can define art by what it isn't. Not to say we cannot list a whole lot of things that are not art. Art is the expression of the human soul. If one is an atheist then it is the expression of ones feelings or thoughts. Art has so many definitions as to be infinite and one man's art is another's silliness. Repro-art although cheap and silly is still art. Kincaid coppies styles and techniques from masters whose originals are worth millions. If you took a man out of a dungeon after years of isolation and let him view a Kincaid print from twenty feet it would probably make him cry ... if he still had a mind. Or if one had been raised by wolves such a painting would evince an emotional response.

Perhaps we should speak of the best art ... or of the worst. I might not want to look at it or read it or hear it but even the very worst art ... ugly art ... may lead one to the sublime by pointing up opposites. Driving those inflicted by it's debauchery in a positive direction. Personally this is not my calling but I can grasp the concept. Even those making and consuming art for the worst reasons however do not render, what I would think of as negative art, non art.

Being religious and of an emotional bent I wish to make art that leads one toward the sublime directly. Or perhaps just mirrors my own personal glimpse of the sublime. I could be a snob and say that art that does not reflect or reach for the majestic is not art but I believe there exists negative art ... even black art or .... dare I say, evil.

C.S. Lewis had a lot to say about the art of man. He thought we could understand a society (or sub-society) by observing it's art. He saw some men as headed toward darkness and anti-life and using art as a means to that end. I'm sure a psycopath views his murderous escapades as art. Art is the expression of the soul. It is usually employed as a means to influence the minds of men ... even control them. The best art encourages freedom with responsibility. The worst .... enspires all that is ugly about man.

I can imagine the cessation of all art and that would be death or non existence. Total lack of expresson. Perhaps if one living is imagining total nothingness there is art there in that it inspires something within that one's mind.

Perhaps we could define non art as that which has no purpose to express or copy that which expresses emotion. So I don't think we can help to define art by what it is not. All we end up with is a long list of things that are not art. Like defecating or eating a bologne sandwich.

[Struan Gray]

Here's what art isnt: it isn't a material property.

Instead, art is a behaviour: art is that which we treat as art.

Of course, that raises a whole raft of questions, such as how exactly do we treat art, who is 'we', and why should my tax money be spent on someone else's behaviour; but for me, the most important question is whether what is art for me is also art for anyone else. If so, just how many people have to agree with me before we have a de-facto fact: ART so established that even if you don't like it you agree to call it art.

This is very circular and self-referential, but it's the only way to stay sane in a world where a C11th century reliquary and a hole torn in horse chestnut leaves are both called 'art'.

[paulr]

There's actually another relevent question besides "is it good art."
That is: "Is it important art?"

Good and important have shown themselves to be different animals entirely.
Import of a piece is easier to demonstrate. It can be measured by the degree to which the piece or the body of work influences future art, artists, and viewers of art. There's a certain amount of art that exists primarily to comment on the art of the time, and to influence the art that's to immediately follow. Much of the conceptual work of the 60s and 70s fits this description.

Was the snow shovel that Duchamp hung from the ceiling of the Modern "good?"
If you asked him, I think he'd suggest that you're missing the point by asking.
Was it important? Without question--history bears this out.

By my own ideas and standards, Cindy Sherman's work isn't all that good. But it's undeniably important to the recent history of the medium. Some of the anachronistic, Ansel-derivative landscape work that's been discussed here strikes me as very good. But it couldn't be less important.

I believe that "great" is a term reserved for work that scores high marks as both "good" and "important."

[Kirk Gittings]

In all honesty, I know it when I see it.

I think it was Mao who said "because I can call myself a helicopter, it doesn't mean I can fly". Who decides what flies in art? Each individual.

The difficulty in defining art reflects my ambivilence with offering graduate degrees in art. This is a system (MFA) that I have participated in since 1969 in one way or another. Yet how can you offer a graduate degree in something that is unquantifyable? Master of Fine Art. I have one, I help other people get one, I sometimes decide if someone deserves one. Yet I can't tell you exactly what art even is.

Yet the best I can do is say that I know it when I see it. Pathetic.

[Struan Gray]

Paul, I have often wondered: if you were to have an exhibition of landmark art from the twentieth century, would you need to exhibit Duchamp's actual urinal? Could you get away with one just like it? Or would any old urinal do, provided it was mass produced?

I'm sure many would insist on seeing Duchamp's original urinal, which seems to me to miss his point by a statute mile. Despite all the happenings, installations and piles of rocks in remote deserts, people in general keep insisting that art should be a thing they can kick like a rock. This thread is further proof. Perhaps they are right.

[paulr]

<<Paul, I have often wondered: if you were to have an exhibition of landmark art from the twentieth century, would you need to exhibit Duchamp's actual urinal? Could you get away with one just like it? Or would any old urinal do, provided it was mass produced?

I'm sure many would insist on seeing Duchamp's original urinal, which seems to me to miss his point by a statute mile. Despite all the happenings, installations and piles of rocks in remote deserts, people in general keep insisting that art should be a thing they can kick like a rock. This thread is further proof. Perhaps they are right.>>

Well, Duchamp agreed with you, and the funny thing is, the curators at the museum (at the time) did miss the point.
This is a true story: a member of the staff at MoMA actually broke his snow shovel while installing the exhibition. Now, don't ask me how someone with training in handling priceless masterpieces managed to break a snow shovel, but they did. So what did they do? Filled with fear and embarrassment, they reported the bad news to Duchamp. Who replied, "well, get another one." The curators were shocked and said they could't. Duchamp said, "look, just go down to the hardware store on 49th street and get one of the red ones. That's what I did." But the staff said that just wouldn't be right; it had to be HIS snow shovel. So, annoyed and perplexed, Duchamp had to go to the hardware store and get another one.

Now, this interchangeability isn't a condition of ALL art, but it was fundamental to the point of Duchamp's idea-based piece. And as you pointed out, it was very easy for people to completely miss the point. I think the conceptual artists of the 80s completely missed the point. Artists like Sherry Levine, rephotographing other people's work--this was a similar illustration of a concept. And it was important. Once. But she kept going with it. Kind of like Duchamp spending the rest of his career hanging different color shovels. He didn't. Because he got it.

[JohanHB]

Hi John,

"The maker is composed of matter and is constantly in motion. Whatever comes from the maker's core then is also both matter and motion, right? Even if it is a spoken word or thought, some electrons have to be jumpin' the in the grey matter. Nothingness then, can't be "made," not by any human being I know of anyway, and if we accept Domenico's view that art comes from the inner core of the maker, nothingness couldn't be art., could it? "

If you accept the absence of human beings then of course nothingness couldn't be art, but since we can discuss the question; "nothingness couldn't be art., could it?" and "what isn't art?" we display concepts and the idea that we can understand them and make it interpretable.

That for me is giving form to a creation expressed by the art of philosophy. I'm not a philosopher for I am the product of an illusory form of art called life.

Kindest regards,

Johan

[Paul Fitzgerald]

Hi there,

You cannot prove a negative so I do not think you can define art by what it is not. I do not think "self", "money", "popularity" or "fashion" have ANY place in or with art. I with have to re-read this entire string, there are some fairly good ideas here.

Smile

[Graeme Hird]

Graeme: The problem I see with this is, say you have a digital image and print fifty of them from the same file---each identical to the other. Does that make it not "art" since each print lacks unique personal expression or consideration beyond the first print?



That's a good point. I think the art is in creating the original, but since each print is an exact replica of the first print, then they must all be considered art (the art is in the creation, the craft is the production of each print. I don't think they are the same thing).



In that sense, I think it is valid to compare a print with a recording of music or the production of a movie - in each case the performance of the score has only taken place once but the tangible work (the CD, vinyl, DVD or print) could still be considered art. It's the performance which is appreciated by the viewer or listener, rather than the medium via which it is delivered in these instances.



But what do you do about an actor on stage? They might produce a masterful performance for 200 nights in a row, but each is a replication of the previous night's performance. Is it art, or are they simply reproducing something in a formulaic manner? I can't answer that.



Robert: What Graeme said.

Now, that answer is pure art!