anything beautiful created by human beings is art. period.

the golden gate is art. a threaded bolt and its nut are art.
the mona lisa is art. the smiley face. and the nike swoosh.

the difficult question is "what makes something beautiful?"

-bowerbird

> fashion, graphic design, dance and whether
> this disciplines can be considered to be art

It's a complex subject and you'll hear different opinions. But in terms of graphic design, there is some overlap with the art world but there are also many differences, including the fundamental goals.

• The artist is concerned with self expression; the designer is concerned with communicating info on behalf of a client.

• The artist often picks his (or her) own projects, but the graphic designer receives specific assignments from clients.

• The artist usually works alone; the designer often works as part of a team with writers, photographers, illustrators, printers, etc

• The artist doesn't want anyone tampering with their artistic vision; the designer routinely makes revisions based on client feedback.

• The artist hopes their work will be saved and treasured; the designer's work is usually more short term and most things you design will end up in the trash after they're used. (In fact one of my professors liked to show a picture of a trash can and say, "no matter how good your work is, most of it will end up here, and if you can't live with that you're going into the wrong profession"

• The artist can legitimately say that they don't care what anyone thinks of their art, but the designer's work is a failure (at least to some extent) if the intended audience doesn't understand the message they were hired to communicate.

Now you can certainly think of exceptions to all of those points, and there are many graphic designers who are talented artists, but in general art and design are different in many ways.

“Art is anything you can get away with”

Julian Stallabrass (Art Lite) was interested in this question, with regards to the sensational, Turner Prize winning "Brit Art" of Damien Hirst &c., which, of course, defied the traditional descriptors (that, after all is what modern artists do, redefine art). He came to the conclusion that no objective descriptions were possible of the art/not art variety, and the only thing the art works had in common was that they were all created by people who had been to art school.

My typefaces are art (I went to art school).

Some typefaces have recently been "acquired" by the Museum of Modern Art, although that institution has yet to describe them in proper artspeak.

I greatly disagree with Nick Shinn's definition, which is a fairly universal one of you ask the top tier of art professionals - it places all the political power over the definition of aesthetics in the hands of powerful institutions, where art schools (and if not art schools then museums, galleries etc.) are the sole arbiters of what is art or not.

There's a whole lot of different art definitions going on, the classic (and well-deservedly savaged) one of which is Kant's, who first made the distinction of Form (ie. Art) and Function being two different and opposing forces, thus art being what didn't add directly to function. By that definition, of course, graphic design is generally not art, and type design practically never is.

My own take: art is an expression of a thought that cannot be expressed in words alone. If your idea cannot be described in speech, and it keeps eluding efforts to precisely pin it down with words, then it's art. :)

http://www.typophile.com/node/76016#comment-450167

It's art if I say so.

@bowerbird:
anything beautiful created by human beings is art.

What about a baby?

Of course, there, one can argue about the meaning of "created", and swiftly descend into theology.

How about this as a closer attempt at a definition:

Art is that which is designed, shaped, or crafted by human beings, with the intent of making it beautiful, expressive, or meaningful.

That, at least, excludes that which exists due to human action, but the beauty of which is incidental to any human action involved - and allows for art that might be disturbing or shocking instead of beautiful, but which has "something to say".

I greatly disagree with Nick Shinn's definition…

How is that possible, as I didn't give it?
(I noted an observation by Julian Stallabrass.)

Sure, I said that my typefaces are art, but that isn't a definition either.

It's art if I say so.

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master — that's all.'

anything beautiful created by human beings is art. period.

the golden gate is art. a threaded bolt and its nut are art.
the mona lisa is art. the smiley face. and the nike swoosh.

the difficult question is "what makes something beautiful?"

What an absurd definition!

Art is not necessarily beautiful. But if, would the explosion of a fusion bomb, which looks beautiful, be also art? Or a photo taken from the explosion of a fusion bomb? Neither nor! And if the main aspect of art is beauty, why is it relevant then, that it was created by a human? The question “Who has made it?” should be unimportant for the viewer/smeller/taster/listener/toucher. With regard to that question it’s enough, if you can affirm, that the questionable object could have been created not just by chance. In other words, if you run a computer program, that unintelligently creates one trillion images, from which one exactly looks like the Mona Lisa, it is as good as the Mona Lisa.

In case of typefaces they mostly have the function to transmit concrete information. If these typefaces would be a kind of projection surface for mind and soul of the viewer, they would not be legible anymore. The very most typefaces are not art. But this does not mean, that the creative process of a typeface designer can be similar to the creative process of an artist.

My typefaces are art (I went to art school).

Some typefaces have recently been "acquired" by the Museum of Modern Art …

That hopefully was a joke, because it sounds like: On TV they have said, that there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And because they said it on TV, it must be true.

Ugh, is this a freshman philosophy seminar?

It's art if I say so.

Absolut yes and absolute no. I think, the courage for dictatorship and intolerance is important with regard to the question, if a concrete object or action is art. Art is not as you like. The dictatorship does not commit the dictator to like the piece of art. There are a lot of things, from which many people claim, that they are art, although they are only fucking shit or only beautiful or only entertaining.

The very most typefaces are not art. But this does not mean, that the creative process of a typeface designer can be similar to the creative process of an artist.

Correction: The very most typefaces are not art. But this does not mean, that the creative process of a typeface designer can not be similar to the creative process of an artist.

@Arno - Absolut yes and absolute no.

Of course (and I should have mentioned it explicitly upstream) I can and do only speak for myself. People's opinion of what is art differs. Even I know that.

Art is a commodity. When the market that controls the sales and distribution of art says a thing is art, then it is art.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbQ0GqX0Its

BTW, why ask type designers what art is?

With over 15 years of art college this horse is so dead the question doesn’t even come up any more. The end of the discussion is everything is art if you can contextualize/rationalize it. Just study 20th century art history. Some of my personal favorite include Artist’s Shit, Bottle Rack and the IKB series.

Two years ago, one of the graduating MFA’s from NSCAD University did absolutely nothing for his thesis. No work, no invitation for his exhibition, he didn’t even show up. And he got his degree. I saw an applicant to the department describe his thesis exhibition where in the gallery, he had his grandmothers bed to which he hot-glue gunned glass eyes and buttons. When you entered the room, you would trip an infrared wire which would make pubic hair fall from the ceiling. And he got a grant for it.

Heck, even I have pulled this off. In my undergrad, for a performance, I showed up to class in my bathrobe and let them watch me make a cup of coffee. They even sat there as the kettle came to a boil. The coffee cup was on a piece of plywood which I had broken the ends off. Surrounding the cup were 16 steel rods which I had sharpened and driven into the board. The spoon was welded to one of the bars so it couldn’t be removed. It was to ”symbolize the importance of security and exclusion in a family unit blah blah blah.”

I could go on for hours.

And if you think Jackson Pollock is strange, check out the recent documentary My Kid Could Paint That.

I also just discovered possibly the best website ever based on IKB.

Give a room full of MFAs an afternoon, and they could convince you that this thread, heck, even the act of me typing right now, is art. Trust me. It’s endless.

http://www.morenewmath.com/69

> I also just discovered possibly the best website ever based on IKB.

Just the site to put on screen while playing http://Dánarfregnir og jarðarfarir with Sigur Rós.

> I also just discovered possibly the best website ever based on IKB.

Looks like the font used is P22's Cage Silence.

If modern art is not modern anymore, how is it called then? Formerly modern art? Or formerly art? Or art? Have I to wait, until modern art becomes art or have I to hurry up, before it is not art anymore?

I give a fuck on art, that primary wants to provoke, that wants to symbolize anything, that primary wants to animate dialogues between empty creators and “consumers” or that only wants to satisfy the conceitedness of artist or “consumer” – except it is good. If the artist exactly knows the meanings of his piece of art or if a piece of art needs a manual, there already is something wrong – except the piece of art is good. Artists are not necessarily more creative or more sensible than designers. It is better to be a good designer than a bad artist. So, if you are designer, be a good designer instead of wasting your time with thinking about the question, whether you are an artist. If your product is shit, it does not become better, if you call yourself an artist. Artist is probably the most cheap job title.

I am more interested in the question, how creative processes work, than in attempts to finally clarify, what art is.

I remember a conclusion arrived at through the history of modern art, and similar to Nick's--"art is what artists make."

One can build a box and somehow it is not art. But if one builds a box and is reacting to the prior frivolities of say, Victorian or the like, then this puts it in context and can be considered art.

I can never wrap my head around it. For one, wouldn't it seem that in this case the art is only art because it's based on something else we already define as art. As if, this new art has no intrinsic value in and of itself but only by way of that relationship?

Two things I can think of have intrigued me lately on this question:
The 2007 Documentary "My Kid Could Paint That" as well as the recently Oscar-nominated, unfortunately not Oscar-winning (though that would be quite ironic and laughable) Banksy's "Exit Through the Gift Shop."

As Chris Dean was mentioning, art is one thing to us now and another to us later, and quite another all together by the time we're dead. We always look back and say, "Well, yes, that was art." regardless of if the people then thought it was definitely not art.
It's constantly changing.

So it is what we say it is in any given time and culture. However the distinction of fine art is usually that of having some loftier goals, a more theoretical or philosophical understanding that is trying to be conveyed. And it is for that reason alone I imagine they exist.

Commercial arts may from time to time approach those values, but they are inspired by money alone.

I think artists like to make money, and hope to, but their desire to create art is not driven by it.

Commercial arts may from time to time approach those values, but they are inspired by money alone.

Might it not be a loftier goal to create something practical, rather than silly, sensational and crudely made?

Art is that aspect of a thing that is extra-utile, i.e. that is not functional but is the focus of our aesthetic sense, our delight in beauty and ideas. Art as a class of object, refers to things whose character is wholly or almost wholly extra-utile. Such objects, like anything else we make, require craft (skilled making) to be effectively realised: it doesn't matter how clever the artist's idea or how beautiful his conception if he can't realise it. Just as art requires craft, everything that human beings consciously make is tinged with some degree of art, some extra-utile quality. Humans are aesthetic creatures, and when we make judgements about how to form a thing, no matter how quotidianly functional the object in question, we include aesthetic criteria. Some objects leave little room for art, of course, because their function really does define their form, but seldom is an extra-utile component entirely absent.

[And if that sounds familiar, it’s because I copied and pasted it from the last time we had this conversation on Typophile.]

Point well taken, Nick. Though I do not believe such things would have to be either silly, sensational, or crudely made. But I know what you mean.

quadiblock said:
> What about a baby?

that's something created by nature. so it's _nature_, not _art_.

but a baby _is_ beautiful, so you were on the right track there...

nature creates awesomely beautiful stuff -- mountains, ladybugs,
waterfalls, nuclear explosions, non-nuclear explosions, bumblebees,
our circulatory system, ken jennings, flowers, the man in the moon,
green grass, buffalo, microbes, giraffes, banksy, supernovas, valleys,
and those pretty blonde curls atop the head of my lovely girlfriend...

art is a feeble and failed attempt by humans to match mother nature.

-bowerbird

p.s. there's an old saying among my close friends: "poetry sucks."
we were _delighted_ when one of my friends added: "art swallows."

John, I agree, but... Art doesn't necessarily require craft. An object becomes the object of art, not only because of the decision of the artist, but also in the choice made by another person (so, not always skilled making but also choosing, vide your example of a stone tool). Two: some art activities don't require any workshop skills.

@ alexus

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Is this spam or do you want to tell me, that Nike shoes are pieces of art? They are not pieces of art. That’s just design, even not good design in case of the most models, not less and not more.

I assume, with those shoes you are looking like someone, who threads down octopuses. They are only a bad copy of the original.

@ bowerbird

art is a feeble and failed attempt by humans to match mother nature.

Nonsense!

An object becomes the object of art, not only because of the decision of the artist, but also in the choice made by another person (so, not always skilled making but also choosing, vide your example of a stone tool).

I don’t think so, because the creative process is not absolute conscious. And as better you master your tools, as better you can make use of your subconscious, because you have not constantly and consciously to think about, what your hands have to do. In the creative process you switch between different states of mind. From this point of view you already are different persons in the creative process, creator and observer. At least that’s my personal experience. This probably varies from person to person. There is something, which is holy, in the creative process. Art is not in competition to nature, but an attempt to feel home in nature, while nature is the universe and art is part of the universe as even everything else. But this can be also valid for the creative process of design. The difference is, that design has a much more clearly defined function and design always must bow to the function. Design is surface. It is not less important than art, but it is not the same. If you have to bow, it is a bit harder to feel like God, the ultimate creator. (I don’t believe in God.)

Everything done is done by design.

Everything.

I don't care if it's a typeface or a canvas or a whatever ...everything is done by design.

Period.

Marcin: An object becomes the object of art, not only because of the decision of the artist, but also in the choice made by another person (so, not always skilled making but also choosing, vide your example of a stone tool).

I disagree, but perhaps because we're talking about slightly different things. An object may be called ‘art’ for a variety of reasons -- one of which is that someone has put it in an art gallery --, but what I am talking about is art as a quality of the object: a quality of aesthetic artifice, i.e. of its making.

Re. the Olduvai stone tool: I don't think this is ‘art’, because its functional purpose is so obvious and overriding, unlike a painting. Rather, it is an object that demonstrates the extra-utile, asthetic quality that I think is seldom completely absent from anything that humans make.

@John
Now I understand. In Polish there are two terms used. The first means pure, inutile "art" and I always think of it when I see the English word. The other term means "artistry, craft, craftmanship, skill", some proficiency that can be used in "art" as a tool. That's why for some of my friends "applied art" sounds oxymoronic. (I admit that I also would be a bit embarrassed to hear that "everything around us is art". I'd have to ask for more explanations). For me personally, the word "art" means (doing / making consciously) something absolutely unnecessary. Introducing aesthetic quality into an object can be described as "art"; no doubt.

Personally, I find function to be artistic in it's own right. "Art" is a term which is completely subjective and impossible to quantify or qualify. The entire debate falls into the realm of philosophy which can be debated until everyone goes home mad. Art is whatever the "artist" can convince others to be art.

When I was in college, I loved this debate because it was so easy to get a room full of "artists" worked into a frenzy.

Garabond, just out of morbid curiosity, why did you ask this question in a type forum? I would think that there are bound to be far better venues for this type of debate - back at the coffee shop maybe or a nice pub.

art is freedom

Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.

We can draw a line here: a broom you can sweep floor with is a design, a broom that is useless is a piece of art. A typeface you can read is a design. A typeface you can't read is art.
As once the guys from typography explained me the difference between a book and a booklet - you put it on the edge, if it falls it's a booklet.

James: Personally, I find function to be artistic in it's own right. "Art" is a term which is completely subjective and impossible to quantify or qualify.

You don't need to be able to quantify or qualify something in order to have a concept of its distinguishing characteristics and be able to talk meaningfully about it. I have suggested what seems to me a very sound definition of art as an extra-utile aesthetic quality of human creations. We don't need to know what percentage of an individual creation is utile and what percentage art, nor do we need to make judgements about whether it is good or bad art.

When you say that you find function to be artistic, I think what you really mean is that there are elements of utility that you respond to aesthetically. I'm not saying that only the extra-utile is beautiful, I am saying that only the extra-utile is art. There is beauty in much that is not art.

There's a lost distinction between artist and artisan, which leads to confusion between art and creativity.

There was a show on a few days ago where guys were restoring a classic car and as they worked the body lines down to a smooth finish, they declared it art. Well, no. They are talented craftsmen, and there's a great skill and technique to it, but it's not art. If everything is art, nothing is—like if everything is bold and underlined to stand out and be important, nothing stands out as important.

In an interview with Moby several years back a question about whether DJs make music made a good point for how I see things. Paraphrased: "What DJs do is creative, it isn't music, but it is creative."

Are many things creative? Yes. Does it take great skill and ability? Yes. It is art? No.

John, your definition works within the boundaries of your culture and your culture's aesthetics. Other cultures or individuals might find no value aesthetically or otherwise in what you might call art. I agree that beauty and art are different subjects. Many things that are deemed artistic are disturbing and even abhorrent to some people. That still means that art is defined by the individual or the culture as an entity. Perhaps a more precise definition would be - that quality of a object which stirs the aesthetic and emotional sense of the viewer or viewers, possibly beyond the utility of its function (or lack there of.)

Of course that takes away some of the mysticism that artists like to robe themselves with.

Let's define exactly what we mean by the words, "useful", "Utilitarian", "Functional" and all those other words people use when trying to explain what art is which imply that art is a frivolous pastime. We humans have been making art since we were living in caves and the most lethal weapon we could think of was a heavy stick. To me, defining art as something with no apparent purpose misses the mark by a country mile.

John, your definition works within the boundaries of your culture and your culture's aesthetics. Other cultures or individuals might find no value aesthetically or otherwise in what you might call art.

You're still not getting it. What I am calling art is the extra-utile quality of what humans make which appeals to the delight in beauty. Since this extra-utile quality of the made thing is, first and foremost, something that appeals to the delight of the maker, it is entirely irrelevant to the definition if someone else, whether from a different culture or the same culture, shares that delight.

Of course that takes away some of the mysticism that artists like to robe themselves with.

I'm all for taking away mysticism. Art is a quality of making, and while that quality has degrees -- including both failure and exceptional genius -- it is born of the same impulse in a painting as in baking a cake.
_____

There was a show on a few days ago where guys were restoring a classic car and as they worked the body lines down to a smooth finish, they declared it art. Well, no. They are talented craftsmen, and there's a great skill and technique to it, but it's not art.

See, I would say that there is art in the work, regardless of whether the object is something classed as art. There are elements in the original making of the car, and quite possibly in the restoration, that are extra-utile, that are unnecessary for the function of the object, but which appeal to sensory aesthetic delight. There isn't really another word for the quality of those elements except art.

The class of objects called ‘art’ is something else, and I strongly recommend a distinction between art as a quality of objects and art as a category of objects. I would define objects as ‘art’ if either they lack objective function beyond their aesthetic enjoyment or their objective function is minimal relative to their aesthetic value. This invites a kind of holistic engagement with objects, because while something like an aboriginal mask might be appreciated only as an art object by a non-native observer, he can and should be aware that it also served a functional role in its original society.

See, I would say that there is art in the work, regardless of whether the object is something classed as art. There are elements in the original making of the car, and quite possibly in the restoration, that are extra-utile, that are unnecessary for the function of the object, but which appeal to sensory aesthetic delight. There isn't really another word for the quality of those elements except art.

I had a conversation like this about boxing. A friend said boxing was art because of the skill required and the finesse used. I said no, there is an art to boxing, but boxing is not art. Quality of execution doesn't automatically make something art.

I design letters using my hands, it doesn't make me a calligrapher.

Something being beautiful doesn't make it art either, and being art doesn't mean it's beautiful. Yes, there is great subjectivity is what one would classify as art, and time and context make a difference as well, but just because there is skill in the work doesn't make it art. That doesn't make an object any less worth while either, it's context. Artistic, skillful, quality, amazing, but not "art".

It may be the conversation of art versus Art. Or art versus Fine Art. I'm protective of both. If some yokel painted a copy of a soup can label I designed and became famous for it, that'd just make me cranky.

art cranky! he was on "the honeymooners" with jackie gleason, right?

-bowerbird

Then, secondo me:
- exact revival of cancellaresca isn't art;
- typeface revealing some hidden aspects of cancellaresca or those times, I mean work that tells something new behind technical aspects - is art.
- exact revival of cancellaresca made by someone who claims "I did it, because I think that copying someone's handwriting for mass reproduction is stupid" - is art.

Art is craft superfluous to function.

Yes, "craft superfluous to function" is a good short definition of art.

A broom can still be a work of art, even if it sweeps the floor well, if effort was also put into making it look good, for example.

Almost all typefaces, therefore, are works of art - because aesthetics is a consideration that can hardly be ignored in typeface design. Of course, that's because it's bound up with function - so the line is perhaps more profoundly blurred there than in many other places.

Art is craft superfluous to function.

nonsense. of course art has a function.

Here is a good approach to a definition of the art term. The article is in German.

There is also a proposal for a short definition of the term. I think, there is much truth in that short definition, but if you don’t already have an idea of the meaning of the term, the definition does not help. But as longer I think about the short definition, as more I come to the conclusion, that it is precise. I am trying to translate it:

Art aestheticises the antinomies of life without resolving them. It is ingenious objectivity.

(“Kunst ästhetisiert die Antinomien des Lebens, ohne sie aufzulösen. Sie ist geniale Objektivität.”)

The second phrase sounds a bit paradox, because there is probably nothing as subjective as ingenuity. But I already wrote in a former comment, that art is not any (“beliebig” in German) and that art is a dictatorship. It is objective, because humans are conflicting beings with regard to their evolutionary stage. On the one side they are conscious and intelligent. But on the other side they are inable to understand the origin and the sense of the world. Humans are intermediate beings. So art is the attempt to feel home with this conflict and to remind this conflict. And in contradiction to that design is the attempt, to forget the conflict by covering it with beauty or by adjusting objects to the human anatomy. Art is also an attempt to surmount the own mortality.

@ russellm

So then- what is the function of a work of art?
If you want a portrait of a loved one, you could just snap a picture- or you could hire a portrait photographer. What would the difference be? I am saying that there is a gap between what is needed and what is a work of art.

I have always self-identified as an artist, but I am paid to be a craftperson, so this issue has been quite pressing in my thoughts. If I am asked to provide the graphics for an ad with a fourty-five minute deadline- I will not be producing art, though what I provide will be servicable. Given a week, I might squeeze some art into the project. I think this distinction is important. Also, to make the point that art is not 'whatever I say is art', but some quality that transcends funtionality. Quality. I assert that insomuch as something is art, it has a quality that transcends its funtion.

Making a font legible is a craft.
Making a font beautiful is an art.

(and I am more and more interested in craft)

Didn't we just have a thread about the importance of a professional (expert) distinction between the meaning of "font" and "typeface"?
This discussion is decidedly quaint and amateurish.
But you might say, should the views of only those with professional qualifications or experience in art be taken seriously?
I would say yes—that's how it is with other disciplines.
Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion.
And you might consider yourself an artist, even though you are not a professional artist.
Designers are not, de facto, artists (although a few are also artists).
When an artist says "this is art", and the art community recognizes it as such, it must be art.
It's absurd to argue otherwise—with abstract, philosophical generalizations about the veracity of "whatever I say is art, is art".

When an artist says "this is art", and the art community recognizes it as such, it must be art.

Not really. There are many thousands of objects, that are called art by their creators and viewers, although they are banal. I just remember the guy with the doors on one of the last Documentas. Maybe his door construction was art (before it has crashed because of his inability and his defiance of statics), but it was banal. Maybe too banal for being art; it was pure shit, superfluous, a waste of material and a waste of energy for the transport. As I already said, if an artists explains, that he wants to symbolize anything, it is already suspicious. I am not interested, if someone wants to symbolize anything, but at most, if he symbolizes anything. On the other said – if you don’t know, whether a certain object is art, it is not necessarily art, because you don’t know, whether it is art. It is on you to classify the object, but not on a community. Art is not made for communities, but for the artist, although most artists want to have feedback. They don’t do it primary for you, but for themselves. Art is the deep need of artists, but not just pastime, in which you symbolize a bit, or a job. It is not a definition, if it requires other persons for the classification. The definition can not be “Ask somebody else”.

When an artist says "this is art"

And who’s saying “this is an artist”? Who/what is an artist, anyway?

See outsider art. By this definition, anyone can be an artist. And don’t forget about folk art.

John, I think there's a problem in defining art as the non-useful part of something. Causing delight or enjoyment or interest makes something useful because we want those experiences. In economics "utility" would include aesthetic pleasures. I'm not saying I agree with the economists' way of looking at these things, but I think that shows there's a problem with your definition. I think more is needed in describing or distinguishing the aesthetic experience, if you're going to avoid a circular definition.

@Arno: Not really.
@riccard0: …who’s saying “this is an artist”?…

A certain sector of society—economically and socially—is composed of artists and those involved with their work.

Artists, who have studied at art schools, sell their work in art galleries with the help of art dealers, exhibit at art museums, receive arts council grants, are discussed in art magazines and art blogs, declare themselves as artists on their passports and tax returns—and you say that what they do for a living is not art?

and you say that what they do for a living is not art?

No, I say, that it is not necessarily art. You are talking about the market. I am talking about quality. And if the quality is on a very low level, it is not art. I remember, that I saw a chromed metal plate on the wall in a museum years ago. There were wholes in the plate, which looked like bullet impacts. What was the intention? I could and can only imagine one intention: There were no wholes in the origin work. And then a reviewer came and shot at the work, because it only was worth to shoot at it. But it neither was art before the shot nor it was after. It was simply expensive uncompostable bullshit. Bullshit cannot become an artwork, only someone claims, that it is art. Let’s assume now, my interpretation of the artwork is the same as the interpretation of the artist. In this case the intention is not less banal.

Nick, I think that in theory people who come out of art school can be paid for being artists even if what they produce isn't actually art, or at least art of any aesthetic merit. I do agree with John that there is an aesthetic dimension of experience that doesn't depend on whether you fit into the bourgeois box of the market for art labeled as such.

People could mistake something for art and pay for it out of their confusion. I think there's a certain segment of the art market that is distorted by speculators, and that kind of thing can happen. As you have pointed out, part of modern art has been stretching the notion of what art is. I suspect that in some cases it has been been stretched beyond being of aesthetic value, and in retrospect the market will be seen as a speculative bubble that bursts. Has this already happened?

> And if the quality is on a very low level, it is not art.

It seems to me that many of the arguments and descriptions being bandied about (of which the quoted is only one example) seem intent on circumscribing Art in such a way that there can be no admittance of the concept of *bad* art.

With the exception of Nick's provocative definition.

@Arno: You are talking about the market.

I am talking about society.

@Kent: Nick's provocative definition.

Provocative? This is the definition of the establishment, the status quo, the government: if it says on someone's college degree that they're an artist, and on their passport and their income tax return, then they are legally an artist, and what they do for a living is art.

One may think that their work is a sham and the quality is terrible, and one might not like what modern art has become, but it is still art.

When an "artist" says "this is art" - this is art.
When someone else says "this is art" - this is also art.
The rest is just art economy.

Someone told me a few days ago, that art isn't comfortable for the contemporary society, so he can see some kind of (unplanned) change of places between 'culture' and 'art'. It's like the culture used to be something that we used to be with, and meanwhile the art inspired. Now everything has to 'inspire us' and just the art seems to be 'that usual and expectable thing'.

"Science fiction is anything published as science fiction."
– Norman Spinrad

(paraphrased from John W. Campbell, I think)

So far, I think Nick is closest to the truth. Hard to digest as it might be, one all encompassing theory (although not without its critics) is the institutional art theory, as formulated by George Dickie. Basically, an object can only be(come) art in the context of the institution known as "the artworld".
So anything can be art, as long as the context is legit. A typeface, a piece of poop.
That said I don't think it's particularly important for things I like/find beautiful and/or interesting to be art.

ƒ

Nick — Sorry, not “yours”, but the one you articulated; and “provocative” in the sense that it had been provoking reaction and objection in this thread, partly because it confronts those definitions that want to reserve the label Art as a value judgment.

Bill: John, I think there's a problem in defining art as the non-useful part of something. Causing delight or enjoyment or interest makes something useful because we want those experiences. In economics "utility" would include aesthetic pleasures.

In some branches of economics, yes, but that is because capitalism requires constant expansion of commodification: hence any experience, no matter how intimate eventually becomes a subject of economic activity. This kind of 'aesthetic utility' -- the ‘usefulness’ of providing aesthetic pleasure -- explains one aspect of the market for art objects (much of the art market, especially at the higher end, is clearly speculative investment), but it doesn't explain what art is as something that all human beings invest in the making of things, which is what interests me.

Perhaps it helps if I refine my definition like this: art is that quality of made things that appeals directly to the mental faculty for aesthetic engagement, and hence is extra-utile to any other functions that the things may have. The important point, for my perspective, is that art is an observable quality of what humans make, even if what is made is intended for quite quotidian purposes.

I've been advocating the Institutional definition (thanks for the word, Fredo), not because it's my singularly held personal view, but because it disproves philosophical theorizing as the be all and end all of art defining.

I have always thought that there are many ways to do most things, including art and defining it.

Shifting direction:

I'm thinking now about art in the sense of a class of made objects, as distinct from the aesthetic quality of human-made things in general. I suspect that this class contains too many sub-classes of both medium and genre to be easily defined other than in a nominalist way: art is everything that people choose to call art. Even so, I think this class of objects can be broadly considered in terms of the marriage of that aesthetic quality discussed above to a function of mental -- intellectual and/or emotional -- engagement. When I think about my own most intense experiences of works of art -- an afternoon spent at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, looking very carefully, for a long, long time at a small number of Rembrandt and Vermeer paintings -- what I am aware of is two things -- the aesthetic qualities (composition, colour, brushwork etc.) and the intellectual/emotional qualities (subject, sympathy) -- and then a third thing: the way in which these two are married in the object. Obviously, for different genres and media of art objects -- including literary and musical -- the particular qualities will vary in kind, but this sense of marriage of aesthetic and intellectual/emotional qualities remains, I think, one of the hallmarks of successful art. TS Eliot wrote of the moment, in writing poetry, when the poem came right with the sense of a box clicking shut, a perfectly manufactured fit of parts. I think a similar sense is enjoyed by the reader of the poem, or the viewer of a painting or the listener to a piece of music.

John, what do you make of the "elegant" mathematical solution to a problem?
Or the goal scored by spinarama or scissors kick? The slam dunk?

Are these "made things" that may have an aesthetic appeal, and hence be art?

Nick, the institutional definition appears to work neatly as a categorisation of the class of art objects. I think it is actually too narrow, in that it locates the definition of art within a particular econo-cultural phenomenon, ‘the artworld’, and ignores the many other contexts in which people all over the world, individually or collectively, call things art. The pure nominalist definition -- art is everything that people choose to call art -- seems to me both more generous and more accurate.

Again, though, these kinds of definitions work in terms of categorising art as a class of things; they don't contribute to an understanding of art as a quality that may be found in things that normally fall outside that class.

@Arno: You are talking about the market.

I am talking about society.

You are talking about a society, that accumulates its values by examining the market, a society, in which the initiation rite is the driver license examination. It is ridiculous to believe, that you are an artist just because you went to an art school. We are living in times, in which dull bastards like George W. Bush can become president of the United States. In other words, there is absolute no logical relation between your roles in the society and your competence anymore. Are certificates really all you need for estimating people? I simply met too many dense academics. I want to see, hear, smell, taste and touch art, but not certificates.

Nick, those are good questions. Note, however that I don't say that things are ‘art’ because they have aesthetic appeal; I say that art is that quality of things that has aesthetic appeal.

In the case of elegance in mathematics, I think there are two phenomena to consider: the elegance that is inherent in what the math describes, which is not something that the mathematician has made and hence not art -- it is, rather, like the aesthetic experience of nature --, and the elegance in the expression of the description, which I would say is art. Having spent some time working on mathematical typesetting and talking with mathematicians and scientists, I think there is very definitely an aesthetic awareness, even an aesthetic culture, that responds to the fittingness of expression to concept in the same way that one responds to the fittingness of expression to idea in e.g. painting.

In the case of beautiful athletic achievements, on the whole I would say that yes, the aesthetic quality may be a kind of art on the basis of practice and training. If I were somehow to succeed in placing a football in the net by throwing my legs over my head, that would be luck, and if it managed to be beautiful in the execution -- most unlikely! -- that would also be luck and, hence, its beauty would be the beauty of accident, not of intentional creation. Now the beauty of accident may accompany the beauty of art, and happy discovery may accompany painstaking craft in the making of anything, but for the artist -- and for the athlete as artist -- it is difficult to separate the momentary act from the months or years of preparation and experience. What may seem spontaneous might be the result of many, many hours of practice and training. I have a piece of calligraphy on my wall that took Gabriel Martínez Meave about five minutes to create, but its beauty is obviously the result of many years of practice and experience, so art is obviously not something that happens just within the act of creating an individual thing, but is built up over time so that it may be expressed in that thing; similarly, I'd say that the beauty we see in an athletic achievement may be the expression of developed skill. The fact that not all goals scored are beautiful -- some are merely functional; some may be clumsy or due to an fumble by the goalkeeper -- makes it clear that there can be an extra-utile, aesthetic quality to a goal, and insofar as this is the result of training and practice to be able to score goals in that way, I'd say it shows a kind of art.

Arno, the fact that culture and society are in the thrall of capital and corporations does not discount the Institutional definition of art.
We are social beings, and if our society says someone is an artist, that is the description we generally follow.
But if six, turned out to be nine, I don't mind.

It is ridiculous to believe, that you are an artist just because you went to an art school.

True, you also have to make a living at it.
However, it's not just art schools, but many other institutions in society.
You probably won't be considered a proper artist if you don't exhibit or sell your work—you will be considered an amateur.
If you have academic qualifications but struggle with a career, you are in a strange limbo.
But an education—in any field—is no guarantee of the classic job role. Many fine art graduates work in the art industry as non-artists, such as management, teaching, or curation. Or go into related fields such as fashion, film, or rock and roll. I went into advertising and design. If you apply for institutional grants, a certain kind of career trajectory will be expected, including peer recognition, i.e. exhibiting in peer-reviewed exhibitions.

I think the point of the "What is Art?" question, at least in philosophy, is to try to describe what is distinctive about the aesthetic experience, and the process of creating things or experiences that have aesthetic merit.

So John's description of art in terms of aesthetic experience, while sound, doesn't get at the issue. Nick's definition, though I'm sure useful for some purposes, doesn't doesn't address the question of understanding this dimension of human experience.

@ Nick

Quoting Reynir: It's art if I say so.

The phrase is true for me, if I say it. And it is true for him, if he says it. The phrase summarizes, what I wrote about the dictatorship of evaluation of art. He was very right with that phrase. It is irrelevant, what the society says, because in my opinion there is nothing, where an own opinion is more important than in case of the evaluation of art. Really, it already begins, when I am turning on the TV and stumble in one of these superstar casting shows. And the next artist is … – you probably cannot imagine, how much all this rubbish makes me sick. That’s society. I give a **** on society with regard to the evaluation of art. Our society is a casting show.

Let me tell you, what has happened to my father round about ten years ago. I have grown up in an artist household. My father is sculptor since 45 years – with education at art academies (with a studentship) and education to stonemason. His works are classical, but with an archaic, in the later years often with an utopical touch. I cannot explain it better, especially not in English and partly, because I always was more interested in two-dimensional art and in music. But I can see the high quality of his work. (My relationship to my father is troubled. I don’t have contact to him anymore.) One reason is, that there never was anything as important for him as his art – inclusively me. But he is a total DAU with regard to management. It begins with the condition of his toilette, which is unsuitable for potential buyers, and it ends with the inability to handle non-artificial paperworks without help. And so he did sell nothing for years. But he has offset the materials for his works or his atelier against tax. And then the taxman wanted to have a payment of tax arrears. Ground: „Because you did not sell anything in the last time, you are a hobbyist, but not an artist.“ And he lost the lawsuit. **** taxmen, **** Babbitts define, what art is. I remember, how I wondered, that he was relatively calm with regard to this infamy. If this had happened to me, I could have cut this **** taxman into little pieces and feed them to my cats. (Unfortunately I don’t have cats.)

Art is whatever anyone chooses to say it is. It is a muddy meaniless term in and of itself. Every application or dicipline has a different definition each valid in its own area of influence.

Art is also whatever and "Artist" says it is, if he or she can convince a peanut gallery of rubes, that's even better.

I have a nasty feeling that I'm just restating something someone else said, you have my apologies. Honestly, this debate is much more fun with a room full of artists and other such visionaries.

@Bill: I think the point of the "What is Art?" question, at least in philosophy, is to try to describe what is distinctive about the aesthetic experience, and the process of creating things or experiences that have aesthetic merit.

That may have been true 150 years ago, but then along came Ruskin with the idea of social purpose, and 50 years later, Duchamp:
"Whether Mr Mutt made the fountain with his own hands or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view—created a new thought for that object."
Duchamp removed aesthetics as a necessary quality of art. That was in 1917.
Many people felt that the cat should remain in the bag, but it was gone.

**

One of my favorite art theorist quotes (because of its typographic resonance) is by Hal Foster: "Each era is a palimpsest of emergent and residual forms."

Bill: I think the point of the "What is Art?" question, at least in philosophy, is to try to describe what is distinctive about the aesthetic experience, and the process of creating things or experiences that have aesthetic merit.

I know philosophers who have written on and taught courses in Aesthetics, and as far as I can gather they don't bother with ‘What is Art?’ as a question. As one of them has said to me ‘Art is what artists make, and some of it is rubbish’, i.e. the question of what art is is independent of aesthetic merit. The philosophical question of Aesthetics is ‘What is beauty?’

So John's description of art in terms of aesthetic experience, while sound, doesn't get at the issue.

I talked about my personal experience, by way of example, when discussing art as a class of object, but I didn't use the term when describing what I think art is as a quality. I suppose we can only know that quality experientially, but I would have to consider that the quality of extra-utile beauty in a particular thing may be beyond my experience or, even, beyond the experience of anyone now living, but that such a quality may still be presumed and to have been experienced by the maker. Whenever we see evidently deliberately fashioned aspects of a thing that are not explained by utility, we must, I think, presume that they may constitute art, even if we do not find them aesthetically pleasing.

Nick's definition, though I'm sure useful for some purposes, doesn't address the question of understanding this dimension of human experience.

Nor does it, as he suggested, end or bypass philosophical debate: it just shifts the grounds of debate from aesthetics or categories to socio-economics.

Nick: Duchamp removed aesthetics as a necessary quality of art.

I read the whole episode differently. It isn't necessary to have seen the famous urinal in order to experience the ‘new thought for that object’. The art is not the object, but Duchamp’s performance, including the exhibition of the object, the invention of the artist Mr Mutt and, not least, the critical commentary (probably not written by Duchamp, but clearly orchestrated as part of the performance) that purports to explain the meaning of event. Beautifully done.

http://hem.passagen.se/gkrantz/ett/artiklar/kjell.html

@John: Nor does it, as he suggested, end or bypass philosophical debate: it just shifts the grounds of debate from aesthetics or categories to socio-economics.

Socio-economics isn't philosophy.

@John: Beautifully done.

Curation as performance art?
I doubt that present day curators would like to be dragged down to that level.

John, the only book I've read on aesthetics, is R.G. Collingwood's Principles of Art, which is organized around the question "What is Art?" I think his discussions of discussions of philosophical idealism are a waste of time, but what he writes about art is quite wonderful and thought provoking. I'm sure he doesn't get it quite right, but it's a very interesting book.

>Duchamp removed aesthetics as a necessary quality of art.

Or did he succeed in selling something that wasn't art, but a statement about the politics and economics of the art market? Personally, such work has snob appeal and antiquarian value, but no artistic merit.

Art is something an artist compelled to make from notions within him/herself. That thing may be perceived as art or not by others. It may be a pile of donkey ßhit or or the most magnificently beautiful thing imaginable. It may be perceived as original or not. The REAL issue then is "What is an Artist"? First let's ask the Philosopher King. He will get back to you when he is done explaining himself.

Only Yogi Berra knows what art is. "It is what it is"

Urinals, amputations, starvation, and silence: Controversial art or just crap?

I don’t which I like better. The silent orchestra, or the people who sat through it.

And don’t forget about this guy.

That guys is one of my heroes.

...what about those guys?
Floor drawings from La Marche cave, Lussac-les-Chateaux.

Sigh. Nobody can tell ya what art is, but everybody will.

@ Nick

Duchamp removed aesthetics as a necessary quality of art.

Do you mess up aesthetics with beauty or picture and subject? Aesthetics are a necessary quality of art. If a self-appointed artist claims anything different, he only wants to cover his inaction and his vapidity.

Example:

It is taken from didierruef.photoshelter.com.

That’s probably more documentation than art, but with regard to the aesthetics it doesn’t matter. The image is beautiful, because it is very aesthetical. Because the photographer has taken the picture in that way. The image is very powerful and much more than beautiful. Assumed, it is not art – I am not sure, if it is – it doesn’t matter, because the effect would be exactly the same as if it would be art.

In contradiction to that, this …

… is pure beauty, although the event is likewise not beautiful. As beautiful it is, it already is decorative. Nothing against decoration, but art is more than decoration. The message amounts to nothing more than beauty. I think, art is always more than pure beauty.

I think, it is unimportant, whether an object really is art. It is much more important, whether it could be art. Why? Because art does not need manuals. Art is speaking for itself, although it naturally makes use of the experiences of the viewers – as everything. Objects of art, that need their creators for interpretation, are suspicious. It is not the artist, that is important, but only the result of his work. Art does not exist for worshiping the artists, but their work. Art, that is satisfying the vanities of the artist only, is suspicious, because vanities are a interference factor already during the creation. It is not important, what the artist wants to say, if he wants to say anything, but the effect to me is important. Often people call themselves artists, just because the term sounds ennobling in their simple minds. But there is absolute no duty to believe in the claim to be an artist.

People through out history have "made things" that later have been identified as being "Art". There has never been a Litmus test for any of these "designations" or a way to prove the authority of any of those people who made the anointed judgments. Some of these are collected in museums, others are in peoples homes, some have been condemned by powerful conservative politicians and banished from public funded politically correct museumdom. There have been lists made of "surely these are art" and "surely these are not art." If we confine ourselves to agreeing on objects that we consider art or not, we will never agree, even over time. The Sistine Chapel ceiling was, for many years, "dignified and deified" by having blue drapes painted over the naughty parts in Michaelangelo's original. Centuries later, at great cost and with some damage, they were removed.

I much prefer the original nonjudgmental method. Just "make stuff" and put it out in the world.

Those who can "make art" will, those that can't will judge, and those that hear the judgments will disagree or agree on their validity. After that, others will ponder the collection of judgments in search of the definitive Litmus test and fail. This will be repeated ad infinitum.

And as the Litmus test was discovered by medieval alchemists, it is still the domain of alchemy, this quest for Art. Meanwhile people do art, and reshape the meaning of art. I am deeply impressed by Santiago Sierra's works. His art is not only unaesthetic but also unethical. He uses managing skills to create total waste; and the more waste he makes to the artworld, the more the artworld admires him.

In his entire life, Vincent Van Gogh sold just one picture.

His art is not only unaesthetic but also unethical.

And another one, who messes up beauty with aesthetics. With regard to ethics I would like to differentiate between a) the message, b) the material (inclusively beings capable of suffering) and c) the immediate tangible content / the first impression / the surface.

a) If the conscious projected message dominates the creation, I would call it grandstanding or political design, dependent from the content. If the creator additionally and consciously tries to get attention by shocking people, the probability, that his creative resources are limited, is very high. And as I already said, I am interested in art, but not in artists. I don’t want to know about the personal antinomies of the artist, because I am not a psychiatrist, but I am interested in new perspectives of the antinomies of life – in profound aestheticised perspectives. The life of the artist is only interesting, because it is the basic requirement for continuing with making art. If the artist tries to catch up on his anal or urethral or prostatal or uteral phase with the help of me, I am mainly bored. I am really not fascinated by urinals, independent from their location and indepent from their hygienic condition. As I already told in a former message, my father’s urinal is just a by-product of his creativity. He simply invests his time in making art instead of cleaning his closet.

b) If beings capable of suffering are misused, the creative process is immoral, but not necessarily the object of art.

c) If the portrayal of the violation of an tabu is superficial only without anything behind – if the violation of an tabu is the message, I am likewise bored or amused about the simplemindedness of the creator. But it is not immoral. The methods can be immoral, but not the artwork. The violation of tabus is often inevitable, but it is never the basic message of artworks. Creators with a message are suspicious, anyway. A message is already something, that is reflected, but I am not interested in the message of the creator, but in the impact of the creation. So, go and stick up your “message” to your ass, if your message amounts to nothing more than you. As Oscar Wilde wrote in the prologue of The Picture of Dorian Gray, “art is never morbid”. And I am very sure, that Oscar Wild was able to see the beauty in the colors and structures and subtlety of mould. He did know the difference between self purpose and artistic necessity.

In his entire life, Vincent Van Gogh sold just one picture.

Yes. But that doesn’t evince (Lol!), that objects, which are unrecognized as art during the entire lives of their creators, are unrecognized, just because the time is not yet ripe. Sometimes they are simply shit. And sometimes shit is recognized as art.

And another one, who messes up beauty with aesthetics.
I don't, I just use common terms.

Works that "break tabu" are usually stupid, I agree. But anyway, tabu can be a medium, like painting or sculpture, so why not to work with it? Why to paint sunsets instead of breaking tabus? A well broken tabu can be much better than a landscape.

Why to paint sunsets instead of breaking tabus? A well broken tabu can be much better than a landscape.

Tabus should not be broken just for dragging attention. Break a tabu, if you are driven to break it, or, if there is an artistic necessity to break it. But if you break it, skilfully break it. Don’t break it, if you only envision potential reactions, which are not yours. And don’t bore with banalities like masturbating or pissing in public. Don’t bore me with your boredom and your artlessness. Don’t mess up art with exhibitionism. The exhibition is only the platform, on which you get the feedback regarding to your creation. The quality of your creation does not depend from public (except the public is your material or an important part of the motor for a happening).

> John Hudson - TS Eliot wrote of the moment, in writing poetry, when the poem came right with the sense of a box clicking shut, a perfectly manufactured fit of parts. I think a similar sense is enjoyed by the reader of the poem, or the viewer of a painting or the listener to a piece of music.

I agree with the first part of this - there is a moment of completion. But when someone reads something I've written I hope the opposite happens, that the box clicks open, and the reader can take his own journey. The same is true of the music I write. I try to leave a scent, not a bottle of perfume.

pbc

christopher dean's 15 years at art college paid off,
as shown by his masterful escher meta-comment.

good artists borrow... great artists rip shit off...

-bowerbird

hacks swallow influences… only geniuses can digest them…

"… only geniuses can digest them…"
and make something of their own out of it.

You're referring to Piero Manzoni I gather?

ƒ

I heard that some of the shit cans were corroded and leaking over time.
The durability of art has always interested me.
I did wonder about the fly "painting" by Damien Hirst.
Now that I work directly in the digital medium, it seems that my work should last perfectly forever, but there's a different issue, which is the nature of the output/playback medium.

Now that I work directly in the digital medium, it seems that my work should last perfectly forever

http://aworkinglibrary.com/library/archives/forever/

See also the Paper Internet Project.

There was a soul-searching article in Wired a few years ago (around the time of the dotcom bust?) — imagining the ultimate challenge for an engineer: to build a clock that would last for aeons. The author's conclusion was that if that is the brief, then a social infrastructure to help maintain it should be considered part of the design.

For fonts, however, it would probably be best to carve the code in stone and bury it in a pyramid tomb.
Or engrave it on a metal plate and dispatch it to Alpha Centauri.

The point I'm making is that the shape of the letters (plus kerning and features), which is the pure the font (it's not a digitization of an analog artefact), exists independently of any particular output. It's code, like the "text" in books.

good business is the best art. [andy warhol]

if you didn't get paid to do it, would you still do it?

if you didn’t get paid to do it, would you still do it?

See the Global Alliance of Artists.

I can safely say that more than half of the self identified artists I know wash dishes to support their art, seldom if ever exhibit, and rarely sell their work. They do it because they love it. Not for the money.

It's code, like the "text" in books.

Which requires someone or something able to read it.

I'm assuming that the binary coding of a typeface would be more accurate and durable than output, which would become sandblasted by micrometeoroids, leading aliens to ponder how much distressing is inherent in Earth types.

Digital media can also become sandblasted by micrometeoroids. By the way, as far as I remember in Germany “we” still store knowledge on micro film for the apocalypse. Yes, here you can see “our” memory of national culture.

11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111100111111111111111000011111000111111110001111100011110001
11111111111000111111111111111000011111110000111110011111100011111001
11111111110100011111111111111000011111111000111110011111100011111101
11111111111110001111111111111000011111111000111110111111100011111101
11111111101110001111111111111000011111110001111111111111100011111111
11111111011111000111111111111000000000011111111111111111100011111111
11111110000000000011111111111000011111100111111111111111100011111111
11111110111111100001111111111000011111100001111111111111100011111111
11111101111111110001111111111000011111110001110111111111100011111111
11111011111111110000111111111000011111110001110111111111100011111111
10000000000110000000000011000000000001110000001111110000000000001111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

Chris, that's best definition of "Art" I've ever seen :)

I was able to confirm Art Blakey, Arthur Fiedler, and recognized Art Carney with no need to check... but the first person is not someone I know of. A search on "Arthur" yielded an Arthur Erickson who sort of looks like him...

It is Arturo Toscanini, not Fiedler. Magical comedic actor Art Carney, pianist Artur Rubinstein, and the driving messenger Art Blakey

Thanks, Bill!

I have no idea what art is.

I've thought about this question for awhile now and tried to reply but every time I do I reach a point of no words. Crazy stuff considering I was raised up in a master's studio who's work is held in private and public collections around the world ...and was my father.

Possibly, I think that art is nothing more than an expression and the quality of that expression can be measured. Which is also perplexing, considering that there are many different measuring sticks.

I wanted to create a statement on modern day consumerism - so I created colored bacon. And after many millions of views later, many millions tweets, facebooks, interviews around the world - I still don't truly know what art is.

I still think art is just an expression.

I've played / designed in architecture, fashion, graphic design and nothing I've done can define 'art' as being nothing more than an expression. But having said that (whew) art has laws / rules / and regulations. No matter how 'natural' it may appear.