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Wow. The meaning of art. Can't... stop... myself...
I think we need a definition of terms here, folks. "Art" as in, everything we do is art, is not the "art" you buy at a clothing store, which is not the "art" I write up in a composition notebook everyday (thereabouts).
Everything is art in the sense that every time you have conscious awareness, you've paired down all your senses to just that one impression, be it of a person, a meal, a jog, a shag, a whatever. Go check out this for an example:
http://www.thisisnotthat.com/sampler/dots1.html
Go to the dots, and you'll see what I mean. Kinda cheesy, but the site's worth a runthrough.
"Even non-art is art." - Johnny O
Right, it's a matter of expanding the term 'art' to include more things - childrens rhymes, pop cult(ure) cliches, trees. Keep in mind, though: just because everything you see around you through the filtering system of "I" is art, doesn't mean that art is easy. Jesus, you ever try to form an opinion on something you don't care about? Or notice the things you never notice around you because you're lost in thought? Ever try to see a different side of a 'dumb' person? It's quite the feat.
This leads our tragic hero to:
"If I can convince people and at times even myself that something is art, is it still art?"
Sure, to them, if they don't eventually think through your fast talk. However, if you're only partially convinced part of the time - because you know you've just spouted some bullshit - then of course not. If you don't feel the authenticity of the work you do to make 'art,' then it ain't fucking art. It's that simple. And of course it's completely subjective, and subject to your own self-doubt. The trick lies in putting so much of your heart's throbbing electric blood into a work to nullify your doubt or another's opinion. Easier said than done, but it's worth the happy tears.
"Why are people spending so much money on material works of art? Why am I? And besides, where's the fun when it's so easy I can do it for bullshit reasons?" - J O
Can you really do it for bullshit reasons? If you call your own work bullshit, if you know it to have no truth but that which exists in your charisma and the persuadability of some Dutch woman, then why do you call it art? It seems you confuse the idea of any given reality as art with the concept of art as a work done deliberately by a person to create (un)beauty, (un)truth, or some other metaphysical spook.
To wit: you can persuade me that some raw arsenic is a lovely steak, if you're good enough and I'm dumb enough, but that doesn't really make it food. If I eat it I'll still die.
Why would someone spend money on bullshitesque art? Let me tell you a story.
In the Tate Modern gallery at London, you can wander around and find a huge open room - tall ceiling, expansive floor, all dull white. The room is divided into a walkway for people and a much larger, empty area. You look into the empty area, wondering if the masses of bricks cover the art. They form three neat little rectangles. Behind you, against the people-side wall, there's a history of this exhibit. The bricks are the art. The Tate paid three thousand quid for 180 regular ol' bricks (cost: less than a hundred quid). The history of the exhibit, told in newspaper clippings, stretches 30 metres - all the way down the room's long wall. When you walk out, shocked and awed, you turn around at some unknown thought. Everyone's starring at the clippings, no one pays attention to the bricks. You can't blame them but you'll begin to see why the Tate would buy such art.
Media event. The Tate allowed the artist involved to persuade them into buying the bricks, then leaking the price. Suddenly, it's a media feeding frenzy, which means exclusive and lovely free advertisements for the Tate. Everyone wants to go there, to see this new aberration that the gallery calls art, and these people probably forget their anger by wandering into the restaurant or the gift shop.
Bullshit? Pure. Art? Absolutely.
Just not in the typical sense. It wasn't an easy wrangle to make, for either party. Hell, just coming up with this idea - these bricks, this leak, a 3000 pound cheque - that's pretty fucking creative, no? They turned three thousand pounds into hundreds of thousands worth of ads and merchandizing. That's not just art, that's magic.
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