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Underground > Art, Fashion & Design >

Why is the question 'Is it Art?' asked?

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22:20 / 03.09.04

When did people start questioning whether or not something which had been posited as 'art', was such? Been thinking about this recently, and had a look at the Tracey Emin thread in which a lot of people seem to define a work of art in relation to the effort which went into it, and there was criticism on these grounds of the nature of the art establishment now. If a work could be criticised on the basis that it's 'just for publicity' does that mean that any of the Rennaisance art which was produced under contract could equally have been criticised as being 'just for the money'.

Basically, when did people start questioning the validity of art? Was it when being an artist stopped being so much a job (with patrons who asked for the paintings they wanted) and therefore stopped being about producing what people wanted to such an extent? or have people always been questioning it, not in terms of good / bad but in terms of art / not art?

Incidentally if this has always been going on do let me know that I started this without doing the research -but I'm interested, so if you know of any resources please tell!

14:23 / 04.09.04

Probably one could say it's a question that's always been asked. People are always disturbed by the new and the vernacular. But Duchamp's Fountain is often taken as a key point in this repect.

All Acting Regiment

20:53 / 04.09.04

Maybe:

1) A capitalist culture does not want people to appreciate art, it wants them to be a consumer. In today's age of everyone wearing designer brands, anything that challenges traditional assumptions of what qualifies as art is laughed out of the window.

2) People find it easier to question something's validity than to try and find meaning in it.

3) A lot of "art" people copnsider themselves to be a few steps above "the rabble", therefore, "Good Art" is defined by how little meaning it has for a "man in the street" character, because the man in the street is obviously a bigoted conservative prat blindfolded by capitalist culture (see 1, above), who has no connection to the "Artist Caste".

People asked if Picasso "was art". In fact, they often went as far as to say "this isn't art". And many people still do ("my two year old could draw that").

19:33 / 06.09.04

why do people bother with this question? who cares 'what art is'?

04:24 / 07.09.04

There's two reasons to ask the question that I know of:
1) The person asking the question just doesn't get a particular piece and is attempting to vindicate themselves by questioning its validity as art.

2) The person asking considers themselves as part of the elite and feel the piece in question is too 'commercial' or for the masses and thus attempts to demean it by stripping it of its arthood.

There is also a third reason that is seldom used: something is extraordinarily new and groundbreaking and no one knows what to make of it (some would argue this fits into the first question).

In my opinion, the decision of what is or isn't art is made by two people: the artist and the viewer. An artist knows whether or not something he made is truly art. And the viewer should make their own decisions regarding the qualifications of art and to hell with the person standing next to them asking what they should think of the painting.

18:36 / 07.09.04

And what is the role of the gallery, do you think?

19:33 / 07.09.04

why do people bother with this question? who cares 'what art is'?

This is more or less my question -when visual art is obscure, people question it as though it might not, in fact, be art. However, when music is obscure, or when people don't like it, they don't claim that it's 'not music' (unless they want a Pitying Glance). So why is it visual art in particular which provokes this response?

Since the first art movement I can think of to be criticised on these grounds is impressionism, I wondered if it was a result of a move from 'artist as a skilled job' to 'artist as someone making a point'. Impressionism was criticised on the grounds that it looked too easy, and yet there was some kind of shared aim between the artists in the movement.

I'm also interested in Chris' remarks about capitalism, that In today's age of everyone wearing designer brands, anything that challenges traditional assumptions of what qualifies as art is laughed out of the window. I'd always thought that one characteristic of capitalism was to keep people interested in a 'spectacle', and so the more of a spectacle a piece of art was, the more popular acclaim it would generate. This doesn't seem to have been the case, however -these works gain controversy, but not, in general, acceptance.

19:58 / 07.09.04

This doesn't seem to have been the case, however -these works gain controversy, but not, in general, acceptance.

Could that be because often unconventional art can shine a spotlight on the contradictions of modernity? The conscious or unconscious reaction then is one of anti-intellectualism, a kind of ad hominem attack. E.g., "This is not art because the artist has not worked to produce this object. They are trying to pull the wool over our eyes; clearly, it is a case of the emperor's new clothes. Look at this this car/sofa/Diana memorial teaplate; now that's what I call honest workmanship"

20:14 / 07.09.04

This question is irrelevant, especially considering that it only began to be asked in modern materialist societies: art is anything produced by an artist.

The much more intersting query is, "Who is an artist?"

08:06 / 08.09.04

Could that be because often unconventional art can shine a spotlight on the contradictions of modernity?

That's interesting -so rather than challenging one aspect of people's lives as traditional art might have intended to, unconventional art posits that all their lives are based on something inherantly ridiculous?

That might be where the difference between visual art and music comes -someone who creates music, however 'difficult' the music is, must presumably have gone through a learning process to be able to create it. It's like the quesiton 'could I do better' is constantly at the back of people's minds. So artists who can create 'traditional' art, but don't, can be looked on more favourably; often when Dali was criticised it was pointed out that his early work showed that he could draw traditionally if he wanted to. However, with art where there is seemingly no effort, the artist is perceived as having the same level of skill as the viewer, and so their art is perceived as 'laughing at' the viewer.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

11:22 / 10.09.04

I can only speak for myself of course, but the bulk of my education was based around what 'is', x is the French word for y, x plus y equals z, x is what happens to a frog if you put it in a y, etc etc etc. It was only occasionally in parts of my pre-A Level education that questions of about or what does this mean came up. I would hazard a guess that my experienec is not disimilar to most people in the UK in the last fifteen years or so, my powers of deductive reasoning are weaker in some areas than others, therefore I find it difficult to work out what a piece of art is or isn't about than who killed someone in a murder mystery. I was amazed by the sheer amount of information Alan Yentob was able to pull out about the Mona Lisa in his recent series on Da Vinci for example.

Art insists on an active relationship beyond the passivity of a TV screen which I think worries people because they feel it exposes their 'lack of intellect'.

But I feel there's an implicit suggestion in this thread and forum that anyone who asks this question is a thicko and the question not worthy of reply. It's almost Godwintastic. I think the question is valid, or is that too capitalistic and utilitarian of me?

12:33 / 10.09.04

But I feel there's an implicit suggestion in this thread and forum that anyone who asks this question is a thicko and the question not worthy of reply

I was quite surprised by the violence of people's hatred of the question -I was actually (in starting the thread) interested in how people's reactions to art might have changed over time, and why they did so. I certainly think that it's an interesting thing both to ask and to answer -although Linus and I have talked about kneejerk reactions ("I don't like it, therefore it is not good, therefore it is not art") that doesn't mean that all such questions spring from that kind of logic.

I've actually just thought of an illustration of what I was asking -when I saw Sarah Lucas' 'The Old In And Out' :

my first thought was that it was just the same as Duchamp's Fountain and that it was copying his idea. Then again, I have seen a lot of pre-Renaissance paintings of the Madonna, and I don't instantly think that one pre-Renaissance Madonna which came a few years after another is necessarily 'copying' even thought they do look fairly similar to my entirely untrained eyes. Furthermore, Lucas clearly put more work into her loo than Duchamp did into his -she made a sculpture, his art was readymade -and yet my immediate reaction was to assume that her work was derivative. So I was also interested in the way people considered the relationship between the idea and the execution of a piece of art.

I'm still not sure where the direct link between the question 'is this art' and capitalism (rather than modernity) lies. Apart from the fact that a feudal society wouldn't provide its poor with any access to art, and those that could see art could pay for it and make very sure that they thought what they were getting was art.

20:59 / 10.09.04

isn't a more important question, do i like this? if not is then, in some, is there a leap to ask what is art? 'i don't like this, this is out of my realm of experience. is it art?' does the question become a knee jerk responce?

at the scarwash

04:15 / 11.09.04

I'd always thought that one characteristic of capitalism was to keep people interested in a 'spectacle', and so the more of a spectacle a piece of art was, the more popular acclaim it would generate.

You seem to be working from Debord's idea of the "society of the spectacle" in this post. But Debord's concept of spectacle is one that renders the individual passive as life experiences are repackaged into simulacra. Or am I blending my Baudrillard and Debord? Anyway, the thing is (see popular music, television, the NY Times bestseller list) that capitalism finds it most convenient to provide us with low-impact, easily digested fluff. Spectacle in the sense that our emotions and ambitions are pasteurized into multipurpose pablum, to which we relate solely as spectators. Not spectacle as in car-chases and explosions, or Damien Hirsch.

Tryphena Absent

14:29 / 13.09.04

I feel there's an implicit suggestion in this thread and forum that anyone who asks this question is a thicko and the question not worthy of reply. It's almost Godwintastic. I think the question is valid, or is that too capitalistic and utilitarian of me?

I think the problem lies, not in the question but in the way people choose to express it. I've known some lovely, educated people who have said things in a very derogatory tone 'that's not art, it's just a pile of bricks.' Well the point of course is that it's not just a pile of bricks, someone has created those bricks, put them in a specific order, possessed the intention to make those bricks an artwork, blah, blah.

I have no idea when people started asking this particular question. I know that Joshua Reynolds possessed a view not dissimilar to my lovely, educated person above when he wouldn't exhibit J.M.W. Turner's work at the Royal Academy. And let's face it, Turner's landscapes may be beautiful and interesting but we wouldn't currently see any type of heresy in them.

I suspect that people have always asked these questions. I suspect people looked at Giotto's work and said, well obviously not in English, 'what is this new style he's using? That's not art, it's rubbish!'

16:37 / 14.09.04

You seem to be working from Debord's idea of the "society of the spectacle" in this post.

How I wish I had been! In fact, I was thinking of it in terms of the 'low impact' things you were talking about -that they have become increasingly visceral over time, and that generally seems to be endorsed by the public. But your post has clarified that for me, so thanks! (I think the idea of the simulacrum is Baudrillard, by the way, because I don't know any Debord...)

Joshua Reynolds possessed a view not dissimilar to my lovely, educated person above when he wouldn't exhibit J.M.W. Turner's work at the Royal Academy.

That's interesting, because one thing I thought about when I wrote that post about modernism was whether Romanticism got the same reaction, because it was also created to challenge the way people lived. A lot of the art was about humanity's insignificance in the face of nature, and I wondered if that had got a similar response to modern art.

15:55 / 09.11.04

Vincennes, I would disagree with you about people's attitude to music. Having studied electro-acoustic composition, I have frequently encountered 'that's not music, it's noise' reactions. It was a compulsory 1st year course at my university, and I distinctly remember one guy (who, to be fair, did go out of his way to piss people off and be an idiot) walking out of the first class railing against the 'noise' he was being forced to listen to.

14:49 / 19.11.04

I have an idea strongly linked to the art as employment theme. Maybe art stopped being viewed as 'art' when it's function changed. Your patron defined the function of the piece you produced: portrait to glorify, landscape to enhance a room or office, token of love to give to one's esteemed. In providing such a service the artist is under pressure to create the most beautiful thing they can.

Once that pressure is lifted (individual artists fund themselves) the artist can experiment and attempt to create new thing - possibly ugly things. I don't think the public accepts the quest for the interesting / extreme as well as the quest for the beautiful, especially when they see things that they could have produced themselves on display.

To take up the music point, I think modern music comes under less criticism because fewer people have direct experience of playing an instrument (I also think that contemporary music have far less coverage than the modern art world). It is much more widely accepted any musician playing an instrument is making music than any person wielding a paint brush is an artist. Anyone can make a visual image (however bad) and so more people are confident enough to criticise the efforts of others.

Tryphena Absent

01:49 / 10.04.05

Once that pressure is lifted (individual artists fund themselves) the artist can experiment and attempt to create new thing - possibly ugly things.

I think that when you're considering art in this manner, you have to remember the influences and ideals of modernism. Movements appeared and were intent, not on beauty but on representation of the inside of people- psychological effects, dreaming- and the exchange of beauty for something more exploratory is something that I can never perceive as negative. I'm not sure that it's a lifting of pressure, I think it's more that beauty had been explored, accurate representation had been explored and exchanged for the idealisation of the figure and finally the exploration became ugly, not consciously but because it was equally as interesting. Perhaps someone else can elaborate on this?

And as to the music- doesn't it depend on what you're listening to? I hear criticism of modern and avant garde jazz all the time. "It just sounds like a load of notes bunged together".

23:13 / 12.04.05

Many times the question of "is it art?" is directly related to a person's idea of 'good', 'bad', or even 'moral'. For some reason if a person doesn't like a particular form of art they will question its validity as 'art', but this doesn't make sense because i read plenty of bad writing but would never think to say it wasn't a book, or a novel, or literature. I think the fact we even raise the question says a lot about the need for art.
I believe the important thing to remember about viewing art is that our opinions of it are irrelavent to whether or not it is 'art'. It is the context within which it was made that makes it so. Our responsibility is to understand that context or to bring our own context to it. That then begs the question, is art entertainment, or is it philosophy, or is any number of other pursuits, simply communicated in a different manner than expected?

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:18 / 13.04.05

It is the context within which it was made that makes it so.

Really? There's an interesting thing here about Kantian aesthetics, where something purposive cannot have a use. So, a neolithic axe can't inspire aesthetic response, and cannot be seen in terms of an artistic narrative, because it has (had) a use. See also, in a slightly different way, Duchamps' urinal. Or, again, how about Cornell boxes?

Put another way, what is it about the context that makes an act of general factition into a process of artistic creation? Is it just a matter of the declared intentions of the creator?

Tryphena Absent

14:59 / 13.04.05

I think the process is as necessary as the intention but to say that an object that has been used for a purpose that was not art but later becomes so has then missed out on the process is probably to ignore the time between its use and its moment of exhibition.

15:47 / 13.04.05

This is more or less my question -when visual art is obscure, people question it as though it might not, in fact, be art. However, when music is obscure, or when people don't like it, they don't claim that it's 'not music' (unless they want a Pitying Glance). So why is it visual art in particular which provokes this response?

You suggested the idea of a learning process being the answer to this, Vincennes, and to extend that a little, doesn't it have something to do with the tools involved? A painting's typically done with a brush, which anyone can wield, but music usually involves instruments that not-just-anyone can play. I think if you had a band that banged arrhythmically on tabletops and smashed bottles for the melody a lot of people would say that's "not music."

I agree with ChasFile that the better question might be "who is an artist," not because it's more interesting but because I think that's what people are really asking when they ask "is this art?" That's why we have this whole concept of "outsider art," where somehow the thing itself seems to have artistic value, but as some kind of a fluke, since it wasn't made by an artist. Duchamp may have been playing a cynical joke or maybe asking a real question - but if he'd been a janitor in the museum, would The Fountain have launched an artistic movement?

16:15 / 14.04.05

Intent is part of the context, but it isn't the only part. There's an entire system in place that deals in 'art', and when art is discussed it is discussed relative to that system. Outsider art is only named that because it is outside the system not necassarily because the people producing the works aren't 'artists'.
Duchamp was questioning the system, that was the purpose of his work, to show the complete arbitrariness (not sure that's a word) of the art world and that context WAS the only thing that mattered.
In essence without the system, there is no such thing as 'art', and so i feel we can't discuss an abstract or universal definition of art because it is entirely dependent upon the system.

17:25 / 14.04.05

Outsider art is only named that because it is outside the system not necassarily because the people producing the works aren't 'artists'.

Well, but is there a distinction there?

18:44 / 14.04.05

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking, are you asking is there a distinction between an outsider artist and regular artist?

18:57 / 14.04.05

No, I'm asking is there a distinction between "not being in the system" and "not being an artist." Put another way, are there artists - considered to be so by other artists, artists within the system - existing outside of the system? Who would they be?

03:48 / 15.04.05

" are there artists - considered to be so by other artists, artists within the system - existing outside of the system? Who would they be?"

ok i see, Yes, there are many artist who attempt to operate counter to the system of what many refer to as 'High Art' and many of the artists recognize them for their skill and ideas, however it is the galleries, museums, and dealers who 'define' what is acceptable or unacceptable, in terms of buying and selling, and they are the ones who have codified the system.
So for instance individuals like Rodia and Schmidt who had no intention of selling their work were considered Outsider artists in their time. (Rodia created large towers out of tile and steel from 1921-1954, i believe they are still there today but i'm not sure. I think he was working in L.A.. Schmidt was a recluse outside of NewYork in the 30's that created a huge junkyard type enviornment, again buying and selling was not his interest)
Examples from today would be Graffiti art and other anarchist forms of expression. There was a brief time when graffiti art was pulled into the 'system' but this was just a poor attempt to capitalize on something popular. In my mind as soon as graffiti leaves the streets it loses all of its power, but that's another topic alltogether

12:20 / 15.04.05

Okay, well, that reinforces what I was getting at. It would seem that people who create within the system of buying and selling and showing at NY galleries, etc., are artists. And ipso facto, the things they make are art. Anything made outside the system is commercial work (eg illustration), craft (eg needlepoint), or chicanery. Rarely there comes along some renegade who's making something outside the system that appears to be "art" to those within it - Banksy, to use a timely example - and they're ushered in as a kind of sexy rebel. That's a workable definition of art, right?

Obviously I'm being a little facetious, but that tends to be the way it runs, am I wrong? The question "is it art?" is asked either by average citizens completely unfamiliar with the art world and art history, largely because they're looking at a given piece completely devoid of any artistic context. Or, once in a while, it's asked by the art world when the distinctive smell of bullshit comes wafting by.

13:40 / 15.04.05

However, when music is obscure, or when people don't like it, they don't claim that it's 'not music' (unless they want a Pitying Glance).

*sigh* Does no one spend time with their grandparents anymore? (Or professors from the Conservatory?)

Seriously, there has been a lot of music in the 20th century (and before) - both inside and outside the "musical establishment" - that has been dismissed or protested as "not being music." Not "bad music" - "NOT music."

"It's just noise, there's no melody." "Anyone could do that, it doesn't take any skill." "It's not music, it's just talking fast over a beat." "They're just banging on tabletops and smashing bottles for the melody."

People tend to have their own (often unexamined) ideas about what is and isn't music, and many people are not shy about protesting when something isn't.

I know this thread is mainly about the visual arts (yes?), but music was offered as a kind of contrast, which I don't think stands. If anything, I would think music is more open to this kind of criticism, since one doesn't have to choose to look at it - it affects anyone within earshot, whether they want to hear it or not.

~L

14:04 / 15.04.05

Seriously, there has been a lot of music in the 20th century (and before) - both inside and outside the "musical establishment" - that has been dismissed or protested as "not being music." Not "bad music" - "NOT music."

"It's just noise, there's no melody." "Anyone could do that, it doesn't take any skill." "It's not music, it's just talking fast over a beat." "They're just banging on tabletops and smashing bottles for the melody."

I see your point, but do you think they're being literal, or merely dismissive? Do you think "it's not music" is said with the same... definitiveness as "it's not art?"

14:13 / 15.04.05

I think you're pretty much on the money.
when the artworld sees something marketable on the outside it desperately tries to bring it in. It's that whole 'look at my newest discovery' deal.
I personally have major problems with the system as it stands right now but that's mostly due to my socialist leanings.

Tryphena Absent

23:46 / 15.04.05

I see your point, but do you think they're being literal, or merely dismissive? Do you think "it's not music" is said with the same... definitiveness as "it's not art?"

Okay, there is a distinction to be made between definitions here. We call all music by the title music whether it's made by a kid in a garage or a classical pianist. When an old lady says "that's not music" she might mean it but the music world does not accept that because the kid that she's labelling can still be picked up and get a recording contract or even continue to make music in the garage. The vast majority recognise that as falling under the definition of music. Now you can understand art as something that encompasses all art and by that I mean every little bit whether it is created by a student, an old man or a Young British Artist or you can be exclusive as the art world is. The question then becomes- is the music world not as exclusive?

Leidopterian is right in that all art remains art, whether it's outside of the system or not, if you're creating, adapting or even simply cleaning something for an artistic purpose it is art. All music likewise is music even if it's made by someone outside of the music world. What we're perpetuating in this thread is the myth of high culture. In a way we're making it acceptable by differentiating the art industry from every other artistic industry because people do definitively think that some music isn't music in precisely the same way that some art isn't art- think about Ornette Coleman or Cecil Taylor and then Damien Hirst or Tracey Emin, I've heard exactly the same degrading comments about them from different people but they're all establised as significant musicians or artists.

If there are parallels that can be drawn between the way in which two industries work then art and music are the closest. They're both exclusive and exclusionary.

And I think the question arises: is Bansky making any money out of the artworld because if not then that sexy rebel thing being ushered in thing isn't working as a theory.

16:07 / 16.04.05

Leidopterian is right in that all art remains art, whether it's outside of the system or not, if you're creating, adapting or even simply cleaning something for an artistic purpose it is art.

Usually I agree with you Nina but on this I have to differ. The term 'Art' is a Western concept. It has a context that it has grown in, and to discuss it without acknowledging its context becomes fruitless in some ways. If there is something outside the system that is comparable to art, it isn't a less valid form of expression, but it still can't be talked about as 'art' until it's brought inside. Let me say that i believe there are many valid forms or expression and that i do not believe that art is the highest manifestation of expression, but it is the one Westerners are the most familier with.
I suppose my point would be that 'Art' has to be understood in context before it can be criticized as to what 'is' art or not 'art. If there is indeed an 'is' in any of it, a la Deleuze

Tryphena Absent

02:05 / 17.04.05

But you could say exactly the same of music. Until recently our access to it has been almost entirely controlled by the industry. Pygmy chanting for example is now regarded as music but it took the recognition of insiders to deem it as such. Does recognition of a piece as art come from the art world or artists? Can you be more specific with your point please?

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