All Art is Quite Useless*

I have been mulling over the possibility (or non-possibility) of coming up with a decent definition for art (probably thanks to the Ethics and Ethos team’s monumental artistic creation last week). So, I will begin by posing a question: what constitutes art?

This question was much easier to answer in, say, the Italian Renaissance. If it has a bunch of circles and naked people, can be put on the wall of a church, and is commissioned by the Medici, then we call it art. Obviously I am vastly oversimplifying the matter, but the issue of defining what is art has become drastically more difficult in the past century thanks to modern, postmodern, and contemporary art pushing the boundary of what is and is not acceptable.

In the past, art was supposed to appeal to our intellectual, emotional, and aesthetic sensibilities. In other words, it should cause us to reflect, inspire emotion, and not make us want to vomit. As art becomes more abstract, however, it becomes increasingly difficult to categorize and interpret. For example, should we classify Yves Klein’s monochrome paintings as art? Are they successful in achieving the artistic effect intended by their creator? Personally, when I look at his monochrome paintings (all a quite vivid, as well as patented, shade of blue), I am not calmed or moved the “pictoral sensibility” they are supposed to embody (actually, they make me quite nervous; I end up staring in panicked confusion at the canvas and wondering where the rest of the painting is). Others obviously react to his paintings in a different manner, or they presumably would not be on display in museum galleries all over the world. Is the definition of art an entirely subjective one, to be determined by the opinions of the viewer?

Of course, perhaps we should not be judging the work of art itself, nor the audience’s reaction to it. We could always choose to go with the theory that the artist’s intention makes the object a work of art, not an intrinsic quality of the work itself. If I spontaneously draw a red line on a sheet of paper, it is not art. If, however, I consciously intend for my finished product to be a work of art, then it is, even if my drawing professor, who is clearly blind to my artistic genius, doesn’t recognize it as such. Please correct me if I’m wrong (it occasionally happens), but I think this is part of the intention behind Duchamp’s notorious Fountain: a perfectly ordinary object transformed into a work of art through the conscious intention of the artist.

We could always be cynical and simply say that art is defined by the contemporary equivalent of the Academy. A motto for this view could be: “If it’s in a museum, it’s art.” Society, or an elite part of it, judges whether a work falls under the definition of art or not, regardless of whatever the philosophical conception of art may be, and the sheep-like populace mindlessly accept the definition and happily go to gawk at the pretty (or not so pretty) pictures for a few hours on weekends.

I suppose I should end with the question I began with: what is art? Why is Jackson Pollock so popular? Do we really want to qualify someone throwing around chicken blood and entrails as art (google the Vienna Actionists if you’re curious, but please don’t blame me for any resulting disturbed mental state)?

*Bonus points if you can identify the origin of the title