What is art?

[zigzag]

Yeah, m, that works for me. The Dadaists really screwed it up for "art" when they basically did the anti-art thing. Marcel Duchamp took a urinal and put it into a museum and called it "art." "Art" hasn't been the same since. The Dadaists changed the aesthetic, made it more intellectual/conceptual, and politicized art. In music, I suppose Schoenburg was the equivalent among composers, Ornette Coleman in jazz. And in contemporary rock- Rap.

[retrosurfer1959]

I taught an art appreciation class at a community college for a while, it was really interesting to have this discussion with students. I heard a young woman that was 17 and had just started college she was a hippie throwback and really soft spoken and a fun student in class she probably summed it up best once on an oral report when I asked her what she had learned about art that she had not expected to learn in this class she thought about it for a few minutes and then said;

 

" I learned in this class that there's are at least two kinds of art, one is heart-art something I just love because it make me feel good - Then there's brain-art the art, the art that experts tell me is wonderful or important and that it is great art for some important reason. But I mostly just like heart-art since the brain-art takes too much work to understand and art shouldn't really do that.

 

How can you argue with that logic?

[Versatile]

Personal view....

 

Art is choice...individualistic by implication

 

V

 

[cookieman15061]

I may not know "art," but...I know what I like (and, don't like).

 

CB

 

That's irrelevant.

[TommyK]

Art is whatever someone with money to purchase it, calls art.

 

In a community near me, a business, in the business of repairing automotive starters and alternators had a 'sculplture' he made, positioned out front of his building. It was a giant sized starter motor fabricated from a 55 gallon oil drum, a 30 gal grease barrel, a fan blade and a bit it sheet metal. Painted up nice. It was a neat replica of the smaller genuine article. A very clever attention getter for his business.

 

Some Bertha-better-than-you, monied, bitty, complained about the 'junk' in front of his business was successful in getting the city to force him to remove it.

 

In the same town, I've seen piles of scrap metal called 'art', that no one has lifted a finger to have removed.

 

 

What is art? Who knows.

[charlie brown]

That's irrelevant.

 

So is most "art!" LOL (Just kidding)

 

CB