What is Art?

What is Art? Now, that is a loaded question. I believe something is art if its primary function is to be sensory, whether visual and/or aural; whether to please the eyes/ears or shock them, that part is left up to the viewer/reader/listener. (There is, of course also commercial art, which for the sake of this discussion, we will shelve.) If it’s a painting, it doesn’t have to be pretty, if it’s a movie, it doesn’t even have to be good. If it is a sculpture, it does not have to be anatomically correct. If it is true that clichés exist for a reason and beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder, then that at first may seem like a quick easy answer to the question, but one can not automatically equate art with beauty. Some art is unquestionably ugly, and that may well be what the artist was seeking. I would ultimately submit that a more apt cliché would be ‘to each his own’.

‘What is Art?’ is such a specific question and ultimately an unimportant one. Did somebody put their heart and soul into it? Was there a creative vision behind the work in question? Does it move me? These are the real questions we should ask.

‘What is Art?’ That seemingly innocuous three-word query has afforded a certain group of people a living since about the end of the 19th century. Without that one short question, there would be no need for that insidious breed of person, the art critic. In what other occupation does a seemingly normal person spend their working days (and/or nights) finding new ways to belittle an artist’s creative vision? Any artist making art for the sake of art should ostensibly not have any concerns over what a critic may or may not think, unless they are just pandering to the critics to get good reviews, in which case they’re not worried about making ‘good art’, but more interested in the adulation. Having said that, there is of course a fine line to tread; everyone needs to eat, and not everybody has a benefactor (like Vincent Van Gogh had with his brother, Theo) who will pay their way!

‘What is Art?’ There are many obvious examples which spring to mind when this question is asked – Michelangelo’s David, Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, Van Gogh’s Wheatfield with Crows and Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker all spring readily to mind as ‘easy’ examples of pieces that one would be hard-pressed to find somebody to say that they are not art. While works like those named above are considered art by almost anybody who walks upright and they all have special places in art museums, does that mean that they are without a doubt ‘Art’? Yeah, pretty much. Fair enough, but why are those examples considered to be art any more so than little Johnny’s mess of glue and glitter on construction paper that he completed (quite possibly getting more glue on his tongue than on the paper) so diligently while sitting in kindergarten? Well, if you ask Johnny’s parents odds are you’ll hear them gushing about “(their) little Picasso” – and why not, especially if beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder?

The Art Institute of Chicago has a permanent installation of furniture from the mid-1900’s (right around the corner from the Marc Chagall stained-glass windows and on the same level as Nighthawks). Just because Eames chairs are pleasing to the eye (and brutally expensive), does that make them art? Not in this writer’s humble opinion – they are pieces of furniture, which are functional and seem a touch out of place in an art museum. Not to say that an Eames chair isn’t aesthetically pleasing, but its functionality precludes it from being art, at least first. Its primary role is that of a chair, so that’s what it is, a chair. Granted, it may have an artistic design, but that does not make it art. Could one say that it is a ‘work of art’? I suppose many people do, but I submit that they are taking liberties with their use of language.

What about items of antiquity from throughout history? The Art Institute of Chicago’s famous exhibit of medieval weaponry and armament is endlessly fascinating to each and every 12 year old boy who goes to downtown Chicago on a field trip and walks up those expansive front steps between the lions….but is it art? (That, of course, begs another question – just because it is hanging in a museum, does that make it art?) What about religious artifacts, which seem to find a place in nearly every art museum on the planet? Why is it that a gilt-laden (pun intended) Bible can be found in the vast majority of art museums in the Western world, while a handmade dreidel is better suited for the Holocaust Museum?

What is Art? Art is what each and every one of us wants it to be, it is not what the local art critic tells you it is. It is not what your Art History professor tells you it is. It is not what this writer asserts. It is not what is hanging on the walls of your local museum. It is not what you hear at the symphony. It might be, but it doesn’t have to be. If it is art to you, then so be it. To each, his own.

breaking up with the internet

Dear Internet,

I think we need to discuss our relationship, as I believe it is no longer a healthy one for me. When we first met back in 1993, I was a fresh-faced college student – you, too, were just learning your way around campus. We’ve been through a lot since that fateful day in the (then) new computer commons at Colorado State University when I first sat down across from you and looked at you and you stared back, unblinking. Back then, neither of us had any real idea where this alliance would take us; I wasn’t really looking for anything serious, but you knew right away that you wanted a long-term relationship. Why, oh why then did you have to choose me? Was I that easy of a target? Could you see in my eyes the desire to be accepted by you? Did you start off with good intentions that slowly became perverted with time? Did you just want to share information with me and allow me to share information with others? Or are you just evil, pure evil all the way down to the very core of your being? Even when it seems like you are helping, I think maybe you are really hurting me.

Did you know that my fanatical obsession with the meaningless minutiae of sports statistics would lead to an average of 3 hours each day researching fantasy football, fantasy baseball, fantasy hockey, fantasy basketball and fantasy golf? Of course you did. Did you also know that all that time spent basking in the glow of the athletic achievements of others would cause my own muscles to atrophy to a point where I can no longer throw a football, hit a baseball, stand on ice skates, dribble a basketball or swing a golf club? Of course you did.

You should take a cue from disgruntled wives everywhere and not let me access you when I’ve been drinking. If you had just done this for me, protected me from something I wanted when you knew it wasn’t good for me, then I would not need to live in a 4-bedroom house with just you. I would not currently have 4 dressers, 3 coffee tables, an armoire, 2 headboards and a credenza in my garage, all in various stages of undress, but none having gone through the process of stripping, refinishing and selling for which I purportedly bought them. I would not have 4 surround sound systems for my 3 TVs (also procured through you), nor would I have 13 lamps, all different, all bought ON CLEARANCE - LAST DAY, all ugly. I certainly would not have accumulated 37 credit cards, all of them promising the lowest rates for balance transfers, yet none of them managing to live up to those claims. I highly doubt that my kitchen would have become a veritable Coca-Cola collector’s cache without you – I never liked trinkets and do-dads, but you make it so easy to buy anything and everything under the sun that I just go ahead and keep clicking ‘add to cart’…but, hey, that’s why I have 37 credit cards!

Without you, I never would have learned about the online communities of MySpace, Classmates, or Facebook - which would never have allowed any of my psychotic ex-girlfriends to track me down and send me emails ranging from the charmingly deranged to the downright frightening. Thanks to your ability to shrink the globe and open up lines of communication the people I didn’t have time for in my past are now a part of my everyday life. By virtue of having so many ‘friends’ and acquaintances whom I know only through you, I have all but eliminated having to actually deal with people in person. Eh, who needs actual human interaction these days anyway, right? Too much actual face-to-face communication might allow people to share real emotions and opinions, and that couldn’t be a good thing for society, could it? If it weren’t for you, I might still be able to talk to people when I meet them in ‘the outside world’ without my mouse fingers twitching. Without you, my skin wouldn’t have taken on this attractive pallor, a dead giveaway as to how much time we spend together in our dark room, shutting out the light of day.

Email, what about email, you ask? I agree, it’s nice to not have to speak to people any more when I have something colorful to say, much easier to type it in black letters on a white background. It’s especially nice because with email, unlike actual conversation, one leaves interpretation of the tone of the message entirely up to the recipient. This is especially fun when I try to convey sarcasm in a message, and instead of eliciting the laughing reply I anticipated, I get either an expletive-laden tirade or no reply at all. Oh well, if they don’t get me, it’s their loss, right?

Even with all of these wonderful things you’ve given me (and I didn’t even mention the joys of carpal tunnel syndrome, the aching back, the fading eyesight or the permanently kinked neck), I just don’t think that this is a healthy relationship any longer. When I’m away from you, I crave you – when I’m with you, I feel guilty and sometimes happy to feel that guilt, and that’s just not healthy. I am underperforming at my job because I am too busy tracking all of my pending purchases on eBay. I no longer feel the need to communicate in any interpersonal way with any of my peers. I would rather watch a live webcam feed of what’s happening anywhere in the world than actually go there and see it with my own two eyes. I find myself breaking out in a cold sweat if I can’t hear the message alert when a new email comes in. I have lost all ability to differentiate between fantasy football and real football. I have become an ordained minister of 32 denominations, but I can’t remember the last time I saw the inside of a church. I correspond with people from all over the world, but I doubt if I can pick up a pen and write the alphabet in proper block letters, much less cursive. I need these things back in my life and I can’t get them while I still have you around, so that, my dear, is why we must part ways.

Sincerely,

-me

p.s. – I love you, call me.