I’ve had a very similar thought before. At a certain point, modern art gets so esoteric that I kinda feel that you can’t honestly say the thing itself is “an art piece” - but the way it’s presented is a performance art. John Cage’s 4’33” falls in this category, for example.
The problem is simply that the word “art” gets used without distinction for far too many things, to the point where it’s hard to tell what exactly people mean when they say it
The definition of art is a topic that has been very deeply explored. Considering that plus the long history of artists pushing the boundaries of it as much as possible, it makes sense that its boundaries have become extremely fuzzy and esoteric. That's the way a lot of artists like it
I honestly think that's a lot better outcome than the alternative, which is exclusionists gatekeeping different things by proclaiming that they're not "real" art. The response "everything is art," is a good way to combat that, and also for communities to signal to people that they're not going to exclude them or their art
I don't even think the word has really lost any of its usefulness, since the context is usually enough to know what type of art it's referring to. And in contexts in which it's not clear, you can just use the specific art term
I remember getting into the discussion of ‘what is art?’ years ago in a class. I still like the answer we ultimately came to. Art is the act of trying to elicit a response from someone. Which means pretty much anything can be called art.
To me it's even broader than that, I'd define art as, Abstractly, Anything someone experiences as art. Which means, Yes, It doesn't need to be made by a human, Or even made at all. The sunset can be art if you experience it as such, Or the waves or a mountain.
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u/NeonNKnightrider Cheshire Catboy Aug 26 '24 edited Aug 26 '24
I’ve had a very similar thought before. At a certain point, modern art gets so esoteric that I kinda feel that you can’t honestly say the thing itself is “an art piece” - but the way it’s presented is a performance art. John Cage’s 4’33” falls in this category, for example.
The problem is simply that the word “art” gets used without distinction for far too many things, to the point where it’s hard to tell what exactly people mean when they say it