Miles Jackson wrote:
>
>
> Here's my (predictably) sociological take on this: what is or is not
> a work of art at a given point in time is a product of social
> negotiation, contestation, and consensus. There is no
> "essence" of art that shines through so people in every social
> context would define product X as art (in fact, the idea of "art"
> itself is culturally bound!). Put simply, X is art if there is
> a social recognition and validation of the work as "art": e.g.,
> the producer of the work is respected as an artist, critics discuss
> the work, people pay money for the work, it is analyzed in
> art history classes, and so on. The platonic question "What is
> art?" is exactly the wrong question to ask here.
This seems to cover it pretty well, particularly the parenthesis: "in fact, the idea of "art" itself is culturally bound!" Our use of the term would have been pretty unintelligible before the 19th century. Incidentally, a friend tells me he attended a performance of Cage's 3 min. of silence (I forget the title or the exact length; two movements). In the concert hall it apparently is an impressive work of music.
Most of the artists of history would have been surprised to be told they were artists (except in the sense of a craftsman). Consider Greek pottery. It was 2000 years before that suddenly became "art." And it is by no means certain that our descendants in five centuries will recognize it as a category. I mean how many Botticellis, El Grecos, Monets, and Picassos can we tolerate before we get drowned in so much art that art disappears? The kinds of "art activity" discussed in this thread are, perhaps, ways of dealing with that impending overload of great art.
Carrol
> --As an aside, this is analogous to the Marxist view on religion
> (Man creates God), if that makes my pill any easier to swallow.
>
> Miles
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