For me something is art if I would find it put near a dumpster and would think "Wow, who would throw this out? That's an amazing piece of work!". And by this definition, I can assure you, a large part of the modern "art" wouldn't qualify - when put in a dumpster, it would be indistinguishable from trash.
See this is what I mean. Why not say "For me a piece of art is worthwhile if..." instead of "For me something is art if..."?
The latter leads to responses like "Oh no, it's still art because art means..." instead of "Oh but I really like X which doesn't fit your criteria, what do you think?"
> there's art that's basically indistinguishable from trash.
Indistinguishable from trash to you maybe. This [0] was an piece at Ai Weiwei exhibit I saw in Berlin last year (I don't much care for his work, but that's beside the point). This is mostly indistinguishable from this [1]. One is a pile of crabs intentionally placed in in order to make a pun in Chinese (if I remember right). One is a pile of crabs. One is art. The other is not.
I'm saying the Ai Weiwei piece is art because 1) he did it on purpose, 2a) he calls it art, and 2b) other people call it art. If I sculpted an exact replica of a trash can in the house I grew up with to symbolize {the passage of time, childhood, whatever, no symbolism at all}, then that's art even if it is literally made of trash and nobody but me ever called it art.
At the risk of sounding like a children's show with a shallow message: anything can be art if you want it to be.
This is my whole point. If it is art to someone, then it is art.
Let's say there's some country that considers the the exact dishes are organized in a cabinet to be art (pretty sure this isn't a thing anywhere). People have cabinets in their house so that they can show off their dish stacking. Now someone from another culture visits and is shown the display. They say "that's not art." Not to them, maybe not. But it's still art simply because someone (one person or many) calls it so.
Is this [0] or this [1] music? Some might just call that "sounds," but I like the wikipedia definition [2] for this as well.
> Music is an art form and cultural activity whose medium is sound and silence.
Extremely broad and allowing for many things to be considered music. If someone wanted to record an album of them dropping coins into plastic cups and call it music, then they should be able to.
Sure you can change words to suit meaning, no problem. I saw an exhibit in SF that consisted of canvases with taxidermied dog parts stapled to them (briefly; I fled). The artist called it art; but it was junk. Defend it all you like; but there was absolutely nothing redeeming about it. You have to draw a line, even if its fuzzy.
But do you? I mean really, what gives anyone any authority to say that?
Quoting wikipedia[0]:
> Art is a diverse range of human activities in creating visual, auditory or performing artifacts (artworks), expressing the author's imaginative or technical skill, intended to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power.
Maybe it was the artists intention to horrify and disgust, in which case stapling body parts on canvas certainly seemed to have that effect. Certainly that qualifies it as art.
I really think it's exclusionary and elitist to tell anyone their creative works aren't art.
It was cheap and stupid. Designed by the artist to thumb their nose at everyone who came by. It was no different than standing out front and mooning everybody. If that is art, then every drunken hobo at the bus station is an artist.
That's why I prefer to use words like 'art' for things that are unambiguously artistic. Instead of abandoning the word (like that Wikipedia author) to goofy madeup definitions just not to offend somebody.
How about this: Its my 'performance art' to offend folks on HN by disputing what art is. Now any objection to my remarks is hypocritical. I have full authority! Hey! Every troll is now an artist! Fits the Wikipedia definition anyway.
People said Pollack and Warhol were cheap and stupid, but I think we can say that without a doubt they were artists.
I'm not saying "literally everything is art always." Yes, a hobo who is mentally unstable mooning people isn't art. Someone a hobo mooning people as a statement about nudity and people's obsession with being proper, sure, yeah, that's art.
> I prefer to use words like 'art' for things that are unambiguously artistic
Unambiguous to whom? That lends it's self to all sorts of biases based on culture, nationality, class, age, etc.
> How about this: Its my 'performance art' to offend folks on HN by disputing what art is.
Yes. If you think it's some sort of art to do so, then yes, what you are doing now is art.
> Every troll is now an artist!
If every troll claimed their ability to enrage the internet is an art form, then yes. Since most of them don't, no.
> Instead of abandoning the word (like that Wikipedia author) to goofy madeup definitions
I'm pretty sure all definitions are "made up." Propose a better one for what art is, and I'll debate you on that.
Hm. Art by the wishy-washy definition doesn't have to be framed as art, it just has to be 'intentional'. Its hard to argue that Trolling is not intentional, to provoke emotional response. In fact that hits the nail on the head.
I refuse to call Trolling 'art'. We all know it isn't. Well sometimes a particularly inspired, evil troll comment can be said to 'rise to the level of art'. We all know what that means. Its not art just because somebody says it is ('frames it' as art). Its not art because it generates an emotional response, like the hobo or troll. Its not art because it took skill to do. That whole Wikipedia definition is flawed.
> I refuse to call Trolling 'art'. We all know it isn't.
This is why I like a definition of art that is overly broad, so no one can get swept away and called not art. I don't want someone's real, actually creative efforts to be casually dismissed because it was lumped in with something that "isn't art."
