Specifying if something is art or not is tricky. First you have to come up with a definition of art. My definition of art is that is needs to make you feel something. Carefully constructed paint on a canvas is not the only kind of art. Art is music, poetry, photography, anything someone presents to make the viewer feel something.
I think it is quite ignorant to dismiss someone's work as being art because of its simplicity. The artist wanted a message to be received by the viewer of their work. In this piece it could have been a internal message to the viewer. Did they want to open or close the door? Did they want to go inside or just walk away? We don’t know what exactly the artist’s message was but this piece made the viewer look closer into something as simple as a cracked open door. Why wouldn't that be art? Art with this much visual simplicity gives the viewer more room to interpret what it means.
I agree with you; for something to be art, it has to make you feel something. However, the question is if you don't feel something, maybe when looking at a painting, is it still art?
ReplyDeleteI think your points are valid and interesting. I don't know if I agree with your definition of art, but I did really like your argument that art can be simple.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your definition of art, except I think that an element of art is that the art can't be random. Anyone can vomit random words on to a page but that doesn't necessarily mean that it is a poem, and anyone can leave a door open 45 degrees. Art must make you feel something, and the door reaches that criteria but I wouldn't call it art, but it is something, we just don't have the word in our language for what that something is yet. I say it meets that criteria because I think it plays on the human want to see something happen with the door, whether that be closing it, opening it, or looking through it, a door that is half-way (literally half-way) between open and closed means that it can't necessarily be classified as open or closed, as the brain wants to perceive it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that art has to make you feel something. It's really difficult to label something as art which brings up the question of who gets to put the label on. I think that the beauty of art is that you can't really explain it or define it. It brings up all of this controversy and raises all these questions. It makes you think. I'd say art is really personal experience because we all see and feel things in a unique way so, everyones answer to the question, "What is art?", is unique.
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