What is art?

[Klast Brell]

I spent about 4 hours in the San Francisco Museum of modern art yesterday. I looked at some stuff that was pretty cool. and some stuff that I just did not get.
For instance. There was a installation piece. A pair of hoops about 20 feet across, one on the floor and another suspended from the ceiling about 10 feet above it. A mazzilion threads had been strung vertically between the 2 hoops The threads were painted in reds oranges and yellows. If you backed up from the piece it looked like flames. I liked it. Then there was another piece. Architectural floor plans for a typical suburban home printed on vellum. I just looked at it and got nothing. No reaction. I guess I didn't get it. Certainly someone thought it was a wonderful enough piece to go in a museum with works from Picasso, Matisse and Warhol. But I just couldn't figure out what was so great about it.

We ave all heard the sarcastic comment "my 4 year old could have made that" I saw a number of pieces that got that reaction from me. Canvases with a few big blobs of brightly colored paint. Others that certainly required a lot of technical skill (like the floor plans), but just didn't inspire anything in me. Still others made me wonder just how much of art is people believing their own bullshit. One piece was just a standard florescent lamp mounted on the wall at a 45 degree angle.

So what exactly is art?

[Partha]

To me? Art of any type is anything of that sort that makes you think or inspires you to want to do it yourself.

The floor plans on vellum is a good sarcastic comment to me, btw, I would have liked seeing that one. The light? Not so much.

I think this pic sums it up best, though.

[Ddrak]

I see art as anything that is more than just the sum of the component pieces. Something that goes beyond science and engineering and into something that actually means something deeper to the viewer.

Dd

[Garrdor]

It's funny. You could put a black dot in the center of a 50 foot wide/tall canvas with a ballpoint pen.

In reality, it's just a dot on paper. But because of our chemical reactions to certian stimuli that we've acquired from being social/pack animals - it suddenly becomes a representation of something it clearly isn't.

So - a dot on paper could represent the 'omg human condition' where everyone feels alone deep down inside. That's the 'emotional' reaction from the emotional spectator.

To me, a dot on a canvas is a dot on a canvas. I do understand other people's reactions and ways of thinking. I can understand how a black dot on a white canvas would look a lot different to let say -- a black person who grew up in a poor neighborhood, as opposed to a spoonfed white-rich girl who had a pony.

Art is merely a chance for us to revel in our evolved ability to make imaginitive comparisons.