Why Is It (Not) Art?

By Ctein

(Editor's note: For several years now, Ctein [the name is pronounced "kuh-TINE" and yes, it's legally his entire name] has been writing three posts a month for TOP. Starting this morning, his contributions will be weekly and will be published every Thursday morning.)

Greetings, Citizens. Today I am going to ask some of you to put on your thinking caps and deal with some difficult questions. I'm going to be asking you why you hold certain opinions. "Why" is always a very hard question, but "what" isn't an interesting one.

Understand that this will count for 0% of your grade. You don't have to participate. But, should you choose to do so, you will be graded...by a jury of your peers. Tough audience. Fervency of belief won't sway them; insightfulness will.

So here's the question I'm putting to you: Some of you considered Michael Paul Smith's work to be less than art—not good art versus bad art, just not art. I'd like to know why.

Mere wordplay will not be deemed an acceptable answer (although elegance will be admired). Saying that it's "craft" and not "art" begs the question. That's just two buzzwords concatenated, devoid of useful information. Tell me why you think it's craft instead of art, and you have something meaningful to say to all of us.

I told you it would be a difficult question. It's easy to say that you like or dislike something. It's easy to categorize something based on your own internal value system. It's hard to understand how that value system works, let alone articulate it. But doing the hard stuff is when we all learn things.

If this weren't bad enough, I'm going to throw some questions at you of both a serious and semi-rhetorical nature; consider them carefully before responding. They are intended to confound:

• Is it just Michael's work that you don't consider art, or is all studio photography not art in your mind? Again, the important question here is not "what?" but "why?" If you think all studio photography is not art, you have to tell us why. If you think some is and some isn't, you have to figure out what distinguishes them from each other. (To keep from muddying the conversation too much, let's not include photographs of humans or animals. Photographing animate creatures, whether in their natural habitats or an artificial setting, is very different from photographing a non-responsive or immobile object.)

• Can still life photographs be art; if so, then why some and not others? If categorically not, then why is it that Van Gogh's Sunflowers can be considered art but a photograph of a vase of sunflowers can't be?

• If studio photography isn't art, why should outdoor natural photography be considered art? How would me photographing a real building in the outside world hit a different artistic level from me constructing a faux building in a studio and photographing it?

• If you don't think any photography can be art, then...no, let's put down the can opener and step slowly away from the worms. We've opened enough cans for today.

Tackle these questions as you see fit, or feel free to duck the whole issue. Just remember that if you decide to play, few people will be interested in what opinions you hold; what they will value is knowing why you hold them.

Ctein

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Featured Comment by norrin: "I think the answer is about 80 years old. 'La trahison des images'—The Treachery of Images."

Featured Comment by anonymous: "Oh, boy!  Here's where Zen training really pays off: the answer, of course, is mu!"

[Ed. Note: Definition of mu.]

Featured Comment by Hugh Crawford: "Of course studio still life photography and by extension any photography can be art, or at least examples of studio still life photography are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, and The Met. Questioning that is like asking whether paint can be art or giant pieces of marble or goats wearing tires or young woman covered in cake frosting can be art. Almost anything with 'this is not art' written on it will qualify as art albeit with much eye rolling and 'you should have been here 30 years ago.'

"About Michael's work? It certainly could be, it depends on intent and context. Flicker is a pretty crummy context for art unless the intent is clear.

"I'm pretty sure that a vase of sunflowers has been exhibited as art somewhere, on the other hand I once grew 80 acres of sunflowers but that was for snackfood and it was called farming. I did later take a photograph of that field on fire after it was harvested, made a mural sized print of it accompanied with text about the death of my father, and showed it in a gallery.

"It's all about framing. (Yes a pun.)

"Next week Mike Johnston asks 'what is Jazz?', which reminds me of the NYC Noise Fest where there were all these people complaining 'This isn't noise, this is music!', and no I'm not making that up."

[Ed. Note: And if the following is not the last word, I don't know what is:]

Featured Comment by David Comdico: "As a categorical placeholder, the term Art has become so loose as to be indeterminate. We have learned the vocabularies of Duchamp, Warhol, Koons so today literally anything can be, and is, considered art. Dada, Cubism, Abstract Expressionism, Postmodernism—each was railed against (as photography was in its early history) as antithetical to art. The problem these critics faced is that it is difficult, if not impossible, to prove a negative—and at the very least epistemologically dicey. So I propose here instead not to argue categorically but qualitatively.

"To begin, there are many ways to think about art, to be sure. Here is a quick but incomplete list:

"The institutionalization of art hardly has the power it once did but its authority still holds sway. The institutional theory holds that if something is in a museum it is then, de facto, art. For example, it has been argued that Duchamp's urinal became art as soon as it was displayed as such in a gallery. Silly as this sounds, there is a grain of truth here as the issue is context: the context informers a viewer how to regard the object, or in this case, how not to utilize it.

"Second, there is the political approach that claims art has emancipatory aims and is uniquely positioned to free us from our cultural blinders. Here the artist is, as Sartre suggests, committed. Empathy plays a large role and thus by extending our selves we see how others are effected by forces under our control. Here, Art is the medium which has the unique properties to accurately transmit this uniquely encoded message, and effect change by changing people.

"Third, there is art as experience or phenomenological event. Thinkers such as John Dewey and Merleau-Ponty explored this vein, which I think creatives have a lot of experience with and can relate to, especially the street photographer. One's imagination is held in creative tension by the flow of experience so that the senses are fully engaged and the doors of perception are unlocked. This, however, is not merely subjective response, as the artwork must objectively capture a certain gestalt. Dewey speaks of an infant's cry out of hunger as being in-expressive since the newborn has not yet learned to connect the cry and the resulting satiation. Therefore, artists simply cannot rely on an outburst, they must express their thoughts and feelings through the form of their medium of choice.

"Fourth, as we become more experienced our taste expands. We have prior experience and standards, both personal and cultural which we bring with us. Culturally, we call this body of work the canon, and today this concept extends down to even the most minute level where tastemakers will categorize exemplary musical bands, say, even within micro-genres of popular music. So taste has become common sense but its roots are fairly recent, in the 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury who shifted the source of order from reason to taste and feeling.

"And of course, lastly, we cannot leave out the metaphysical and philosophical approaches to art. Philosophically, today most so-called post-modern art has a metonymic relationship to the objective world so the work itself cannot be located in the material of the work itself. This a tricky move, and it invalidates much of what was said above concerning experience; it is also often concomitant with a political angle of some sort (yes, the categories are hardly discreet). The metaphysical is probably the most familiar to us as it's perhaps the default position: art is that which is beautiful. We can trace this idea back to Plotinus and the Neo-Platonists and it is so intertwined with our language as to be almost invisible as a theory.

"So, regarding Michael Paul Smith's work in particular, the question, to me, is not 'is it art' but is it successful art. For starters,  we can assume a certain level of curatorship so it is art on that account at least—we view it with certain expectations—that the photographer took these photos for some purpose other than to document his work as a model builder.

"Politically, the photos seem to suggest that the idyllic image of mid-20th century America is an illusion, or perhaps a lost vision. That is, we take the image to be an old photo of a bygone error until we discover, or are informed, that it is a fake of recent vintage. From this we postulate two possible political motivations: one, that Smith has nostalgia for a simpler, purer America that was once a model for the world but is now only a model within the world, or, alternatively, that he is politically critical of this popular image of an idealized America and suggests that the history we have of this past is just as fake as the model which represents it. It is also possible that the intent of the photo is for the viewer to oscillate between these two extremes.

"The experience of this art occurs a bit outside of the work itself so is, in my mind, post-modernly metonymic. One is not drawn to the photo's form or innovation thereof. The most remarkable thing about the work is what it is not: real. So the experience of viewing this photo is rather bland, but this should not immediately disqualify it's possible status as a successful work of art.

"As a work of beauty, one can appreciate the craftsmanship of the model maker-which I believe in this case is Smith himself. The detail is convincing and it fools the eye, even after the trick has been revealed. Photographically, the black and white is convincing enough to be from the era the model represents, but the telltale sign of modern techniques are more visible here. In short, the photo does not seem to have aged.

"Philosophically is where the work, I believe, succeeds or fails. As a post-modern work, the locus of interest is equally in the work as it is in the network of associations the work invites. So we have a series of contrasts and conflations: real/fake, old/new, photo/world, construction/reconstruction. There is certainly much that is worthwhile to think about. The final challenge is how an individual work of art fits into the oeuvre of a particular artist and into a genre of work amongst other artists. Two artists that come to mind who explore similar territory are Thomas Demand and George Rousse, against whom favorable comparisons would be no easy feat.

"So, finally, my take away is that, if intended conceptually, the work is interesting and well executed but not strong enough to contend with similar work in this vein, nor is it uniquely revealing to be considered as a breakthrough on its own (i.e. I am invoking taste here). However, this is tentative and subject to revision if the photographer's other work gives me a fresh insight. On the other hand, if the photo is intended as a non-conceptual illusion or recreation then it is only half-successful and its nostalgia is then somewhat troubling.

"Now, it could be that most of this is a serious misreading of Smith's photograph. Such misreadings are not unusual in photography—see Eugene Atget and E. J. Bellocq or any number or vernacular photographers. In my reading, for example, the partially convincing black and white is a conscious choice intended to influence interpretation—that is, the ragged sleeve is on display to undermine the staged reality. So the work is meant to fool the eye and then give in to it—any more convincing and you would need additional information to uncover the true meaning, and any less—say unabashed digital color—would not have succeeded as illusion initially. But perhaps the reasons are more mundane: maybe the photographer only chose the format he did because he wanted to hide some imperfection that color would have revealed—or perhaps he considered the illusion complete."

Comments

[James Bullard]

I pondered this on my blog back in 2008 <http://jims-ramblings.blogspot.com/2008/08/art-is-art.html>. My opinion is unchanged (so far).

[Len Metcalf]

I think it is a matter of intention. Is it intended to be art. Only the artist can decide, though the critics & public are the ones with the real power to decide what is art.

[Mark M]

Ctein, I started writing a comment and then noticed is was ridiculously long for a blog comment.

I've instead posted it to my own site here if you (or anyone) is interested:
http://www.photo-mark.com/notes/2010/feb/11/ctein-it-art/

[Greg Smith]

I didn't say this first but it plays for me,

"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."

Good luck, kuh-tine, on your increased exposure at TOP,

Kindest regards,

[Dennis]

"Dennis (and Charlie) - Isn't the end result what matters more than intent? If we discovered that da Vinci didn't really intend for the Mona Lisa to be any good and was just trying out some new paints, would it suddenly cease to be art?"

I believe intent matters more than result; certainly a lot of what is considered art can only be seen in art in the context of intent, or with some context. You can quibble over whether a pile of cr*p is art, but if it ever is, it only is in some context (which I'm unlikely to understand). Unlike a da Vinci painting, it's something that everyone can doo ;)

So ... could a master like da Vinci (a) create the Mona Lisa while simply trying out paints and (b) is there a point at which intent matters less when the work is by someone so accomplished that art becomes second nature ?

I imagine this whole issue is enormous, black, white, gray, 24-bit color and squishy. I can say intent matters and there will be examples of art that I can't deny and can't fit into my relatively concise theory. You could almost consider the art of many painters to be akin to the studio portraiture of an accomplished photographer (coupled with a tremendous skill at the craft not needed in photography) so my 'definition' of art would rule it out. Is a Thomas Kincade painting (those sickly cottages you see on calendars and postcards and products on QVC) art ? Are Ansel Adams prints art ? Some of this stuff has less "artistic intent" than lesser works; but more craftsmanship. All of it rolls into the end result and whether you call it art or not is only meaningful to you (if it's meaningful to you). I've had friends look at my photos and say "those are art" (to which I do a mental eye roll while appreciating the sentiment) ... I think a lot of people view the products of craftsmanship as art and that's a fine way to view things.

So what of the Mona Lisa ... well, despite my rambling, I haven't rationalized that yet. I'm not sure it would be possible to do something like that without the intent to use the medium in a way that presents the end result we see or for that matter how much of that more craftsmanship than artistry. I'd be nuts to say it isn't a great work of art, but was he so much more than an accomplished studio photographer (plus, obviously, a skilled craftsman) ?

[Dennis]

David Comdico's comment is certainly impressive ! I didn't understand a lot of it. I think I'll refrain from further comment and think once again of picking up that copy of Gombrich's "The Story of Art" that I bought a couple months back.

[Bryce Lee]

Art is Arthur's shortened name.

[ctein]

Dear E.B.,

I wouldn't ask that. The question "Which is better, Canon or Nikon?" is as fundamentally a boring question as "Are Smith's photographs art?"

So I didn't ask that question, either-- I asked people WHY they thought one way or the other.

That's an interesting question. "Whys" are almost invariably more interesting than "whats."

I might ask people WHY they think Nikon (or Canon) is better...

... 'cept I don't really care about the answers to that question.

(Aside to Benjamin-- au contrare, I have gotten a great many satisfying answers to the question.)

pax / Ctein
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-- Ctein's Online Gallery http://ctein.com
-- Digital Restorations http://photo-repair.com
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[Bahi]

I'm reminded of Wittgenstein asking about the definition of the word "game" in the Philosophical Investigations. Here's a sentence from the Wikipedia article.

Wittgenstein's point is not that it is impossible to define "game" but that we don't have a definition and we don't need one because even without the definition, we use the word successfully.

Not quite Ctein's point, I suspect. :-)

[Richard Eldred]

I'm personally trying to distance myself from that particular three letter word as much as possible. Maybe I've had bad experiences with the people around me, but most people I've met who call themselves 'artists', or 'artistes' are a bunch of hypocritical pretentious snobs, and the work they call 'Art' often leaves much to be desired.

I also have issues with the word 'Art' when someone can chuck a tin of paint on an over sized canvas with no cohesion whatsoever and sell that piece of 'art' for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I dunno, perhaps I'm just 'uncultured' and just don't 'get it'.

I prefer to refer to such wonders as 'Cool Shit'. I heartily applaud Michael Paul Smiths work and his incredibly 'Cool Shit' he has created.

But on a more serious note, I cannot see any reason why it is any less a piece of art than a fine photograph of a real building, in fact I think this transcends that and becomes something even more special by the fact he has recreated an entire period scene, a work of art in and of itself, and then photographed it with such skill to look life-like.

I think it is sheer brilliance, and, well, as I'd like to call it Very Cool Shit.

[Jerome Taylor]

I attended art college and earned a Fine Arts degree (and yet I still don't know what I like!) In our discussions of the question of what is art we realized that there is a deeper and much more important question: "Who Cares?" If you are spending time defining art then you are neither appreciating art nor creating art. Why settle for less?

[Michael Olson]

Great discussion,

My current definition of art is:

Documentation, specimen, and artifact can inform me about others and the world we share;

Art informs me about myself.

[thomas hobbes]

i'm afraid i must start by begging the pardon all earlier commenters not included in the featured comments - i haven't read your comments yet. i will, just wanted to get my own comment in before the comments close. also, an apology to Ctein - i am not actually going to answer your question. i'm just going to talk about what is art and what isn't and perception.

art is like the old question about a tree falling in the forest. for an object to be art it must be both produced by God or man and perceived. if an object is never perceived as art it is not art. by perceived as art i do not mean that somebody thinks it is art. i mean a definition i just made up as i type this: something is perceived as art if the observation of it by a person causes that person to think about life and/or the universe in way they never would have on their own without the outside force exerted by what has just officially become art. for the purposes of my definition the observer can be the same person as the creator. for an object to be fine art it must cause at least one observer (not the creator) to think about life/universe in a novel way (as described before), but exactly as the creator of the art intended. obviously this is just my opinion and it is a subjective definition anyway. i am happy with the definition nevertheless (i am constantly amazed that nevertheless is a real word). it is quite clear that perception of art is highly variable depending on context and whether we are looking for it. this is illustrated wonderfully in the washington post article i link below. the article describes how a virtuoso musician played what are certainly examples of fine art (by my definition as well as by the definition of those with actual credentials to make such judgements) to commuters passing through a Washington DC subway station. essentially no one noticed - they were not paying attention for such things.

in order to see and appreciate art one must be open to it and it helps a lot if they are looking for it. stop and pay attention as you go about your day and you will see art, even fine art, much more often (possibly even photographic form). your life will be improved. here is the link to the article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html
it won a pulitzer prize so perhaps it qualifies as art.

p.s. i will now actually read the other comments, perhaps i find i have not said anything new.

[Karsten Schmidt-Hern]

Yes, I believe that Michael Paul Smith's photographs are works of art.

Why? Because they are the result of an "artistic" activity. What is an artistic activity? Any action by a human being where that human being creates some object and where both the process of creation as well as the object do not serve any other purpose.

Ok, this may come across as pretty abstract and lifeless. I come up with it because I believe there is epistemological merit in having a definition that allows me to describe art without recourse to value judgemnts, and that it is also possible to do that if you look at the underlying human behaviour instead of looking at the result of that behaviour. The task then is to describe the activity of somone making art in a way that distinguishes it from other types of human behaviour.

It's probably easy to punch holes in my particular attempt at that description. But I still think it is worth the effort because I believe it promotes understanding to know what it is your discussing, and this is hard to do if you are discussing two things at the same time, in this case, whether something IS art and whether it is GOOD art. By the way it also follows from my definition that no person other than the artist can ever REALLY be sure whether something is art.

Apart from considerations of theoretical cleanliness, I firmly believe that, at least to the artist, the art-making process, the act of creating is at least as important as the outcome, the result of that act or process.

Regards,

Karsten

[Mike Johnston]

"I come up with it because I believe there is epistemological merit in having a definition that allows me to describe art without recourse to value judgemnts"

Art without value judgements!?! That's like love without emotion.

Mike

[Karsten Schmidt-Hern]

"Art without value judgements!?! That's like love without emotion."

Catchy, but not my point. "What is art" is one question, "what is good art" is another - maybe like "what is love" as opposed to "what do you love". Both questions are meaningful, although one may not be interesting to you.

Karsten

[Mike Johnston]

"'What is art' is one question, 'what is good art' is another"

Karsten,
Well, we can disagree, surely. But I think that's nonsensical. For something to be art, it has to work as art! And if it works as art, then it's successful.

A painting that doesn't work as art for you is just a painting, that's all. If you go to a museum and see something that you don't like, don't get, aren't interested in, don't feel anything toward, don't want to learn more about, etc., how in the world can you say it's art? For it to be art it's got to be art to you. Anything else is just sheeplike and dishonest, IMO, like an opinion you're commanded to hold.

Mike

[Karsten Schmidt-Hern]

Mike,

As a matter of fact, I don't think it's nonsensical at all. If you prefer to say that not every painting is art (as I would), but only if you like it, get it, love it etc., that's fine. I just don't find it terribly useful to charge up the definition (and that's what this is about) by all those concepts because it obfuscates what, in my view, you are really discussing, the quality that makes a painting speak to you, that makes you love or get a photograph. That art/not-art dichotomy is unhelpful shorthand for that. What would be the use in saying "this is not a car because I don't like to drive it, it's just a vehicle".

And, believe me, you can feel passionate about art in an unsheeplike manner and still think that it is useful to define art without recourse to value judgments.

Karsten

[mmlacak]

It seems to me that this boils down to two fundamental questions:
What is art? and
What is a good picture?

Given answers I have given, I'd say that merely recreating (once) existing reality isn't art, just craft, skillful no doubt, but craft nonetheless. Work of art functions if it's easy to see intentions of artist, his alterations of reality, his propositions of new one, new relations, new order of everyday items, to see world around you in new light.

[Bill Rogers]

To quote Ado Annie from the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical OKLAHOMA, "A lot of tempest in a pot of tea."

Call it art. Don't call it art. Who cares?

[Lucy]

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Lucy

[Matt Needham]

My favorite quote about art:

"The word 'art' is very slippery. It really has no importance in relation to one's work. I work for the pleasure, for the pleasure of the work, and everything else is a matter for the critics." -Manuel Alvarez Bravo

What is and isn't art is for the label makers to debate. Most artists just do what they do because they are compelled to do it, not because anyone else values or understands it, or would even award them the label of "art" or "artist". Debating what is and isn't art is just busy work for those without a strong inner drive to create.

I also like the dictionary definition of art, which is usually something as simple as "nature manipulated by man". I told someone that once, and they replied "So mowing my lawn is art?" I was able to name at least four artists off the top of my head who had famous work that was pretty much pruning and landscaping. :)

Art is common. Good art, important art, amazing art, intriguing art, etc... are less common. Don't confuse the noun with the adjectives.

[Greg]

I recently attended a workshop that said that the difference between art and stock photography is simply marketing. If you present it as art, print it accordingly and find other people to acknowledge that it is art, then it becomes art. If you sell it on every street corner or give it away, then it is just a beautiful photo.

[Barry Myers]

I think in an earlier era--perhaps the time frame of the car/house photograph that is featured, Michael's efforts would be called Artwork. Artwork being a term used by art directors and the professionals (painters, illustrators, photographers, typographers etc.) who participate in the making of advertisements, brochures, etc. and being distinct from the copy and headline.

While much "artwork" could be considered art, I doubt if any of the photographers then or now who produce broadly lit product photographs would call their work "art." As other readers have commented--it must be the context--that would make this work "art." It certainly isn't the style of this particular photograph. If you saw this photograph in a real estate agent's Houses for Sale brochure in the 1950's would you still call it art? When you see a photograph of a shirt in an LL Bean catalog, do you call that art? Or when you see a photograph of an architectural model in an ad for a new apartment building, would you call it art? In the commercial world where I earn my living, we call it artwork. It fills the space and technically, it's usually well done.