Is some of this stuff really art?

[Copernicus]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

I think you have supported my definition but I will supplement it by requiring it to cause a reaction other than indifference "at a viseral level" (as opposed to an intellectual level).

[/ QUOTE ]

I re-read your post more closely, and I'm not sure exactly what you're supporting.

I'm certainlty disagreeing with the OP. And I'm disagreeing with you if you're espousing that something created by an artist can be "not art". i.e. one of the most extreme examples possible, Duchamp finding a broken toilet, signing it, putting it on a pedastal, and bam its art. I do believe that Fountain is art. And I agree with the people that believe its a very important and influential piece.

[ QUOTE ]
Garbage is garbage. The artist can not will me to think it is anything but garbage, and has failed to exhibit anything resembling skill nor made me react in any way other than BFD.

If someone wants to pay 1.7 million for anything for other than its resale value, then maybe its art to him...it still doesnt make it art to me.


[/ QUOTE ]

Well I would disagree with this.

My position, which echos that of Duchamp, is that anything an artist decides is art, is art.

An artist, is of course using the same logic, anyone who decides that they are an artist. Alternate even more circular definition - anyone who creates art, through the act of deciding that something is art, is an artist.

The mere act of declaring something art makes it art - the will of the artist shapes reality.

[/ QUOTE ]

then we will agree to disagree. Someone calls themselves an artist, then smears feces on poster board and frames it didnt create art, they took a dump in an inappropriate place.

To claim that something is art because the person who created it considers it art is self-aggrandizing hooey to make the talentless feel like hes accomplished something.

Another example is Andy Warhol's Campbell Soup can. BFD. Maybe the original designer was an artist, but Warhol might just as well have picked up a Venus Paradise Mona Lisa and colored it in.