It seems like one of the questions that comes up most in the art world is the most basic: what is art and what is not?
Answers are as varied as the artists that have spanned the last two centuries. Marcel Duchamp and his Fountain proclaimed that art is whatever an artist proclaims to be so. Whatever is chosen to be art is, in fact, art.
Conceptual artists declared that art is the idea or concept behind an actual product.
Others believe art should be mind-altering. It should move, inspire or challenge its viewer.
So does that mean art is a painting? or a sculpture? or a movie? or a building? a photo, a white canvas, a shark in formaldehyde? I'm not going to pretend to answer that question. I don't want to limit what art can and cannot be. Who am I to limit an artist from creating something that completely blows my mind and perceptions?
A simple definition of art from my computer's dictionary states it as this: "the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination." There's more following that sentence, but I sort of like the simplicity of that definition as is. Creative skill and imagination. Ok. I can work with that.
That being said, take a look at this.
Answers are as varied as the artists that have spanned the last two centuries. Marcel Duchamp and his Fountain proclaimed that art is whatever an artist proclaims to be so. Whatever is chosen to be art is, in fact, art.
Conceptual artists declared that art is the idea or concept behind an actual product.
Others believe art should be mind-altering. It should move, inspire or challenge its viewer.
So does that mean art is a painting? or a sculpture? or a movie? or a building? a photo, a white canvas, a shark in formaldehyde? I'm not going to pretend to answer that question. I don't want to limit what art can and cannot be. Who am I to limit an artist from creating something that completely blows my mind and perceptions?
A simple definition of art from my computer's dictionary states it as this: "the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination." There's more following that sentence, but I sort of like the simplicity of that definition as is. Creative skill and imagination. Ok. I can work with that.
That being said, take a look at this.
If that doesn't take creative skill and imagination, I don't know what does. This installation piece has been installed three times in the past year by the Viennese/Croatian design collective For Use/Numen. At this installation inside the Odeon, a former stock exchange building in Vienna, the artists used almost 117,000 ft of packing tape -- 100 pounds!
According to the article on FastCompany.com, “The installation is based on an idea for a dance performance in which the form evolves from the movement of the dancers between the pillars,” explains For Use’s Christoph Katzler.
That's funny; when I saw the work it made me think of what would happen if a butterfly and spider conjured up a tree house together. Whimsical, right?
I can only imagine how neat -- yet slightly agitating -- it is to sit in this cocoon of plastic.
You clearly can't buy this work and hang it on your wall at home. So, is it art? I sure think so.
According to the article on FastCompany.com, “The installation is based on an idea for a dance performance in which the form evolves from the movement of the dancers between the pillars,” explains For Use’s Christoph Katzler.
That's funny; when I saw the work it made me think of what would happen if a butterfly and spider conjured up a tree house together. Whimsical, right?
I can only imagine how neat -- yet slightly agitating -- it is to sit in this cocoon of plastic.
You clearly can't buy this work and hang it on your wall at home. So, is it art? I sure think so.