If you change the word qualify to propose then anything may be proposed as art. Thus the question to ask is "Could this be art?" and not "Is this art?" WC
________________________________ From: Chris Miller <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, July 10, 2009 7:48:36 AM Subject: Why is important to distinguish art from non art.? Outside the special world of contemporary art, the only instance where the "art/not art" distinction is important is when "art" means nothing more than "made by humans". I remember when I first saw some "scholar's rocks" in a museum exhibition, and was puzzled that such a style of sculpture was practiced in historic China. But after reading the labels, I learned that they were natural objects, not sculpture. But otherwise, the distinction is irrelevant- especially in an era when art can be anything. Are art museums now beginning to present Norman Rockwell paintings as art instead of mere commercial illustration? Even as artifacts to be studied by future cultural historians, the information that can be taken from a Rockwell painting is unchanged, whether it ever appeared in an art museum or not. As Boris put it, "When we hear melody or noise we don't need any idea to approach them the way they deserve" (regardless of the fame of John Cage's "4 minutes, 33 seconds") And it is only "unable wannabes and idiots- collectors advised by crooks" for whom "art does not exist until approached with the idea that this is art " Or school boys -- i.e. young people who quite properly defer to the judgment of their teachers regarding the value of things. Or participants in that lucrative social practice of advanced capitalism called the Contemporary Art World, where social and intellectual status is bought and sold in a cultural Ponzi scheme. >To "call something art" is to say that it is proper to make certain statements about the thing. Among them may --may-- be statements about some symbolic quality, or about higher or more noble sentiments. But those statements *derive* from the initial judgment that an object qualifies to be called art and thus qualifies to be described in certain ways. >I say that you cannot begin to describe something as "art" or to say things about it as "art" until you first determine whether it qualifies as "art"--even if just for the time being. And I am also saying that if you determine that it is more important to judge the denotational (epistemic) truth of the representation, then you are not viewing it as art but as something else; and conversely, if you determine it's more important to judge the work as a free creation, then you are viewing it as art. (Michael Brady) ____________________________________________________________ Research online bachelor degrees from leading universities today. Click here. http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2231/fc/BLSrjnxXkamI0IsC4Td9zLjFRCvHZI rubxbhgVD2HGc6jK33srPAuIHT2kY/
