What is (good) art?

What is (good) art?

There are two things that I would like to explore this week.  “What is art?” and “What is good art?” You may think that these are very similar questions, but in my opinion, the first can easily be defined, but the second delves much deeper into the realm of opinion.

Look closer. It is not just Abraham Lincoln. By Salvador Dali

            I’ll start this off with defining what I believe art is.  Art is not just paintings, sculptures and performances.  Art is anything that takes creative effort and provokes an emotional or intelligent and thoughtful response. The stronger the emotion or thought, the better. Art comes from creativity, but its goal is to stimulate a reaction of some sort.

            So, now that we know what art is, let’s talk about a few uncharacteristic examples.  One of my favorites is street art. It can come in many forms, performers, musicians, or artists who work in the medium of chalk or spray paint. I’m not going to delve very far into this right now, but street art, in the form of graffiti and tagging, has seen a large rise in the last 10 years or so. It is considered by some to be the art of today. One of the most well-known street artists is Banksy. He started out spray-painting his art on the sides of buildings.  In 2007, a piece created by Banksy called Space Girl and Bird sold for approximately $576,000 at Bonhams in London. From an unknown street artist to having work sold at Bonhams and Sothebys, I think he is expanding the definition of art.

            Banksy is just one of many street artist whose work is becoming increasingly popular in recent years. There are also hundreds of unknown street artists. And the street art of different locals, Europe versus America for example, have very different personalities in their street art. I will discuss more about the art of today in another post.

            So, now that you know better what art is, let’s talk about what makes art good. Why are street art paintings of rats and nonsense selling for $500,000 at prestigious auction houses? Why is this piece exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York? My two-year-old cousin could paint this. I’m sure thousands of people have said just that as they walked past that painting.

            As we defined in the introduction, art is not about the difficulty or aesthetics. It is about using your creativity and asking your viewer to react or make a connection with the piece. Even if that reaction is to piss you off or make you scoff, it still caught your attention. You looked at it and thought about it, that is one piece of the definition of art.

            Creativity is the second part of the definition. You have to think of it. Yes, my two-year-old cousin could have painted that, but she did not intentionally think of it, have a purpose behind it and then execute the idea. That is a main point behind something being defined as art and being chosen to be displayed at a major museum or gallery.

            Now, What do I look for in a piece of art that I love? What draws me to that one special piece when I walk into a gallery? Well, I can’t tell you. It just has that je ne sais quoi. I think it is different for everyone. There's just something that attracts you to art. I am preferential to contemporary or modern art. I like when a piece  makes me question what the artist is trying to say.

            Now, I know I have mostly discussed unconventional forms of art in this post. I wanted to start out with a controversial idea and then briefly discuss more common or mundane ideas. Yes, there is a place in this world for classical art. And, many great works are defined as masterpieces because of their beauty, timelessness and aesthetics. The Mona Lisa is not simply one of the most celebrated classic works because Da Vinci was being creative and thought he would make a realistic portrait of this woman. There is much more behind why she has become an art icon.

Is she beautiful? Frida Kahlo is a very famous feminist artist.

This is being displayed at the MoMA. Yes, they're all the same height. Creepy isn't it?

            But, I digress. So, I have told you what art is and what can make art good. I also shared a little about what I think is great art. Do you all think graffiti is art? How about these artists’ work? It might be offensive or ugly, but does that prevent it from being art?

What is a Museum?

What is a museum? I’m sure you’re thinking that it’s a silly question because, of course, there’s a very simple answer. Well, go ahead and give it a little try.

Uh-huh. Not as easy as you thought, right?

Museums are one of those conceptual ideas. We know exactly what it is, but it’s so hard to put into words. Well, I’m going to do just that for you. I’m going to put the definition of museum into words.

The most important thing to define first, just as in writing, is your audience. The audience of a museum is especially important because you would not want to advertise yourself as a hands-on children’s museum and then have priceless works of art ruined by sticky little hands.

A museum serves only one function: to educate. The next step is to decide how you’ll educate your audience—without boring them. Children are interested in different things than adults are, and have shorter attention spans; so the way to educate them must differ too.

The next key to a museum is to collect the items through which you’ll fulfill its function. These items will be used to give your audience knowledge and possibly to inspire them.

So, the only stipulation for something to be a museum is to be an institution that teaches through a collection of examples.

Not only do museums display their items to teach the public that they serve, they also store a lot of their collection in back rooms. This gives museums the option of what they want to teach. They can choose a specific area of their collection or a time in history that they want to highlight for their public. Also, many museums will rotate parts of their collection to other museums. This allows the knowledge to be spread around the nation or even around the world.  

Next, let’s talk a little about types of museums. Obviously, we have already discussed art museums and children’s museums. Those are clear examples. Some examples you might not have thought about, though, include a site-specific history museum, an airplane graveyard, an art history museum and a zoo or aquarium.

Yes, a zoo is a museum. It is a living museum. Zoos, as we have defined, are a museum because they serve an audience by educating using a set of examples. The “examples” just happen to be alive.

Why do we have museums? As a society, I think we need museums. We want to know more about our past and our future. A history museum, such as the Smithsonian or a Holocaust museum, serve to teach us about the past. They are there to remind of the horrific things that have happened so that we don’t repeat them, and to tell the stories of triumph from the past. Science museums are there to teach us about the latest technology—and show us what our future looks like. 

Another purpose that museums can fulfill, but is not necessary for the classification of “museum,” is research. With their vast collections of educational items, museums can be wonderful places for academia to study and produce their research. Just as they educate the public with the past and the future, museums can be institutions for research to explain our country’s history or to study what the newest and greatest technology will be in five years.

So, is a circus a museum? Is an antique store? They both can teach us things and preserve things of (historical) value. How about a planetarium? Museums don’t have to be just about the terrestrial.