Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Art is Art

Recently I have been in several conversations concerning art and aesthetics. This brought about an interesting thought to ponder. 

The moment we apply meaning to something (e.g. That thing means or represents that), does it become art? 

I know this is an age old question and has been debated since the caveman discovered cave art, but it is still a very interesting question.

I seem to go into the idea that art is a representation of something. It can be a philosophy, a process, a picture, a person or just a general idea. But it is something that has meaning, so we can say that piece of art represents or means that something. So in my mind, in that moment of applying meaning to a thing it becomes art.

One person made the comment that maybe it becomes art to that person. So this begs another question, does that make it not art? Or if something is art to even just one person, can we call that art? 

I obviously don't have any answers, but perhaps this will spark an interesting conversation, if anyone ever happens to read this blog.