As a thought experiment… Imagine a planet called Xtttwrp on the far side of the galaxy, where a mammalian life form has out-evolved all other animals. As they began to master their environment, and as the difficulties of doing anything more than survive began to recede, they find themselves with both the time and the inclination to start daubing cave walls with abstract designs and images of the world about them. They call this activity gurbing.
As the species, it’s culture and it’s society all evolved, gurbing also evolved; progressing from cave walls, to house walls; from scrapings in the sand to the use of sophisticated vegetable and mineral pigments, applied to wood, plaster and canvas.
Other people, upon seeing these new images, tend to react in a number of ways, and to varying degrees. And as it’s their senses that have been subjected to this ‘gurb’, they often feel entitled to share their views. The usual comments being along the lines of “I like it”, “I don’t like it”, “It moves me”, “It doesn’t do anything for me”, “I don’t understand it”, etc. Even “This is good gurb”, or “This is rubbish”.
But the people of planet Xtttwrp are very polite, and the one thing you’ll never hear anyone other than the gurbist say, is “Yes, but is it gurb?”.
* * *
Does this discussion sound familiar? Most of us have heard someone saying “That isn’t art” or variations thereof. Possibly some of us have said something similar, hopefully ironically or philosophically, but if someone claims that they’ve done something artistic, be it a painting, a piece of music or a decorated cake; then quite simply, it becomes art. How it will be judged is another matter.
Art isn’t like for example, engineering. If someone says “It’s a bridge” or “It’s a helicopter”, there are a number of objective tests to establish the truth of these statements. But by giving something the label ‘Art’, all one is doing is doing is putting it into a category which invites a subjective, or emotional assessment, or invites comparison with other items in this category. It is the highest form of arrogance to question the artists’ right to decide if his or her work is worthy of this label.
Discussions along the lines of “is it good art?” on the other hand, are completely fair game…
Conversely, we occasionally see a pattern in nature, or perhaps one created by accident… oil film on a puddle, fallen leaves, a broken vase, or even dog vomit on the pavement. It’s perfectly valid to make an aesthetic judgement about the pattern… but it’s not art!
