The Limits of Art
"You call that 'art'? Anybody could do that!" This is the common riposte to conceptual art. An example of this attitude was recently on display (literally) in a students' prank at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, as reported in a May 11, 2017, article in the New York Times. The university was hosting an art exhibition, "Look Again," exploring the impact of foreign cultures on Scotland. On a lark, two students purchased an ordinary pineapple and placed it on an empty table at the exhibit.
They returned a few days later and were surprised to find that not only had the pineapple not been removed, it had been put under glass, as if it were part of the exhibit. One of the students tweeted photos of their triumph, mocking the curators and proclaiming, "I made art!" The internet responded to the prank favorably, of course, and the student concluded, "It just goes to show the ludicrousness of conceptual art and how anything can become art.”
It was later discovered that a janitor had placed the glass over the pineapple (his motivations unknown), but nevertheless it is curious that the curators of the show didn't remove the pineapple for almost a week. This appears to have been an oversight, but the possibility that someone — whether among the museum's staff or its patrons — might have endorsed and approved the pineapple, has prompted disdain.
It is interesting to think that such a thing could still raise eyebrows, in light of the fact that one-hundred years ago Marcel Duchamp was pulling the same prank — albeit in all seriousness. In a series of "ready-mades," Duchamp turned everyday objects into art simply by putting them on pedestals and declaring them to be art.
The most famous example is 1917's Fountain, a plain urinal which Duchamp signed with a pseudonym and entered into an art exhibit. It was rejected, and he displayed it instead in the studio of his friend, photographer Alfred Stieglitz. Fountain is frequently called the single-most important work of art of the twentieth century, as it seems to have removed any limit to the boundaries of art — or rather, it established what the true limit was... namely, the frame. On Duchamp's view, art is anything inside a frame. (Of course, it might be bad art, but that's a different question.)
It is perfectly understandable why many people reject this notion. If all you have to do is frame something to make it art, then art suddenly resides more in the head — in the mental act of framing — than it does in the hands or the brushstrokes or the wet clay. But can't anyone conceive of a Rembrandt portrait or Michelangelo's David? This view robs art of its handmaidens, craft and talent, and reduces the inspirational mysticism of art to mere theoretical obscurantism. What separates these 'conceptual' artists from run-of-the-mill frauds, like patent medicine salesmen and cult leaders? As Marshal McLuhan claimed in The Medium is the Massage, "Art is anything you can get away with" (p. 132-136).
I want to endorse Duchamp's impulse while saving it from the hucksters and charlatans. The key, I think, is to understand how we use the label "art" for different purposes. On the one hand, the "art" label is used by gatekeepers as a way of distinguishing the fine arts from populist trash; it is a mark of quality and refinement. (Elitism is also necessary, of course, when trying to achieve extraordinary prices in the marketplace.) In this context, putting a pineapple on a table and calling it "art" is akin to sticking a feather in your cap and calling it "macaroni." You've debased the art rather than elevated the pineapple.
I have no objection to this kind of labeling, or the others we use in evaluating art: good vs. bad, high vs. low, decorative vs. fine, ancient vs. modern. Let us preserve distinctions like that. But beneath those intramural differences, we also use "art" to distinguish one form of expression from all other forms of communication — and the crucial distinction lies in art's infinite interpretive possibilities.
In other words, when you read a cooking recipe, there are only so many ways you can read it and still be following the recipe. It is possible that you can get it wrong, if your dish does not taste the way the recipe predicted. (Of course the dish could taste better than expected — but still you haven't followed the recipe.) Your reading of the recipe is constrained. The same applies to legal rules and love letters and advertisements and road signs and 'can you pick up dinner tonight?' text messages. If the person receiving the text message concludes something wildly different than the author intended, then it has failed.
But how is art constrained? You may read The Wizard of Oz and take it at face value, while I may read it as a metaphor for contemporary political debates. It isn't wrong to see those political parallels (regardless what Frank Baum intended) if finding them is rewarding and meaningful to my reading — if it enriches the book as food for thought for me. It is well-documented that Picasso painted Guernica in response to a wartime bombing, but you do not have to know that to get something interesting and artistically meaningful from viewing the painting.
That's not to say that all interpretations are equally valid... perhaps one which speaks to many takes precedence over one which speaks to few, perhaps even one which is consistent with the artist's intention takes precedence over one which violates it. But their validity depends on nothing but the extent to which they enrich our appreciation of the art. (See Fn. 1.) 'Minority report' interpretations are not wrong, they're just... overlooked, forgotten, ignored at the faculty colloquium. The eye of the beholder remains the ultimate judge, and beholders may differ without negating one another.
This perspective reminds us that art's work is done in the head (and heart) of the audience. Looking any place else is not prohibited — but not necessary, either. Essentially I want to reform McLuhan's phrase: art is indeed anything you can get away with... but let us understand that phrase not in context of the cynical, mercantile artist, but as it relates to the thirsting audience. Anything that produces aesthetic enjoyment, any perspective that yields insight and depth, any pineapple that catches your eye in a gallery — seize it and claim it as art for you. Why not?
If you wish to discuss this post with me, I'd welcome receiving an email from you. Please email me at language.on.holiday@gmail.com.
Fn. 1 — Can an interpretation which rests on factual error still be rewarding? A famous example of this question is Freud's interpretation of Leonardo. Freud relied on a journal entry by Leonardo reporting a childhood dream of a vulture, which Freud connected to ancient Egyptian and patristic myths concerning the sexuality and reproduction of vultures. One of Freud's admirers even found a vulture hidden in the folds of clothing painted by Leonardo in his Madonna and Child with St. Anne — which delighted Freud, who took it as proof of his theory. Unfortunately, Freud's edition of Leonardo's notebooks contained a mistranslation: the Italian nibio ("kite") was rendered in German as Geier ("vulture"). Leonardo dreamed of a kite, not a vulture! So the painting's hidden vulture was a figment of critical imagination.