Contemporary conceptions and definitions of art

¶ … art now?

What is Art Today?

One of the questions that the Art Now series brought to the table was "What is art today?" Today, it doesn't seem like there is a lack of art anywhere in the world. However, what constitutes 'real' art? And when we think of art, do we also have to think of its purpose? Does art need meaning and purpose in order to constitute art? The art world tends to imply that art can be anything as long as the person who created in says it is. However, what is it that drives people to become artists and what is it that makes them successful as opposed to others who never achieve success in their art? After the series, perhaps it is not crazy to come to the realization that artists' success is directly related to commercial interests. If an artist is going to sell a piece of work and get good money for it, then that means that there has to be a purpose for that piece of art and there has to be some kind of demand for it. For example, in the case of Bruno Billio, his installation pieces have been used in fashionable hotels where the commercial idea is to give the hotel a certain highbrow feel. "Also at play is the artist's allusion to luxury culture; the contemporary phenomenon of a distorted supply and demand" (Billio 2011). Billio's art often uses objects such as a chair, suitcase, or book -- common objects that speak "to an ambivalent need for the bracketed re-insertion of nostalgia and the personal into the context of commodity culture" (2011). However, in using objects in his installation pieces, which he calls art, the question that comes to mind is "Is this really art?" It will be argued here that art can be defined by the viewer and not necessarily by the artist and in many cases with what we consider 'modern art,' it is the experience that is created that is the art, rather than the piece itself.

One of the issues that come up with the type of artwork that Billio creates is how an object can embody art. The art then seems to be in the way in which an individual views the object rather than in the object itself. There is really nothing inherent in the object that can constitute it as a piece of artwork. Yet, we still call this 'art.' The art is not necessarily, in the case of Billio, in the artist, but rather in the person viewing the object. But the viewer will still think that they are seeing something that is art, because that is the name that it has been given. So perhaps what we call the 'artist' should be renamed because that person is not necessarily creating a piece of art, but rather, they are creating an experience. Not everyone thus will view the object and think that it is art. So like beauty is in the eye of the behold -- so is art, and it is up to the viewer to constitute whether or not something is art.

Of course this point-of-view could have a dramatic effect on the art world because how are people -- curators, critics, historians, etc. -- going to decide what constitutes real art and what does now? If we are to think in these terms that it is almost impossible to say for certain what art is. Art lacks a definition that makes one satisfied. Again, using the example of Billio, today his work is regarded as art, but there is no way of maintaining that his pieces would have constituted as art in the past or that they will constitute as art in the future. However, looking at a piece of art like the Mona Lisa is entirely different. The question then is "why?" Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece we know for certain was considered a piece of art in the past as he was considered a great artist even in his own time and his artwork today is in the finest museums of the world and attracts millions of spectators to them each year. But then looking at other pieces of 'art' that are in museums may be considered art today but they were not considered art in their time of creation. For example, most (if not all) of the ancient Greek and Egyptian pottery that we find in museums was not considered art in its time of creation. They were made as practical pieces that were used for practical purposes. It was later when humans defined the word art that these relics were collected and renamed as art.

Another example of why art is hard to define and why it really depends on the time in history that makes a piece a work of art or not can be seen in the way in which many artists do not achieve success until after their deaths. It can be argued that true artists are often very in tune with what is going on in the culture and very aware of ways in which culture oppresses people or glorifies them. They are sensitive to what is going on in the world and perhaps they bring to light what is being repressed or ignored and they are aware of it before anyone else and they bring it to light in their art. A perfect example of this phenomenon can be seen in the painter El Greco. El Greco's work was largely ignored during the time of his life because it was viewed as different and it didn't conform to what the definition of art was at that time. El Greco would only be recognized hundreds of years later as a great painter who was ahead of his time. Not only were the themes used in his paintings contentious for the time in which he lived, but his techniques were ahead of his time. While El Greco was alive, his art was not considered art, but there wouldn't be one historian or critic who wouldn't call it art today.

In considering Billio's work, what is to say that it will be considered art tomorrow even though it is considered art today? There are some that will argue that great art comes not just from the person who is experiencing the art, but we have to understand more about what the experience of the artist was in making the piece. For example, considering a painter like Jackson Pollack, for many his artwork looks no more like a messy painting that a preschool child might do. But when we consider the painter's life and the struggles that he went through as an individual, the artwork becomes a bit more intriguing. Pollack was obviously such an influential painter whose paintings changed the modern art world. It seems absurd to even compare a painter like Pollack with the artist Billio because Billio's pieces were made in a different time and seem to have more to say about our consumerism and luxury/commodity culture than they do about the artist and, for that reason, it could be argued that Billio's pieces are not likely to have any influence on people in a different time other than the present.