The biggest obstacle that I run into as I seek to convince
my students that all man-made objects are works of “art” is when the students
interpret this to mean that everything can be considered “beautiful.” This is an indication of how deeply ingrained the common
definition of “art” is in our culture. I advise them to think about it from
the other end of the spectrum. Rather than thinking
that all objects can be considered "beautiful" (a term which, like
“art” itself, I try not to use), think about the potential for each object to
tell us something about the people who made it.
One of my favorite recent examples
of the common misconception of the notion of “art” appeared in a New York Times article from February,
around the time of the Super Bowl. The story focused on a company called Sport
Graphics and the “giant vinyl decal” of the Lombardi Trophy that they affixed
to the façade of a hotel in downtown Indianapolis, the site of the game. The
article proclaimed that the company’s owner “may never
be mistaken for an installation artist like Christo, who along with his wife,
Jeanne-Claude, attained international fame for wrapping big things in colorful
fabric.” In other words, he’s not an “artist,” he’s an entrepreneur.
The article actually opened
with the following line: “If Christo were a capitalist, he would want to work
for Sport Graphics.” Funny thing is, Christo
is a capitalist. Christo’s projects are privately funded through the sale
of books, prints and other objects related to each installation.
(“Installation” is a term of art from the “art” world. Interestingly, Sport
Graphic’s website contains the following statement: “The local and national media highlighted one of our Super
Bowl XLVI installations.” Sounds like
they think it’s “art.”)
But most people don’t consider
this “art.” Christo’s work is “art.” Christo positions himself as part of the
traditional “art” world. Most of the objects related to his projects are
drawings and photographs, and these have been exhibited in “art” galleries. But
the deeper reason that Christo’s work is considered “art” (and formats like the
hotel wrap and graphic design in general are not) is that Christo’s work is
primarily composed of form, usually with
no recognizable subject matter.
In Real Spaces, David Summers argues that the modern notion of the
“fine arts” has consigned “resemblant and narrative ‘subject-matter’” to
a status “secondary to ‘form.’” Christo’s most famous work, The Gates, is composed entirely of
shapes and colors, with no words or images. Form without subject matter. In
fact, the movement from subject matter to form in modern “art” was
fundamentally tied to the development of the modern notion of “art” that I am arguing against. The separation of form from subject matter—even
in objects where subject matter remains present—has lead to the modern Western
emphasis on personal expression, which is at the root of the common definition
of “art.”
But this definition privileges certain objects and
marginalizes others. Summers says, “While all this has been going on in the
newly specialized modern realm of ‘art’, however, we have also come to be
inundated with images in unprecedented profusion,” a phenomenon which has been “shielded
from art-historical consideration by the sharp distinction of ‘fine art’ and
technology.” But, he asserts, “we cannot begin to understand our own art history”
unless we address the “images we make and use without thinking of them as ‘art’.”
A Renaissance altarpiece belongs to the same series as The Starry Night in that they are both
paintings. But the Renaissance altarpiece also belongs to the same series as the
Super Bowl hotel graphic in that they are both
examples of the most advanced visual technology of their respective eras. Each
was produced by many hands in the workshop of a master. And like Duccio’s Maestà, which was paraded triumphantly
through the streets of Siena by a proud populace, people marveled at the hotel
image, taking pictures of themselves in front of it.
My mantra every semester is, “All man-made objects are works
of art,” but this is usually taken to mean that we should look for personal expression
and beauty even in the most mundane objects. I need to come at it from the
other direction. “Art” consists of everything a culture produces, whether you like it
or not.
