I never said there are general criteria. It's just that I have certain criteria for me personally, as I tried to convey. You almost make the impression that you think I want to be a kind of art police.
I don't mind anybody calling anything art. More power to them.
But nobody tells me what
I should consider art or not either...
But maybe you would be more comfortable if I called it (again and again in my personal opinion) bad art, rather than not art? I sometimes get the feeling there is where the sensitivities lie.
Here in Iceland a young fellow from Germany came to visit a couple of years ago, and in the Mývatn National park he wrote the word "moss" in the moss by severely damaging it. In the arctic climate this kind of moss is the only groundcovering flora on the lava, and it takes literally ages as in several hundred years to form. His justification for this blatant act of vandalism? "Art". I can tell you it sure had shock value...
So now you tell me Arty, do you think that was art? Bad art? Shocking art Criminal art? Maybe even not art at all?
Hi E.J.H.
Hmmm. A lot to unpack here. First, let me say, if you got the impression that I was making an impression that you were the "art police," please forgive me. I thought you were literally saying that art had a criteria and was
separate from your opinion. You said your opinion many times in your first post (which I totally understand, but I guess I didn't apply it to that particular statement. I can be a little dumb at times.
I see now that you have a
personal criteria.
Me too.
I'm not comfortable or uncomfortable. I can read things too literally or analytically sometimes. Please accept my apologies. But I feel most anything can be art, depending on the context and intention. (It always depends, though, on a lot of other circumstances too, of course.) But that's me. I like that we can have this conversation. It is okay to disagree.
I do agree with there being a LOT of BAD art!
There is a lot of gimmicky art, shock art, stupid art, useless art, etc. Perhaps we can agree there?
Also, I would never tell you or, as I said before, think I could convince you what your opinion should or should not be or tell you what is or isn't art. That is up to you, of course! I didn't mean to come off like that.
As for the last question here about this German person who spelled out "moss" in the moss (oh, what a genius!), I'd say, if he meant it to be some sort of art (did he say it was?), then he should have also checked the laws because it was most certainly criminal. I'd say it was beyond stupid and bad. Was it art, though? I'm not sure because I have no in-person context to experience it. Who was the audience? What was the purpose and presentation? The thing itself doesn't make me
think or feel; only your question does. I'd say your description and your question to me about this is the actual art in this scenario.
