The definition of Art is a complex debate that has got academics, artists and laymen engaged in many discussions, most of them probably over various beverages and food. Beyond just a question of what the technical definition of ‘Art’ might be, the debate often also includes a question of who gets to define it.

As Rick Poynor, founder of EYE magazine and author of various books on visual culture describes it in his article in the art and visual culture magazine, Elephant, “The art world is less good at explaining how certain people get to be artists and decide what art is for the rest of us.”

So who then gets to define it? Is it the artists themselves? Or would that privilege belong to the viewer like you and I?

Marketing jedi master Seth Godin suggests that “Art is not in the eye of the beholder’” and that “It’s in the soul of the artist”; a view that I’m sure many will share. However some, would hold the counter-view that Art IS in fact in the eye of the beholder. As Brian Eno proposed in an interview some years back, art might not reside in the object itself and hence the artist should be redefined as someone who simply ‘creates the occassion for an art experience’ .

This view has however provoked a rebuttal from Poynor in the same article who critiques Eno’s position as one that ‘does not reveal anything about the aspects of an art work that might cause the viewer to have that experience… Nor does it acknowledge that artists try to create art experiences by manipulating their materials, using an understanding gained as both viewer and preactitioner, in order to affect other viewers in particular ways’.

So, the question still remains. Who gets to define it?

Just like Poynor, I’m not part of the art world but unlike him, I didn’t study art and so I have no assumptions whatsoever of what is good, bad, high, low or even what art is. However, it is my opinion that the very fact that ‘Art’ is not easily defined is critical and a good thing.

It is my view that the role of Art is simply too important in our culture to be left to the domain of one particular group. This is because Art is a reflection of ourselves as a human society, existing in a particular time in the history of mankind and is an attempt in capturing our zeitgeist in some way. It is both a record and also a mirror of ourselves and something as important as this deserves intense debate and examination.

No one, not the artist nor a curator, should be able to force a piece of work to our senses and insist that ‘This is Art’. Also, no man should be able to go round telling his peers and community that he is ‘an artist’. And no man in the street should be able to dismiss something as rubbish just because he does not understand what he is seeing.

I am one of those who believe that the definition of Art is one that should be constantly debated, it’s boundaries constantly fluid and our understanding of it evolving as we ourselves evolve as a species and as a society. I believe that true ‘Artworks’ will emerge because, or perhaps despite, of the constant debate of its definition. Perhaps it is only those that stand intellectual and public scrutiny deserves to be called ‘Art’.

Perhaps artists don’t make ‘Art’ but merely attempt to create it and it is the debate that decides if it qualifies as one. And perhaps all of us, both professional and amateur consumers of Art, need to participate and actively question what is presented to us at the galleries or at the Art Biennales so that we can contribute in our own small way towards a definition of ‘Art’.

Where do you stand on the definition of art? Leave a comment or send me an email with your thoughts at adib [at] awesomeanything.com.