Topics Art

Question In the town where I live, many people dress themselves quite eclectically with what seems to be the intention of 'being seen'. Given that this is possible (i.e., wearing clothes simply for the purpose of attracting attention and displaying said clothes in a public area), can we consider these people to be 'art'? If not, then could we consider them as art if they exhibited themselves in a specifically defined gallery-space?

Accepted:
January 21, 2006

Comments

This revolutionary question was raised in a different way by Andy Warhol when he first painted Campbell soup cans (around 1962, I believe) and especially when he displayed Brillo boxes in gallery and museum settings (these were commercial wholesale boxes containing little steelwool soap pads for use in cleaning pots and pans). People asked what he presumably meant them to ask: Is this art? And how does one tell (properties of the object, intent of the presenter, setting and context, or what)? There are different responses to these questions. One of these is that the very distinction between art and non-art is untenable -- or, perhaps better, has been subverted by the evolution of art itself. Some wonderful philosophical reflections on this theme can be found in the work of Arthur Danto. See e.g. his "The End of Art" (in his The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art) or The Transfiguration of the Commonplace.