Without reading the article, I am going to answer the question once and for all:
Q. Were you paid for what you did?
A. Yes? Then it was art.
Note that people get paid in other things besides money. Basically: if somebody gave you something for what you did, then it’s art.
That’s complete bunk, Moe. Sweeping the floor or digging a ditch is not art.
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Art is something aesthetically pleasing, but otherwise holds no real value beyond the subjective judgment. I can look at a painting and think it is not worth the canvas it is painted on, but someone else thinks is priceless. I am a big fan of Metal music, but you like Rock. Even (e)books can be art: The physical book we can determine its real value based off of pages/ink and how much memory a file eats up, but what is in the book/file has aesthetic value only to the reader and author.
I too, must disagree. Van Gogh never got paid, but “starry night” is surely art.
Does it require skill rising from a mix of talent and hard work? It might be art.
Could it be mistaken for water damage? It’s probably not art.
“Art is bad if it reminds you to paint your garage.” — Dennis Miller
“If I can do it, it’s not art.” — Red Green
The latter is what I consider the definitive statement on the matter.
From an artistic point of view? I know art when I see it.
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From a legal/accounting point of view? Best err on the side of calling too much art than too little.
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Mew
CANNOT find a good copy of the “Art of Noise” video for “Close (to the edit)” so not posting it, but .. that.
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Put another way, art is that which evokes an emotional response out of proportion to the component pieces.
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To Gator’s point above, assuming a person who is emotionally pleased by clean floors or straight and well-squared-away silage trenches, then – to that person – they *are* art.
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Oh, and also this:
http://partiallyclips.com/2012/10/29/slime-monster/
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Mew
This is a sick world we’re living in! Sick people!
This is not news.
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Mew
It’s only art if the aforementioned emotionally pleased person pays the floor cleaner or the trench digger for being able to witness the floor or the trench.
Remember, I agree with Robert Heinlein completely when he said that the most beautiful, most poetic phrase in the English language was Pay to the order of…
“payment” is .. fraught.
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“Public art” is a legal requirement for government buildings in Illinois, which means we get some *really* ugly “public art”, for which the artists do, in fact, get paid. (IIRC, a fixed percentage of the cost of the building must go into “public art”)
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Then, there’s things like “Cows on parade” (and the thousand copycats) in which fiberglass statuary are paid for and painted “artistically”, mostly by local business folk although some are volunteer work.
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Then, there’s the emotional/religious payoff for whomever keeps scrawling “Trust Jesus” on overpasses in blue spraypaint .. nobody’s saying “Pay to the order of..” for *that* ..
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Mew