What Art Thou?

Art having such a vague definition, and being fraught with contradictions and snobbish elitism, that it is unfortunate to note that a not particularly well-heard listener could claim Nickelback's latest album as a profound work of art and you could say nothing to refute that claim. Well, not exactly nothing; you could say that Nickelback are spineless no-talent god-ugly pricks who are 20,000 leagues below Bach, but it would amount to the same thanks to subjectivity.

John Carey, in his book What Good Are The Arts?, theorises that art is simply something that someone thinks is art. I guess that's an adequate description of a flawed term. One thing that messes everything up in this debate is whether the work in question was intended to be art. Say, for instance, that someone considers the late-great Shannon Noll's Now That's What I'm Talking About to be art. Is it still art when the creator's only goal in releasing the record is to make money? Does art have to be intended? As Andrew Ford pointed out, no. Hitchcock, for one, made his films to entertain an audience — not to be fawned over by critics. The whole term is wrapped in a minefield that can't be navigated as easily as I'm attempting here.

At this point, I'll dredge up that soggy old term Literature. As Ben and I have argued, all this term signifies is what the academics, as an ever-present body, think is any good. Literature has no specified meaning in itself, it is merely used to separate the supposed good from the supposed bad. I myself could open up a book store with a Literature section that includes only books that I like; which is the same thing sans the formidable weight of the erudite populous behind me. This definition could also be applied to art. Instead of branding things as art, we should instead slap a sticker on them that says: "Recommended by Academics and Critics alike".

In the end, all these terms are pointless. A work doesn't suddenly become better if someone calls it art — though it will attract more attention. We should stop categorising everything and start enjoying them.

In an attempt at putting an end to the matter, I paid a visit to my good friend Ben and posed the question: "What is art?" He considered this a moment before replying: "Art is nothing much."