What is art?

    To begin with, I must confess that I know nothing about art. What I only know is that anyone who tries to give it a definition or a scope may just run into controversy if not trouble, because even those who are called artists or call themselves artists can’t really give a definition. If the person who makes such an attempt is a politician or someone who calls himself/herself a politician, that’s even worse. Call it ambitious or stupid, depending on your choice of language.

    British Culture Secretary Maria Miller stirred up a storm a few days ago when she talked about economic potentials brought by cultural industries and said that art has to make an economic case if public money is to be spent on it. Her remark was, perhaps ironically, made at the British Museum. Back in Hong Kong, DAB lawmaker Chan Kam-lam also sparked outrage by arguing that anything with a political element is out of the scope of art at a Legislative Council committee meeting which discussed plans for the West Kowloon Cultural District’s M+ Museum. I don’t think I need to give examples or an elaboration to rebut Mr. Chan’s comment, for I think it falls into the category of common sense and any serious reader who would like to delve into the relationship between art and politics can find plenty of articles written by people who are much more qualified than me to do this job. These two seemingly unrelated controversies are in fact related. In her speech Ms. Miller cited Hong Kong’s West Kowloon project as an example of business opportunities for the British cultural arena, saying to her audience that “I am sure some of you are eyeing up the possibilities already.” (Her full speech at http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2013/04/24/culture-secretary-maria-miller-s-arts-speech-in-full). So British artists who are eyeing up the possibilities brought by West Kowloon may be interested in finding out whether their artworks would have to be considered ‘apolitical’ to be qualified for exhibition there.

  The display of the ‘inflatable faeces’ (http://hypebeast.com/2013/4/check-out-paul-mccarthys-pile-of-feces-and-other-unique-inflatable-sculptures-video) in West Kowloon has heated up discussion among Hongkongers of what constitute art and what do not. Reports say its creator, American artist Paul McCarthy, designed it to challenge the tradition concept of art. I wonder… If this piece of ‘poop’ stood next to a genuine public toilet, would anyone still call it art? I also wonder, since Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman’s giant rubber duck
(http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1222646/friendly-rubber-duck-makes-splash-hong-kong) has drawn millions of exclamations of “Oh how cute!” around the world, why don’t we at least show a level of excitement proportionate to its size when we see a little one in the bathroom?

    With no fancy plan on a Sunday afternoon after submitting my dissertation proposal, I visited the Arnolfini gallery in Bristol. Not looking for an answer to these questions but just to go for a walk, not even knowing what exhibition was currently on. As I entered the first exhibition room on the ground floor, I saw no painting and no sculpture but all questionnaires and letters on the wall. They were correspondences between the late American conceptual artist Don Celender and many other people including artists, chefs, broadcasters, bureaucrats and managers of various organisations. Are questionnaire surveys art? Hm, not that I had thought of. One of the projects showcased was called the ‘Ignored and Neglected Artist Survey’, in which Celender posed the question ““In your view, which artist from any period has been the most sorely ignored, or neglected?” to his fellow artists. Some of his respondents gave straight-forward answers by naming an artist or a few, in some cases themselves. One gave a very insightful reply which made the questioner look somewhat stupid – the most sorely ignored and neglected artists are the ones called ANONYMOUS! Another one said recognition might not matter for artists after all. So, why care to dispute whether the poop in West Kowloon or the globetrotting duck are artworks or not?

    I still have no answer to the question of what art is. If anyone does, please offer me some insight. 

Art? Politics?