When is art not art?

A few weeks ago I wondered: At what point does art become not art, either because it is pedantic and caries no meaning/value, or because it has become too obscure and carries no relevance?

It’s a terrible question to ask, partly because it’s the theme of Mona Lisa Smile, yeah, but also because there’s just no legitimate answer.

There is nothing too mundane that can’t be considered art in a certain context. There’s nothing too fleeting that can’t fall into art’s umbrella. I’d like to wave a few examples around.

Larry Krone creates kitschy cross stitch, costume dresses and curiosities out of hair and teeth – things people often collect or have an sentimental connection to even though it may seem silly. He likes to explore people’s connection to plaid, country music and pithy phrases framed and hung up on the wall.

Joseph Beuys stood behind a glass window mumbling to a dead hare in his arms in a performance understandably called How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare. He lived in a gallery for several weeks with a coyote. And none of that exists anymore, save a handful of photos and the story that it happened.

Readymade art from the Duchamp files uses found objects and may not even modify them, while only their suspicious art-like placement in a gallery tips us off that their purpose has been redefined. Surrealists modified objects to make them ridiculous, like a clothes iron studded with nails or a glass of water the artist insists is an oak tree. Shopdropping is a curious offshoot; it’s essentially reverse-shoplifting where a modified or replicated item is placed in a store.

I know it seems ridiculous that such ersatz work would weave its way into art galleries and general appreciation. I often think there’s a mindless nod, like a shudder, that goes through galleries when modern art happens: it seems like people are saying “ah, interesting,” without any actual interest in reacting to its potential meanings, or pinning down why it is interesting. Or some dismiss absurd art as a self-involved artist manufacturing idiosyncrasy and hype.

And that’s a valid opinion. And it happens, sometimes, that an artist just isn’t that amazing, or doesn’t really do it for you.

But my belief structure, when confronted with the wonky fringes of the art fabric, hopes I’ll see something different if it’s there. I hope to not turn up my nose at a diminished, watered-down discipline but embrace possibility and join Yves Klein in his quest for the infinite. I hope to, like Joseph Beuys, believe that people forging unique, organic paths are intrinsically works of art, and that when art imitates life it’s to wake me up to that possibility, not to stand on its own as an isolated statement. I’d like to think that art that baffles is meant to change the way I think about not just art, but everything. I hope to be able to imagine art, and therefore imagine a world, that confronts what is wrong, from racism to body image to apathy, and constantly looks for a better, more whole way of existing.