What is Art?

I’m currently reading “the photograph as contemporary art” by Charlotte Cotton. It’s one of the required reading books to the course and it has been a struggle. The reason it has been a struggle is because I don’t understand art. I am hoping by the end of this Bachelor of Arts degree that I may understand art little bit more. I come from east Belfast working-class roots, and as such my initial reaction when being presented with modern or contemporary art would be “how can that be art it’s just a pile of bricks” or “how can that be art, it’s just an unmade bed ” or “how can that be art, it’s just half a cow in formaldehyde”, et cetera. This book is starting to bring me round to believing the value of contemporary art, as it began to explain some of the meaning behind the photographers’ work and then I came across the work of Peter Fischli and David Weiss Quiet afternoon (Cotton 2001, P 114) (the image can also be seen here). Which prompted the response “how can this be art, it’s just a courgette balanced on a carrot balanced on a cheese grater”. The image actually made me feel angry and had me wondering who is in charge of quality control in the art world. Coincidentally Grayson Perry is the lecturer for this year’s reflectors Reeth lecturers. His first lecture was dedicated to this subject and can be found here and is well worth a listen. What I’ve gleaned from this is, art is decided by dealers, curators, collectors, gallery owners, experts, committees and the people who award the Turner prize or the Venice Biennale (the art Olympics). The Turner prize exhibition was in Northern Ireland this year so I was able to go and see it. Some of the nominees work was quite accessible but I found Laure Prouvost’s installation completely bewildering. Again my reaction is “How can this be art” and I rage against the answer, it’s art because people who know more about art than I do say its art. Part of this is about change. I am frightened that if I start to understand the work of Prouvoust or Emmin or Hurst or Fisschli and Wiess then I will have changed into some kind of artsy fartsy elitist who can’t actually see that the Emperor is completely naked, when in fact I was previously the little boy who would have spotted it straight away.