Who decides Art is Art?

Even though I live in Freeport Maine a couple towns over and about 15-20 minute drive to Portland I am watching what is going there very carefully. Why should I care that much? Well Portland might not be the capital but it could be a place that sets some rules that will have effects across the state. Giving other towns and cities the light to tighten their reins on what art is.

Now don’t think that this is a completely new thing in art. Because this is  the kind of problem that art has had probably since the first cave painting. I can only picture the hunting scene be drawn with white powder and some one say it’s only real art when you burn the wood and draw with black charcoal. For centuries art also wasn’t even considered art. The early sculptures and fresco’s where not made just because someone wanted to. They where made because somebody wanted to to create stuff but was only allowed on commission and was very specific what and what not to do. When Leonardo was drawing in the dark and in secrecy the human body. His drawings of inventions and the human figure now are considered masterpieces. When what they really are are drawings for ideas and studies. 

Jump ahead a couple thousand years and you will see the same thing going on. But now sculptors and painters can more or less make art for what it is. Art a form of entertainment. But then came photography, and that scared the hell out of artists, painters for sure because how where they supposed to compete with something that can capture a moment and in such detail? It was blown off for decades. Which it was used manly for commercial use and news reporting to give an image to help tell a story. Even though there where artists out shooting away trying to show that it is not threat to painters and the art world, but a new form of art. Ansel Adams is considered one of the best landscape photographers, yet he had to fight and prove that photography was an art form in the start. It wasn’t until roughly the 60’s that photography finally was given the green light to be an art form. In which even drawing the basis to most artists is still on shaky grounds of being art. It is more so an art but in the some of the more tight art groups it’s looked down upon. Even acrylics had a hard time being called paints. Which there are still oil painters that claim acrylics are not real because it’s a plastic paint. Which in my personal opinion if an artist knows how to use their materials and well, then it doesn’t matter if it’s watercolor, oil, or acrylic.

Now with that background what I am following that’s going on in Portland Maine is a quote from the cities attorney:

“The court has already determined what art is. It’s not up to an artist what art is.”
-Mary Costigan, City Attorney (Portland, ME) 

Now how does that work? Artists can’t decide their work to be art? This day and age one of the hard things with contemporary art is what is art? You have performance art, fiber art, functional art, the list can go on and on. Now isn’t it easier to have the non art world settle the art worlds age long on going fight? And to use the courts to say that is and that is not art. Reasons why I am watching this is because of a danger that it makes me feel of where and how art is decided on. Because there are people that think that the jewelry they make is a true piece of art. Where someone looking at a painting that is all white and it’s all about the fact it’s 100 layers painted on, each layer at 10:56am everyday for 100 days. People will say, “That’s art?” But having the courts claim they know what art is, well that is dangerous. To me it’s not a Freedom of Speech thing. Because what this is all about is people selling art on the streets of Portland when they where told it’s open and now they are trying to slam the door shut. I see it as a problem for Portland’s Public Art groups having a harder time later when they want to put something in a public space and the courts say, that is not what we call art so no. And some of the internal bickering that will go on even more will be a problem. The reason why I don’t think that it’s a Freedom of Speech thing is only because it’s a commerce thing. To say selling art is a Freedom of Speech, that is different then saying you can’t make art that represents this. That is where blocking Freedom of Speech comes into play. But blocking what art is to sell, that’s a entirely different thing. Go to the MoMA, Milwaukee Museum, Portland Museum of Art, Boston, Chicago Art Institute, The Walker in Minnesota, any major museum anywhere and you will see from furniture and silverware in the design sections to Egyptian and Contemporary art work. All in which is called Art. Now for Portland to say a wooden spoon is not hand made and a form of art, they have not looked and educated them self on the history and show what is. The Portland Museum of Art will be having a show involving shaker furniture. Before questioning and saying what is and what is not, the courts need to really open their eyes and read up on somethings.

Originally Posted: October 29, 2011