The Three Criteria of Art

As someone who enjoys museums and has wandered into my fair share of modern art museums, I am pretty accustomed to hearing people looking at modern art and decrying it as nonsense (or praising something that seems like nonsense to me as genius). I frequently drag friends to modern art exhibits and for my friends who are less into the experience, I have a theory that I turned into something of a game in order to make art critics of anyone.

People like to claim that art is such a spiritual thing that it’s indefinable, but I don’t think this is true. Art is made by human hands, not a message from the gods, and should not elude definition. I once heard modern art described as the intersection of I-could-do-that and but-you-didn’t, but while this may describe some modern art, it doesn’t actually define what art is.

So here’s my theory. In order for something to be considered art, you must be able to answer yes to one of these questions:

1.      Is it aesthetically pleasing to someone?

2.      Did it require a great amount of skill to create?

3.      Does it mean something symbolically?

Now, you can obviously answer yes to more than one of these questions and I could actually argue that the more yeses you get, the less likely you are to have the artistic merit of something challenged.

But I’m sure you can see a bit of a hitch in this theory: all the questions are subjective. Correct. Art is, at its core, subjective and thus the questions defining it will also be. If you genuinely don’t believe in any standard of taste whatsoever, you might find the answering of these questions to be completely impossible. But in order to actually get anywhere with applying this theory, you need to at least be able to accept that your taste may not be the taste of others and you should at least have some small background in critically reading visual media. This is the baseline you need to start from.

The first potential requirement is aesthetic pleasure. This is the one that most requires a divorcing from personal taste. Just because you might not enjoy looking at something, does not mean that everyone will not enjoy looking at it. Of the three requirements, this is definitely the most subjective but there are some examples I can use to try to get at how an art piece can fail this requirement. I once saw a painted canvas in an art museum. It was a single square canvas painted one uniform color. It was not part of any other piece; that was the entire work. Even if you enjoy that color, it seemed safe to me to say that there was nothing specifically aesthetic pleasing about this single colored canvas.

The second requirement of technical skill is probably the least subjective. It is not hard to look at something and determine that it is something you could not do without a great deal of acquired skill in painting, sculpture, metal work, crafting or what have you. The one real fault to this criterion would be an ego on the part of the viewer who wildly overestimates their own skill or who lacks any kind of knowledge of what creating a piece entails. Notably though, there are a lot of modern art pieces that do fail this requirement (hence the previously mentioned I-can-do-that idea).

The last requirement of meaning is somewhat subjective but is definitely the requirement that asks the most of the viewer. Most people can answer the first two questions quickly on a gut instinct from having lived in a world of senses and experiences, but this last one requires not only contemplation but also a measure of reading comprehension. Modern art especially is often not meant to be taken at face value in the way traditional art it. Aesthetics and skills are usually very apparent in traditional art where priority was placed on creating something that would be difficult for anyone else to make and which would fetch a high price for its decorative purposes. Sometimes traditional art doesn’t have a meaning outside of it being something skillfully made and nice to look at. Modern art, however, is commonly determined on this criterion alone, which is why modern art is vastly more mocked and underappreciated. Modern art that doesn’t quickly pass the test with the first two requirements will find itself beholden to the interpretative capabilities of the viewers.

It seems safe to say that modern art that fails the first two tests always has a meaning intended by the artist. What you are actually determining is whether a meaning is being conveyed. You are judging not the ambiguous intention but the communication. Sometimes at art museums there will be a little plaque next to a piece that will explain the meaning to a confused viewer. Sometimes the meaning explained will justify the work just fine and you will look back at the piece with an, “Oh” of understanding, if you decide that the author’s purpose was clearly conveyed and also that it matters. Sometimes you will look back at the piece and think that the justification isn’t in any way clear in its representation and you have truly found something that is not art. Sometimes there’s no plaque at all and you are left up to your own devices and you really need to be mentally flexible to try to pull out a meaning. This is where having a friend along is helpful for bouncing ideas off of. Maybe you can’t read the piece as well as your friend can. If a meaning isn’t coming through or an explained meaning is still unconvincing after explanation, the piece is not art.

A prime example of something I have considered not art would be Comedian by Maurizio Cattelan, the now famous banana taped to a wall. Let’s run the test:

1.      Is it aesthetically pleasing to someone? I would have to say no. Perhaps you do find a banana aesthetically pleasing but the juxtaposition of a banana and duct tape isn’t reaching any real level of composition to create something interesting to stare at.

2.     Did it require skill to create? A big no there. While it might be kind of difficult to do without crushing the banana if it’s quite ripe, this is something most people have the ability to do.

3.      Does it mean something symbolically? After staring at it for a while, I got nothing concrete. The artist has stated both that it represents “global trade, a double entendre, as well as a classic device for humor” and that “it’s supposed to be a banana.” Basically it means everything and nothing. When I first saw it I made some joke about how it represents the duality of man and the battle between intellect and the beast and it turns out my phony art critique impression was just as valid as the artist’s actual explanation. You could try to argue that the point is its silliness, bolstered by the title, but I really don’t think there’s enough actual creative mental lifting here to make this piece worthy of being called art.

Amusingly, Chipotle made a social media post as a joke of a burrito taped to a wall after the banana from the piece was eaten. My brother pointed out that the social media post actually does qualify as art because it has a very clear meaning determinable by anyone with a basic understanding of the piece it’s responding to: it’s a parody. I would also argue that if the person who ate the banana claimed it was an act of performance art, I would completely stand behind the banana eating as art. The meaning is clear: it’s an act of showing the insignificance of the original piece. Or possibly it’s just adding legitimacy to the Comedian title. I can see an old comedy show where a bumbling joker accidently eats something that was part of an art piece and gets in trouble for it by the art world elites. It’s life imitating art.

So while the subjective world of art cannot totally be demystified, this is a good place to start. I often find that when others employ this method for the first time, they find themselves appreciating art in a way they hadn’t before and become overall less dismissive of the pieces they don’t understand.