What is Art?

I visited the ICA for the first time yesterday. An amazing place, as much for the views and location as the art itself. I saw Tara Donovan's "untitled" (pins). I had heard about this art - where the artist sent directions, and the ICA staff assembled it (twice) for display. Is that art? Or, I guess, whose art is it?

The full article here, from the Boston Globe.

I think art (for me anyways) as always been about how it makes you feel more than what it actually is. I have begun, in the past few years, to appreciate "modern" art - truly wacky, performance "what the heck is that?" art - much more than paintings of bowls of fruit. And while I can appreciate how hard it is to get fruit to look like, well, fruit, it is still just fruit. Some of this "new" art creates a space for me where new ways of thinking can take place. And that's my definition of "art".

So perhaps it is okay that lights going on and off can be "art". Or John Cage's silence can be "music". They are all but a glimpse into the artists' experience, what makes her "space" of creative thought and change. How many times have I looked at a painting years after the first time I've seen it, only to be amazed at what I have missed upon my first reflections long ago? Did the painting change? No.

I did.

Some things cannot be spoken or discovered until we have been stuck, incapacitated, or blown off course for awhile. Plain sailing is pleasant, but you are not going to explore many unknown realms that way. - David Whyte