Hyun Kyung Choi

             Recently I had a conversation with other students and one of my teachers about our favourite artists. One student mentioned William Turner, and the other mentioned one of the Impressionists. When it was my turn, I pondered for a bit and then picked Damien Hirst. Then several questions followed my answer. They wanted to know why I thought his work was art, or questions like how are sliced cow and embalmed shark in formaldehyde considered as art. All these questions led the conversation to further discussion about the fundamental definition of art. What is art? And here I suggest one of the possible answers to the question.

             The concept we now call ‘Fine arts’ does not have a long history. There was no so-called fine art before the Renaissance. However when we consider the fact that the word ‘Art’ has come from the Latin word ‘Ars’, which has a similar meaning to the ancient Greek word ‘Techne’, art had started its history as a craft. In the early period of human history, art was for religious and utilitarian purpose, such as prehistoric cave paintings of Altamira and manuscripts of the medieval period. In both cases, the craftsmen neither tried to depict the subjects accurately nor tried to pursue creativity; their aim was rather at delivering a message by keeping their customs. However, in the 15^th century, artisans started to gain power and be independent from the guilds from which they used to belong. The artists were no more restricted to the customs. Instead, their originality and creativity started to become the priority in their art; artists like Leonardo Da Vinci gained his popularity and renown based on this cultural background. This is how the concept of ‘fine art’, which is still the first thing that comes to people’s mind when they think of ‘Art’, has appeared.

             However the definition of art faced another huge change as it entered into the Modern era. Here, the artists started to push the early definitions of art and challenged the perceptions we have towards it. They started to cast doubts on every existing definitional boundary of art. These questions broke the boundaries between art and non-art. This has begun with the famous urinal of Marcel Duchamp. ‘Readymade’ art challenges the role of the artists as the constructor of art. From Duchamp’s urinal, what matters in art is not in the process of making it but in the purpose and idea of the artists. Furthermore, environmental art challenges the museum system and places art in nature. Conceptual art pushes Duchamp’s idea much further and challenges the materiality of art. The idea itself gets more power and art’s physical form becomes far less important and even boring. Later pop-artists like Andy Warhol bring industrial elements within the process of making his art. He proposed that mass products such as Brillo box or Campbell’s soup are as worthy of attention as traditional subjects. Renowned art historian Jean Baudrillard even mentioned ‘the end of representational art’ at this point.

             After all this, we can know that art has lost its traditional meaning and kept on questioning what other things can fill in this gap. A contemporary artist, Joseph Beuys, said ‘Every man is an artist’ which well describes the situation that art has faced today. Some people who have sarcastic ideas about art even ran a test; they showed four modern art works along with six pieces such as a piece of framed fabric bought for $5 and asked people to decide which work is art and which is not. The most voted one was the $5 framed fabric and they laughed at this result saying ‘can anyone explain why people want to spend millions of dollars on art if anyone could create something great?’ I would like to tell those people that art is not an equation. If you are looking for something with exact cause and result then you better stick into science or mathematics. Art can hardly be defined by logic. As we have discussed, the art started from our desperation and weakness. We have been searching for hope and beauty through art. Only those who are going through hardship and looking for hope will understand the point.