What is Art?

by Kathleen Huebener in Miscellaneous
     
 

Today I saw an artist’s artwork that grossed me out. It was not vulgar but it repulsed me all the same. An artwork consisted of a line of identical legless armless naked doll bodies, with each having a different head. All the heads were not normal, but grotesque and ugly. Some of the heads had the eyes gorged out; others had monster heads.

 

I thought, “Who in their right mind would create something like this?” What was this artist thinking when she created such an outrage, something so vulgar that it made me sick to look at it. Was she going perhaps for the “shock value” of today’s so-called contemporary art?

 

As I pondered on this repulsive artwork, artwork by other artists flooded into my mind. These are artists, who create excellent commentaries by their artwork. What possible commentary is the artist of this repulsive artwork attempting to make? Could it be a representation of the atrocities being committed upon children? Was the artist trying to reveal the innocent childhoods lost? Was this the artist’s goal to make us think about such terrible things and do something about it?

  

As for me, I still do not like this repulsive artwork. Who could, since it represents to me worldwide offenses on children? However, the question “What is Art?” lingers.
Is art only the definition as written in Funk & Wagnall’s standard dictionary:
“Art is a production of aesthetically pleasing artifacts. “
 
Could art also be the voice of an artist crying for the children?
Each one of us must decide for one’s self.

Therefore, my friend, I ask you, “What is Art?” 

 

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