WHAT IS ART?

The definition and comprehension of art change through time. If we are all able to understand this, the fact that only a few of us question the way definition and comprehension of art are established, is that much more intriguing. Among those of us who ask ourselves this question anyway, there are only a few who question, problematize, criticize or lucidly deconstruct the ways in which certain creative efforts are being established and canonized as 'artistic'. Which are the social processes and factors contributing to the constitution of a certain understanding of art, artist, artistic institutions, that is, the artistic field, in a certain cultural and historical context? This and similar questions have relatively long been the source of inspiration for different artistic, humanistic and social science efforts, which, through an ever more detailed insight in the past and present activities of artistic space (cultural politics, artistic institutions, educational institution and individual specialists working within them), outline the contours of understanding the role and and meaning of art in society. The key characteristic of artistic and scientific projects of this kind is probably the fact that they do not comprehend art as simply high culture, that is, the best thing the greatest human minds ever thought or created, it also represents a special social sphere emerging out of specific forms of social relations in capitalism, providing individuals in certain positions of this sphere with (at least fictitious) working autonomy; regardless of whether we are talking about autonomy in creating art-work, autonomy in discussing this same work, autonomy in selecting and presenting individual pieces or autonomy in distributing subsidies among certain artists. It is important for the existence of artistic field to largely define legitimacy of some cultural tastes as well as discrimination and devaluation of others. In this case the relationship between the interest for privileged and disprivileged cultural goods is complexly connected to the reproduction of ideological and structural disproportions in contemporary capitalistic societies.
Evaluating mechanisms for creativity instantly imply selection, differentiation and discrimination. Though many supporters of the rules of the game, which are in force in the artistic field, find evaluation a self-evident process of separating tasteful fruit (from the cultivated art-tree) from the uncontrollable growth of rotting brushwood (of mass culture), there is still some paradox and - often - arbitration present in this process today. The proportion between high and mass culture has been the subject of artistic debate for a long time now, although it seems more and more that together with absorbing popular culture themes, materials, samples and techniques in combination with their presentation and interpretation within the context of high culture (artistic and educational) institutions, the artistic field persistently reproduces the division between 'popular' and 'artistic', although a more detailed insight into some of the 'hybrid' forms of contemporary artistic creativity shows no real need for this division, since it is nothing more than a rooted idiosyncrasy of the way the artistic field operates, that is the specific fostering of the cult of innovation and authorship, even though in this case the newfangled quality derives from creativity, which until very recently held a pejorative connotation of popular culture (such as design, graffiti, comics, etc.). Despite persisting in the opinion that complete relativisation of different creative forms' value is unproductive and unacceptable, an in-depth analysis of evaluating and sense-forming processes going on in the artistic field is needed at the same time. Every obviousness playing a part in establishing artistic tastes as correct, transhistorical, universal and generally accepted judgements needs to be questioned, as these obviousnesses are far from what many people take them for - obvious, that is. Interpretation and evaluation of art is a specific social phenomenon, going on in specific institutions and practiced by specifically educated individuals. The position of these individuals and institutions is historically specific and despite the fact that today it seems inalterable, this is not necessarily the case, although it is true that their autonomy and legitimacy nowadays derive out of specific constellation of knowledge, institutions of power and social division of work in the context of capitalistic societies.

Mare Bulc, Jana Flego, Katarina Petrov

Copyleft 2004 by Mare Bulc, Jana Flego, Katarina Petrov