And Yet Another Question of Aesthetics: Is It Art?

"Brillo Boxes", Andy Warhol, wood and silkscrenn, 1964

In 1964 Andy Warhol exhibited at the Stable Gallery, NY, a work of art titled Brillo Boxes (see picture). The design was not in fact his but of another commercial designer called James Harvey. the question is almost immediate: is it art? And being art: how can one tell between two resemblant objects which of them is a work of art and which is not?
The question in all resembles to another question raised by Descartes: when in dreaming the experience that one lives in the dream is not discernible from the experience that one lives when awake, whereby there is no intern criteria to the lived experience that makes the distinction between dream and reality. In the same way the differences to look in order to respond such aesthetic question can be (should be) sought in the exterior of the work of art. Before anything it's maybe convenient to accept that, like Marcel Duchamp said, "aesthetic delectation is the danger to be avoided"[1] (see "A Question of Aesthetics"). Then, it will be necessary to accept that any work of art it's a representation: what is the work of art about? (typical question).[1] Next, and non lesser important, the structure of a work of art is different from the structure of the objects with which the work of art looks like.[1] Let's see, with an analogy: a handwritten word apparentely it's no more than a set of marks and traces; but the word  put together with those marks and traces is endowed with a language, a meaning. Well understood, the construction of the word accordingly with that language is caused by the need of communication. But the way that those marks and traces phisically construct the word it's different from the causes of communication: the shape of the marks and traces are fruit of, e.g., the personality of whom writes the letters that build the word. The word has therefore two distinct structures: the linguistic structure - of communication - and the formal structure - the word graphics. Similarly the work of art will have a different structure from that of the object that it looks like: the work of art will have a structure that it's more attached to representability and the author's intentionality ("what is the work of art about?") while the object with which it resembles will have a structure that is attached to its functionality. Warhol's Brillo Boxes - and even because its formal structure it's different from the soap boxes: Warhol's Brillo Boxes are made of wood while the others are of cardboard - embodies a content and a meaning: they manifest a statement and they are a metaphor of some kind.
Most definetely, they are not just soap boxes...

Arthur Danto quite well systematizes this problematics of identifying the works of art with the enunciation of two somewhat elementary conditions:
a) the work of art must have a meaning
b) the work of art must embody that meaning

These are the two essential conditions to distinguish a work of art from artifact. Arthur Danto based his reasoning on a Ludwig Wittgenstein approach: what remains over when you subtract from the fact that you raised your arm the fact that your arm went up? There are several examples to ilustrate this question: the socialist movement, the fascist salute, the Black Power movement, etc., are gestures that aren't merely reduced to a raisen arm. In the same way, what remains over when you subtract from the fact that something is a work of art the fact that it is an object?[2]

Another art theorist, Monroe Beardsley, would somehow resume: a work of art is something produced with the intention of giving it the capability of satisfying the aesthetic interest.


[1] Arthur C. Danto, "Art, Philosophy and the Philosophy of Art", 1983
[2] Arthur C. Danto, "Ontology, Criticism, and the Riddle of Art Versus Non-Art in The Transfiguration of the Commonplace", 2008

To know more:
Arthur Danto: Wikipedia
Arthur C. Danto, "Art, Philosophy and the Philosophy of Art", 1983
Arthur C. Danto, "Ontology, Criticism, and the Riddle of Art Versus Non-Art in The Transfiguration of the Commonplace", 2008
Andy Warhol: Wikipedia
                        Andy Warhol Museum
                        Andy Warhol Foudation

Another Question of Aesthetics

"September", Gerhard Richter, 2005, oil on canvas, 52 cm x 72 cm

The questions of aesthetics can be aproached under what one could call a environmental perspective which can be understood as the fact that one can find the occurrence of an  aesthetic undercurrent - in the sense of aesthesis (see "A Question of Aesthetics") - even though it may not be predominant[1]. A work of art,  and in particular a good work of art, can be identified and understood in one of such occasions when we recognize the work within three criteria: proportion, balance and complexity of the occurrence of the aesthetic current[1]. One example that can illustrate this reasoning could be the painting "September" of Gerhard Richter. When the 9/11 attempt took place in New York, Gerhard Richter would have probably noticed the beauty of the flames' colors when one of the planes hit the building. It is obvious that to declare such thing can be seen as something horrible. But we are in presence of one of those occasions within which undoubtedly occurs an aesthetic undercurrent. By painting  "September" Gerhard Richter took to the work those three aesthetic criteria - proportion, balance and complexity - transposing a terrible occasion into a work of art.
By opposition to the Gerhard Richter painting we have the images of that event that bombed our mind in a constant manner - and which are an icon of today, moreover - by the mass media where every characteristics of formalization of a work of art could be present if it wasn't for those three criteria dictate something else: at least when it comes to balance and proportion of the occurrence of the aesthetic undercurrent of that occasion we can find that we are not in the before a work of art but just being informed. This "imagetic bombardment" from the mass media take us to another base-concept of the aesthetic experience: the concept of perceptual commons[1]. A perceptual common is, so to speak, a right which can't be claimed juridically, of direct access, and any restriction to that access is considered a deviation from that condition. For illustration sake: I have the right, although I can't claim it juridically, of walking down the street without being bothered by the bad smell carried by the wind from a remote sewer. Another example: I have the right of being at a cafe and not being bombarded with horrible images of a catastrophe, all the time, by the TV news. The concept of perceptual commons take us to another field of the aesthetic experience. The field that doesn't merely concern the critic and analysis of art but moves us from there in the direction of a wider sense of the aesthetic experience (always whereas aesthesis): the way of being in the world by the man and his human condition[1]. Art can "only" be one of the ways man is in the world and one of the ways that the human condition can assume.

[1]Arnold Berleant, "Sensibility and Sense",2010 

To know more:

Arnold Berleant, "The Aesthetic Field", 1971

Arnold Berleant, "The Aesthetics of the Environment", 1992

Arnold Berleant, "Sensibility and Sense",2010

"Gerhard Richter in the Studio", an interview with G. Richter in Youtube (click here).

A Question of Aesthetics

It's not rare that a lesser instructed person questions an artist about the aesthetics of his work. And lesser rare it is to question it on the grounds of his (or hers) own taste, misleading the two concepts (aesthetics and taste). There is a lot of artistic work scattered around in museums and exhibitions which I also definetely don't like but that I see myself forced to agree that, damn', they are art! And moreover, evolved art!
But what do we speak of when we speak about aesthetics?
In any dictionary we can find a first definition for aesthetics as it being the branch of philosophy that studies the beautiful; or the science whose object is the judgement of values refering the distinction between the beautiful and the ugly. The etymology of the word however tell us a more embrancing thing: [from the greek] aesthesis, the perception by the senses. This is a definition transversal to several cultures and whose object - the beautiful - it's the quality that causes an emotion, i.e., the attribute that qualifies the objects and the works tha are offered to (our) perception. In the artistic domain those objects or works don't require understanding until subjectivity (i.e., the interpretation, the personal sentence) is requested by the appraiser of those works or objects. For example: a coffee machine and a painting from Cy Twombly (so it can be very abstract, so to speak) are offered to the perception of an individual. The coffee machine does not request any subjectivity (at least not immediately) of the individual because it's of common sense what the coffee machine looks like and what it does. The Cy Twombly painting however, and because it's abstract, immediately requests the subjectivity of the observer: he will have his very own interpretation of what his eyes see and most probably it will be very different from other observers interpretations of that same work. And it's after that subjectivity has been requested - and therefore, the request of an emotion - that the work of understanding a work of art begins.
In art the beautiful proposes works that always aim to please the appraiser even though many of those times they are unpleasant. It is what I often call The Pug* Principle: they are so ugly, so ugly that they become beautiful. Therefore it's assumed that there is an intention from the creator of the work of art in providing an aesthetic experience even though sometimes is is not of our liking. I may not like a Dalí painting but the way such work embodies its aesthesis lead me to admit that it is art.

* Pug: breed of dogs originary from China (they can been seen here)

To know more:
[From a dictionnary of philosophy from which i've had access through photocopies but that unfortunately wasn't given me to know the original edition]