Quote Originally Posted by manacsa
Where does ABSTRACT ART fit in your arguement?

If I intentionally create a technically poor photograph, print it, frame it, and put it on an easel while I sit outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Most will pass me by, some will laugh, and maybe a small handful of people will STOP, LOOK, WONDER, SPECULATE, DEFINE, DISLIKE, APPRECIATE, and FEEL what I want to show the public.

If what I display to the public is not art then what do you call it?
Some art is meaningful only within a particular cultural/historical context. A lot of what is called "abstract" art can be classified as such. During and after WWII there was an artistic and philisophical backlash against "representational" art. Artists began playing with intellectual ideas about meaning and blurring the lines between images of things and the things themselves. A lot of powerful artistic statements and ideas came out of that time. One of my favorites is the American flag painting by Jasper Johns. Is it a painting of a flag or is it a flag? What's the difference? Can a painting be a flag?

To some extent, a lot of this type of art is elitist. It requires a certain level of artistic and historical education. It may not be pretty and it may not speak directly to your gut. But within the context of art history and our culture, it's still very meaningful and it helps define what does speak to your heart. There's art that's accepted now that would not have been accepted 100 years ago. And it's accepted because the ideas and work of esoteric/fringe/elitist artists pushed the limits and became incorporated in our cultural understanding of beauty, meaning, and aesthetics. All photographic art actually falls into that category. If you look at the history of photography, the first artists simply copied the style of contemporary painters. The first pure, photographic images that were shown as art were made by Edward Weston, I believe. And they were seen as a radical departure by the art community and even other photographers. But now we consider those photos to be artistic masterpieces.

Is this not an interesting subject? There are so many angles and levels from which to approach it.