By Louis A. Zona
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – I’ve been teaching about art for a very long time.
But despite all those years in the classroom, my attempt at giving an accurate definition of art becomes a mystery tour.
I’ve concluded the dictionary definition that states that “art is the creation of beautiful or thought-provoking things” may be right or may be very wrong. That definition is fine – as long as we know what the word “beautiful” means.
I read somewhere that President Johnson once said that if we all knew what constitutes beauty, we’d all have the same wife. I don’t know about that, but I do think that the artist Ad Reinhardt had probably the very best definition: “Art is art, and everything else is everything else.”
Given the current state of art, when a banana duct-taped to a wall might be called art, it appears as if most anything goes.
The famous antiestablishment artist Marcel Duchamp took it a step farther when he said that “anything that an artist says is art, is art.” That is simple enough and in the end is probably the most useful definition even for small talk at a party.
But you see what I’m getting at. Art is as difficult to define as the definition of obscenity, which the Supreme Court grappled with. Justice Potter Stewart ended the debate by saying, “I’ll know it when I see it.”
I would guess that we could adapt Stewart’s answer to a definition of pornography to art. We might say that we’ll know if it’s art when we see it. However, sometimes our eyes deceive us – like when we ask ourselves if that really is a banana taped to a wall and more importantly, what is a banana doing taped to a wall of an art gallery?
With that said, I would add that a banana on a wall, as far as I’m concerned, is not art. The rest of the story on the so-called banana artwork is that a fellow reached down, grabbed the banana, peeled it and ate it in front of a laughing crowd at a Miami art fair.
Who am I to say, as it sold for $6.2 million at Sotheby’s art auction in November 2024. I would guess that the artist then drove to the nearest store and purchased another banana.
But what if I go to see the banana and declare that it’s not art and not even an organic banana. Who knows? There might be a hungry monkey in the crowd just imagining how tasty that yellow artwork might be!
I probably should be a little more tolerant of what we might term “new art,” but I am sorry, it looked like a quickly ripening banana to me and probably to the monkey as well.
As far as the culprit who ate the first installation is concerned, he should have to do community service in his favorite produce department.
And you thought that a large abstract painting at The Butler Institute of American Art was controversial because it was not a landscape or a still life. The reality is that abstraction in art may just be the purest form of art because it is pure design, an emotionally based application of skill.
As far as I’m concerned, a work of art should display some level of skill. But ah-ha! Who is to define skill?
You may know that the work of abstract artist Jackson Pollock is universally accepted as skillfully created. But if you know the work you know that it is composed of dripping paint. So, where’s the skill in a Pollock? Again, it could be in the inventiveness of his work. In other words, who is to define “skill?”
Speaking of monkeys, you might know about a television program in the 1950s that featured a monkey that was painting. The host of that program asked the serious question – is the monkey painting art? Should we take it seriously? After all, one or two of his paintings might even have sold to a collector of abstract painting.
Now let’s get serious. We’ve all heard the saying that “art is in the eye of the beholder.” I take issue with it, because it suggests that a Pollock painting may be considered nonart by some.
The fact is that the Pollock paintings are exhibited in the greatest museums of the world and approved by the greatest art scholars. That tells me that the painting “Autumn Rhythm” by Pollock has surpassed the standard definition of art.
I would stop attempts at comparisons of banana to Pollocks. Bananas are definitely something that we eat, and no way would we attempt to eat a Pollock painting.
On that topic, we once brought a famous painter to The Butler who told me that he loved the historic paintings of Johannes Vermeer. The painter said they were so extraordinary that they looked good enough to taste. As his story goes, he was at a famous New York museum enjoying the Vermeers and wondering if they tasted as good as they looked. You guessed it – he licked and tasted the painting. He told me that it did not disappoint him.
On Oct. 22, the art world celebrated the 100th birthday of American master artist Robert Rauschenberg. All art museums, including The Butler, participated by exhibiting his work.
There is a famous art world story that gives you some idea of the tenacity of this renowned artist.
Rauschenberg was given a drawing by the famed expressionist artist Willem de Kooning. It was a drawing that de Kooning treasured. Rauschenberg was inspired to erase the artwork, leaving just pencil erasure markings. I believe that it signifies that de Kooning represented the past and the erasing of the drawing represented the future. You can see the “Erased de Kooning” at the San Francisco Museum of Modern
Art.