Yes, but is it art?

This was the question that a Drury art professor posed to me and my classmates during our project "show and tell" time each week. In this particular class we were presented with an art "problem" and told what materials we could, and couldn't use to create a work of art to "solve' the problem. It was a great class, and taught me a lot about how to look at everyday objects differently, and with the idea that anything can be made into art, as long as there is intent and follow-through from the artist. It was a concept I already understood, but this particular class, and the repeated question of "It is nice, but is it art?" at the end of each critique made me see that some art really IS art, and a lot of it is bullshit.

So The Reenactor and I took T1 and T2 to St. Louis today to enjoy the cool dinosaur exhibit at the STL zoo (very, very cool...especially if you are geeky enough to like animatronic dinosaurs) and after a few hours looking at animals we went to the STL art museum, just up the hill from the zoo. We had come armed with sketchbooks, pencils and crayons, and The Reenactor left the three of us there to enjoy art (and do some sketching) while he went to the nearby MO History Museum for an exhibit on the lives of Lee and Grant. We lead an exciting life, no?

So we started in the downstairs galleries, where I've taken the kids several times, and they know all the rules about not touching the walls (or the art) and being quiet and calm so as to not alarm the guards, and they enjoyed sketching their versions of some of the paintings...mostly from the classical period...in their drawing books. We finished up down there and still had some time to look around, so we went where I've never taken them before...the third floor modern art wing. Well, this was a whole new world to T1 and T2...they were amazed at the difference in what was on the walls, and the floor, in that wing. We browsed through a gallery of pre-WWI German modern paintings---who knew the Germans were so colorful and fun before the Great War? Then we went into a gallery that housed several large paintings that mostly consisted of industrial themed drippings of paint and other materials on very large canvases. While T1 and T2 were NOT impressed, I still tried to explain that this was in fact art, and in some circles was very respected and admired. On one wall of this gallery were four panels, each approx. 6 x 12 feet vertical rectangles...all four matching sheets of glass with charcoal gray paint covering the back side. They had an odd mirror-like quality to them, and sure enough, when I read the description of them, the artist intended that they be "mirror-like" yet with a diminished quality so that the reflection isn't true. Well, okay....good for you. Your big gray shiny squares are in a major gallery. Woohoo!

THEN we came to the room with two object d'art displayed...one was a "quilt" made of hundreds or thousands of bits of metal from cans or boxes held together with small metal brads. It was interesting in a funky sort of way, although T1 was very dismissive of it...said it was a "quilt made of junk." AND in the middle of this room was a ring of rocks. Yes, a ring I'm guessing 15 feet in diameter, and approximately mounded up to 2 feet tall, with a ring width of 3 feet or so, of limestone rocks...a smaller version riff-raff like you fill a ditch with. It was just a ring of rocks. T1 and T2 were appalled. WHY is there a pile of rocks in here, they demanded. After shushing them, I explained that someone had thought to make an artistic statement with those rocks, and therefore, there they were.

Of course T2, in spite of being warned repeatedly to stay clear of them, managed to snag his foot on one of the rocks in the ring, dislodging it and moving it about 2 inches, and just as I was readying to ease it back into place with my foot, the VERY snarky guard in that room yelled at me to LEAVE IT ALONE. I imagine I would get snarky too if I had to guard a circle of rocks all day, but this guy got hysterical with several visitors over their camera usage, and yelled at T1 because she "walked too fast" through the gallery. Damn. You're ruining this whole modern gallery thing for us, dude.

Which brings us back to the original question...is it art? Within feet of this ring of rocks are paintings and sculptures by the likes of Warhol, Rothko, Matisse, and those cool German artists I had never heard of but really liked their stuff. I overheard a woman in the gallery (after having been shrieked at by the guard to not even dare to use her flash to photograph the Rothko painting) observe of the rocks, "well I guess someone thinks it is art, but it looks like something I could have done at home." THIS is my point. I always feel like I have been duped when I see something like this in a gallery. I call bullshit. What, exactly, is the point of the circle of rocks? Is it supposed to make us feel the hollowness of our existence? Is it meant to represent the circle of life---as seen through the eyes of a person who has been doing a lot of landscaping with limestone recently? Hmm? I have seen beautiful art made simple natural elements, and I understand that sometimes a simple visual element can make a powerful statement, but I just never got past the fact that this was just rocks.

The Reenactor asked me when I was relating this story to him what the rocks were meant to represent. I said I thought it represented that some bullshit artist had convinced a wealthy art patron that his circular pile of riff-raff was worthy of purchasing and donating to a major museum.

I realize that many of you who read this blog are artists, or involved in cultural activities to the extent that you might find yourself defending the circle of rocks artist for his right to represent his art in this manner. All I know is I saw no technique, no use of creative skill, no real intrinsic beauty in it. It didn't move me emotionally...either positively or negatively..it just was there. And no, my critique is it ISN'T art.