Why is "fancy" art almost always bizzare looking?(an honest question)

As the title implies, why are so many of the pieces of "art" considered fancy so weird looking?, They either have no true subject(many pieces of "abstract" artwork as an example, such as a bunch of paint spilled onto a canvas...[how is paint spilled onto a canvas by mistake different from doing so on purpose?]) or are very bland (a picture of a women sitting by a field, all in browns and greys and blacks[aka, the Mona Lisa]), or look like some sort of hallucination.
The two styles I don't mind as much are portraits(normal ones, so not Picasso style ones) and landscape paintings.
This isn't so much a rant as an honest question, I just don't understand why "art"(other then landscapes or portraits) has to be weird, and often sort of creepy to be fancy.

Photography would be one reason. No longer was the artist required to record the world, now they could focus on their emotions and impressions of it.
Moreover, the 20th century was an extremely turbulent time on many, many levels. Fashions and mores changed at a dizzying pace and art reflected this. Others can probably express it better than I, but the 20th century, and the 21st century so far, has been very weird.

This is actually a very complicated question. There are a number of people who would claim that spilling paint on canvas accidentally and intentionally are the same thing, and other that claim that an accidental spill can be art if someone recognizes it as such.

I would say that art is found where you happen to look for it. I personally know a rather famous modern sculptural artist who did work in clay and work in metal (traditional media) and yet was more inspired and more artistic when working in hypodermic needles, tree roots, old slide photographs, or stacks upon stacks of WWII era tank windshields. Art is in how you view something, not some definable quality that is inherently contained within an object.

Take, for example, Fountain by Marcel Duchamp:

http://emptyeasel.com/wp-content/upl...celduchamp.jpg

Does it look familiar? It should. But he's changed the perspective, and thus (to many modern art critics, and in my eyes as well) turned it into art. He's made you look at it in a different light, just like a blank canvas on the wall of an art museum prompts more thought and reflection (and yes, puzzlement) than the same canvas on the wall of an art store, or in an artist's studio. The trick is to make you think it must be art and, in so doing, it becomes art. That's about the best I can describe it.

With regards to the color palettes and subject matter: much of that is dictated by the era of art the piece is from. Painting, like most other forms of art, evolved over hundreds and thousands of years. During that time color trends, subject matter trends, and almost everything about painting (down to the types and textures of paints used) changed time and again. Here's an example: a Renaissance style painting followed by early 19th century Neoclassicism followed by mid-late 19th century Realism. All three were very renowned artists and are highly praised to this day. Note the many differences in style, lighting, color, tone, and subject matter.

Spoiler

Show

Anatomical Lecture -- Rembrant (Renaissance)
http://www.mcm.edu/academic/galileo/...dissection.gif

Death of Marat -- Jacques-Louis David (Neoclassical)
http://www.westcler.org/GH/curlessma...fMarat1793.jpg

The Meeting -- Gustave Courbet (Realism)
http://www.tumblr.com/photo/1280/hyp...8owaaNA1qzaos7

Art styles also grow and explore as artists adapt to current styles, improve upon them, or, often, rebel against traditional styles. Then 19th and 20th centuries saw dozens of styles come and go, and Impressionism (the response and rebellion against Realism) inspired a lot of increasingly abstract art forms, as well as a lot of thought about what art really was.

Does this help answer your question at all? I think your thoughts on the matter are due to you having an incomplete knowledge of art history, and perhaps a somewhat narrow view of what constitutes "art." Which is fine, as what counts as art is, after all, entirely subjective.

Fine art isn't art just because of the thing. Most of the time, there is an important context for the artwork, as well as the equally important artist's statement. Nothing from, say, Dada, makes sense unless you know why the artists did it, but nothing from any artwork makes sense unless you know why the artist did it. Being able to recognize the subject matter doesn't count, unless that is the purpose of the artwork, and very often, it isn't.

Saying that you like "normal looking" portraits is kind of odd, because there is no one style you can say "normal". Even realistic art (which is not the same as realist art) has many different styles, and a neoclassical portrait looks nothing like a Rococo portrait. There are also loads of different landscapes, most notably from the Impressionists and post-Impressionists.

There was a nifty equation picture somewhere that went something like this: art = "I could have done that" + "but you didn't".

The simplest, broadest, sweepingest, wrong-on-many-levels-but-right-on-many-more-est explanation is that every great movement in art is a counter-movement of the previous artistic movement. Your paint splotches on canvas- :smallwink: accidental or not- are all rooted in Impressionism, which had quite a struggle with the Paris Salon's art critics (and, by the sounds of it, you more prefer the Paris Salon's norms and tastes).

As far as the Mona Lisa? I think you need to look at a bigger picture of it. It's green everywhere. :smalltongue: Though also the richness of the deep colors is also important, as oil painting was quite new compared to the other painting medium of its age, fresco, where such deep colors couldn't be achieved without having the darn thing fade or crumble apart months to years later. Also, the subject matter of a calm, grinning woman in front of a landscape during a time of war and plagues has a message of its own.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ravens_cry

Photography would be one reason. No longer was the artist required to record the world, now they could focus on their emotions and impressions of it.
Moreover, the 20th century was an extremely turbulent time on many, many levels. Fashions and mores changed at a dizzying pace and art reflected this. Others can probably express it better than I, but the 20th century, and the 21st century so far, has been very weird.

---

This is basically it. Once the camera became king, things kinda got lost for traditional art and to this day a lot of people don't really know what will replace it when things get more stable, or if it ever will.

I mean, even the books made 60 years or more ago say that by that point photography had become common enough simply being realistic wouldn't get you reliable work.


Fantasy and Sci Fi art has something of an "Escape", simply because the cost of making costumes and sets for live photos has never been efficient compared to straight art for illustrating things that don't exist. Likewise if you just wanna do something cartoony you could try making a living off quick novelty caricatures in a mall or theme park, or maybe animation if you're willing to sink in a whoooole lot of time. Comics wind up being somewhere in the middle of all that, being a mass amount of cheaply produced, often fantasy images.

But you can't really hang any of that in a gallery. Valuable as it is, there's no real way to display the first issue of Action Comics in a way that's anywhere near what it was meant to in a museum or gallery.

If you wanted to do a painting that might take hours or days or weeks to finish and might take up hundreds of dollars in paints, canvases you often needs to make yourself, and expensive fancy frames, then you need something better than what'd be good enough for a comic page or animated frame or ten minute caricature. This is the kind of thing where to get one image that's realistic, it IS less expensive to take a photo of something realistic, even staged.

So basically if you're an artist and expect to sell, you need to make it something your buyers and patrons can never, ever, EVER see in real life even as an approximation. There's just no market for someone who spends upwards of fifteen hours doing a single face in perfect realism.

Can't help ya with that one, OP. All my favorite art is representational, as are most of the "classics"; only modern art tends to have the tendencies you speak of (and IMO it's for reasons having nothing to do with the art itself).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jayngfet

I mean, even the books made 60 years or more ago say that by that point photography had become common enough simply being realistic wouldn't get you reliable work.

---

Huh? Ok, maybe in "fine art", but there were (and still are) tons of people who earn a living in illustration and design work with a strong foundation in realistic/representational/etc. work. Heck, look at Norman Rockwell, Disney, Dreamcast, Pixar, all sorts of video game studio model-makers and concept artists, marketing and design firms, and the list goes on...

Heck, if you're willing to have prints mass-produced, there's a decent market for that sort of thing in the smaller-scale home and office decor department. Look at how many prints and posters of famous Japanese and European engravings have been sold. Even what might be weakly called "high art" T-shirts you can find in places like shirt.woot would fit into this category.

Quote:

---

But you can't really hang any of that in a gallery. Valuable as it is, there's no real way to display the first issue of Action Comics in a way that's anywhere near what it was meant to in a museum or gallery.

---

*points to the pop art movement*

Admittedly, it isn't quite the same thing, but in some ways it's all marketing. Which really brings me to one of the core issues I have with some strains of modern art - when it gets presented as pointing out bleak realities, staying true to artistic conception, and bucking the establishment, and yet it sits in a museum precisely because of an artist's statement that is nothing more than a glorified sales pitch; something iconic and immovably a part of the whole corporate apparatus it pretends to disconcert.

I'm not saying this in a vacuum, either. I've talked to friends that went to pursue advanced degrees in art tell me that in many places, an MFA is basically a course on selling yourself and your work to galleries and museums. And this is coming from people who I respect for their abstract work, let alone disreputable elements...

Short answer: Because it's art.

Longer answer: There are numerous scholars and experts who spend their entire lives arguing among themselves as to how and why something can be truly recognized as art. According to my Art History teacher in High School, the word itself has the same roots as the word "artificial", which is to say that art must be a human creation: water eroding a rock into a perfect sculpture is not art, but a human sculpting it is.

An artist painting a black square on a canvas with the intention of creating art is creating art. And while it's so simple to just paint the black square, the fact that the artist CREATED this makes it so: It's very easy to say "I could have done that!" about something someone else has already done. You could have done that, but you did not come up with the idea for it. You did not create it.

At some point artists decided that it was no longer acceptable to just attempt realism on a canvas and that it was necessary to escape from the bonds of reality, and thus was modern art born. It's not almost always bizarre looking, it just happens to stand out from the crowd.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by the_druid_droid

Huh? Ok, maybe in "fine art", but there were (and still are) tons of people who earn a living in illustration and design work with a strong foundation in realistic/representational/etc. work. Heck, look at Norman Rockwell, Disney, Dreamcast, Pixar, all sorts of video game studio model-makers and concept artists, marketing and design firms, and the list goes on...

---

Yeah, but we're talking "fancy" art. As in the kind of thing one generally expects to be in a gallery. "fancy" seems like it points to fine art, rather than commercial stuff, which is what all the people you pointed to are in for. This is, I am aware, a cop out considering how the classics tended to be brought into existence, but in a modern context there's a very big difference in the creative process between both in a whole lot of cases.

Even then, most of those are working in an animated medium, which even at the fundamental level you need to be aware breaks away from realism after a point. You're expected to know how to contruct things realistically to a degree, but every single thing done commerically is always stylized. I mean how many Pixar films do you see that ever bother to work in something defined as realisim?

Quote:

---

Heck, if you're willing to have prints mass-produced, there's a decent market for that sort of thing in the smaller-scale home and office decor department. Look at how many prints and posters of famous Japanese and European engravings have been sold. Even what might be weakly called "high art" T-shirts you can find in places like shirt.woot would fit into this category.

---

I haven't really seen that much ultra-realistic home decor. Not outside of established classics at least. Which is what these famous engravings are like. You aren't going to be able to tell some new student fresh out of art school that he can make a living doing something like that reliably with a straight face because that'd be an outright lie.

Quote:

---

*points to the pop art movement*

---

That really ignores the fundamentals of my statement is the thing. Because the thing is, pop art is it's own thing that's intended to be viewed in an entirely different context not just conceptually as of what it means, but practically since it's intended to be hung on a museum instead of sold at a store in booklets as the final version.
[/QUOTE]

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jayngfet

Even then, most of those are working in an animated medium, which even at the fundamental level you need to be aware breaks away from realism after a point. You're expected to know how to contruct things realistically to a degree, but every single thing done commerically is always stylized. I mean how many Pixar films do you see that ever bother to work in something defined as realisim?

---

I'm not making the absurd statement that there's no stylization, but Pixar also doesn't release films with unidentifiable masses of randomly animated symbols, either. Not to mention that most animation programs at a school of art or design have a very strong basis in traditional representational methods. No, you don't have to be able to render the Mona Lisa, but that isn't my point.

Quote:

---

I haven't really seen that much ultra-realistic home decor. Not outside of established classics at least. Which is what these famous engravings are like. You aren't going to be able to tell some new student fresh out of art school that he can make a living doing something like that reliably with a straight face because that'd be an outright lie.

---

I think we're at cross-purposes here. What do you mean by 'ultra-realistic'? I'm thinking of things like decently representational landscapes, or portraits of animals or people, which I've seen in tons of people's homes. Sometimes painted or drawn by those people themselves. Hell, I know personally two people in my (small) hometown who make a living in selling representational pieces, in paint and metal, respectively. Actually, three, counting the potter, but that's a slightly different trade than most visual art, which I assume is what we're primarily discussing.

Quote:

---

That really ignores the fundamentals of my statement is the thing. Because the thing is, pop art is it's own thing that's intended to be viewed in an entirely different context not just conceptually as of what it means, but practically since it's intended to be hung on a museum instead of sold at a store in booklets as the final version.

---

And this ignores the fundamentals of mine, which is: If 'art' is just whatever you can convince a museum to hang up, then it really isn't anything special at all. It's all one big swindle.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by the_druid_droid

I'm not making the absurd statement that there's no stylization, but Pixar also doesn't release films with unidentifiable masses of randomly animated symbols, either. Not to mention that most animation programs at a school of art or design have a very strong basis in traditional representational methods. No, you don't have to be able to render the Mona Lisa, but that isn't my point.

---

Yeah, but at the same time, Pixar is commercial art that undergoes it's own unique process that seperates it as a top tier 3d animated studio, from what one sees across other parts of the art world.

I will agree that there is crossover and a whole lot of things in common, but on their own the skills used in both areas aren't fully interchangable. There's a reason so many people in the animation industry need a bachelor's degree specifically in animation to do the work needed in a project like that.

Quote:

---

I think we're at cross-purposes here. What do you mean by 'ultra-realistic'? I'm thinking of things like decently representational landscapes, or portraits of animals or people, which I've seen in tons of people's homes. Sometimes painted or drawn by those people themselves. Hell, I know personally two people in my (small) hometown who make a living in selling representational pieces, in paint and metal, respectively. Actually, three, counting the potter, but that's a slightly different trade than most visual art, which I assume is what we're primarily discussing.

---

I think the thing is we need to narrow down what we're actually talking about. I'm not saying there's no market. I'm just saying that I know dozens of artists and I've been inside hundreds of homes and the amount of visual art that I think qualifies isn't that big. Yeah, there's a bit of good representational stuff. But it's not something I've ever seen done or practiced as the majority of things hung up or sold. Maybe I'm just living in a weird area for that sort of thing but that's just going by personal experience.

Quote:

---

And this ignores the fundamentals of mine, which is: If 'art' is just whatever you can convince a museum to hang up, then it really isn't anything special at all. It's all one big swindle.

---

It's neither of those things though. Art is a very, very vague term that encompasses dozens of categories that each have dozens of sub categories that in and of themselves can often be subdivided quite readily. It's not a swindle so much as it is a box of objects that are vaguely similar but obviously identified as being different. Animation isn't painting which isn't sculpture which isn't charcoal drawing. It's pretty much assumed that a good artist can be good at multiple things and the basic fundamentals are transferable in a whole lot of cases, but each individual thing has so much of it's own information to learn that it can't really be considered one big thing, at least in my opinion.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Djinn_in_Tonic

The trick is to make you think it must be art and, in so doing, it becomes art. That's about the best I can describe it.

---

This post is now art. Discuss.

This post, by contrast, is not art.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jayngfet

But you can't really hang any of that in a gallery. Valuable as it is, there's no real way to display the first issue of Action Comics in a way that's anywhere near what it was meant to in a museum or gallery.

---

You could make a big walk-through of all the pages in sequence, or a slideshow (though the latter has timing issues, and either probably requires enlargement which would change the perspective slightly).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by willpell

This post is now art. Discuss.

---

I personally would disagree, although my reasoning for that is personal. I think you'd find me hard to convince that you were actually considering the artistic value of that post when you made it: I think that, instead, you were having a laugh and poking some fun at my words.

While you can have art in jest (Fountain was definitely a bit of a nudge at traditional sculpture and art critics), I don't think that was your intent.

:smalltongue:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by willpell

This post, by contrast, is not art.



You could make a big walk-through of all the pages in sequence, or a slideshow (though the latter has timing issues, and either probably requires enlargement which would change the perspective slightly).

---

Nope. It was meant to be viewed as a small, handheld thing who's size was meant to cover up some of the simplicity that went into it. Just blowing it up too big on a computer monitor can ruin the effect since it makes obvious all the things that would've been hidden. Both of those things would increase the size to a degree the artists behind early comics couldn't have anticipated and in fact bet against when working. Action Comics from that era were good, and fun, but they also cut corners since some of the smaller panels were left undetailed since that kind of attention they didn't think could ever be brought to them, and with techniques of the day there wasn't much that could be done anyway.

The only real way to view a longer comic has always been page by page in a certain size. Straying too far from those will pretty much change the whole way it's looked at.

I think I have a better understanding now.
Another part of why I've often been confused about why art is art, is because making things counter to realistic art most often tends to aim for abstract, rather then something that merely would not be seen**,
and it has often struck me as odd that abstract artwork usually even seems to have a higher value then a painting of a specific image(even if that image is of something impossible), though some older(50+ years) works fit what I'm talking about;

Spoiler

Show

http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/8...lvadordali.jpg
http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/7046/cb570721e.jpg
http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/2...asywallpap.jpg
oddly all by Salvador Dali

**such as these sorts of things;

Spoiler

Show

http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/9...lly568x254.jpg
http://img849.imageshack.us/img849/1...eeplanetin.png
http://img802.imageshack.us/img802/6...ieinvocati.jpg
all if which were found by typing; feathered tyrannosaurus, "floating mountain", and djinn into a google search.
though I suppose the Trex isn't entirely fantasy art, since they did exist and were feathered.

My definition of art has become something along the lines of: Art is a process of looking at something differently and allowing it to inspire thought.

So that toilet that someone took and put in a museum? Totally art. It inspires thought, largely because of it's location in a museum, but more because it's not where one would normally expect it to be: in a bathroom. Now, if I took that toilet, or another I suppose, and dumped it on the street somewhere, it could be art, but it might not be for everyone. Because despite the intent to make it art, it might be commonplace enough that it just isn't effective as such. It doesn't inspire thought. If, on the other hand, I mounted it atop a pedastle, it would be far more effective as a work of art, because the deliberateness of that action inspires thought.

I'm not certain if that deliberateness is entirely necessary though, but I think it is. Which is to say, a deliberateness to commit to something as art. To say, "This is art." So a fallen leaf isn't art until you take a picture of it and say, "this is art."

I think a lot of unrealistic things are more numerous for a handful of reasons at least. The first and laziest reason is that there's a lot more possibilities for unrealistic things than realistic ones. The second being that you can add all sorts of symbolism to unrealistic images that is far easier to decipher than, "In this social context, the white symbolizes purity." The third and final one I've got is that it can present a really unique way of looking at things. The Elephants with Trumpet heads one, for example, is pretty straightforward, yet an interesting and thought provoking way of looking at some elephants.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Togath

and it has often struck me as odd that abstract artwork usually even seems to have a higher value then a painting of a specific image(even if that image is of something impossible), though some older(50+ years) works fit what I'm talking about;

---

The fact that Dali's paintings are very well modelled has nothing to do with why they are important or valuable. The value of artwork is determined very rarely by what that artwork depicts.

For whatever it's worth, I like the first three paintings but *love* the second three (though the Djinn is a magic card and thus familiar to me, and I don't care for the idea of a feathered Trex personally).

It's also worth noting that modern art, at least in the earlier stages, were a means for intellectuals to keep the "masses" out of the top cultural circles. Through public schools, most of them could now read, and the intellectuals felt threatened by the great "reading masses".

So they invented a new type of art, which you couldn't study yourself to understanding; you had to be in on it from the start, you had to approach it from this one direction, and if you couldn't figure that out then it was your fault. You clearly wasn't as smart as you thought, now were you? Now why don't you let us real intellectuals handle the high art, okay?

I'm not saying this kind of work doesn't have artistic merit or is something we're better of without. But if much of that stuff seems like strange, pretentious, incomprehensible snobbery to you, that is because it actually is.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Weimann

It's also worth noting that modern art, at least in the earlier stages, were a means for intellectuals to keep the "masses" out of the top cultural circles. Through public schools, most of them could now read, and the intellectuals felt threatened by the great "reading masses".

So they invented a new type of art, which you couldn't study yourself to understanding; you had to be in on it from the start, you had to approach it from this one direction, and if you couldn't figure that out then it was your fault. You clearly wasn't as smart as you thought, now were you? Now why don't you let us real intellectuals handle the high art, okay?

I'm not saying this kind of work doesn't have artistic merit or is something we're better of without. But if much of that stuff seems like strange, pretentious, incomprehensible snobbery to you, that is because it actually is.

---

Yeah, but the thing is that Art, in and of itself, has qualities that can be objectively measured. Even the "weird" stuff can be judged if you know how. I get into fights with other artists on this topic a lot but a lot of modern artists wouldn't know how to make a good painting even if their lives depended on it and I'm not afraid to show how or why. It's entirely possible for there to be good stuff with modern art, but if you know what you're doing it's still possible to call out people who straight up suck and cut the bull, and I encourage people to do so.

Quote:

---

Strange, pretentious, incomprehensible snobbery that tries to make you think it must be art is art.

---

I've merged two different quotes into one, thereby have CREATED ART!

Art is much a matter of fashion, like clothing and hair styles. Artists come and go in prominence. Van Gogh never (?) sold a painting in his life, yet now his paintings are the most expensive in the world.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Togath

As the title implies, why are so many of the pieces of "art" considered fancy so weird looking?, They either have no true subject(many pieces of "abstract" artwork as an example, such as a bunch of paint spilled onto a canvas...[how is paint spilled onto a canvas by mistake different from doing so on purpose?]) or are very bland (a picture of a women sitting by a field, all in browns and greys and blacks[aka, the Mona Lisa]), or look like some sort of hallucination.
The two styles I don't mind as much are portraits(normal ones, so not Picasso style ones) and landscape paintings.
This isn't so much a rant as an honest question, I just don't understand why "art"(other then landscapes or portraits) has to be weird, and often sort of creepy to be fancy.

---

Go pick up an art history book focusing on art from the mid 1800s to the present. Because explaining every art movement from Modernism to present and why they are the way they are would take too much time.

Short answer: A lot good art is based on the political/cultural atmosphere of the time or in response to another work of art/movement. Also, stylization can often hold more weight than realistic accuracy. You also have to consider art isn't just about making something look accurate to real life; you have to consider color, tone, contrast, composition, shapes, lines, or the intentional neglect of any of these to create a point.

New techniques and those who master them have always been more sought after if for no other reason than because of their greater rarity. I would hardly classify Rembrandt or Monet as truly bizarre but they're definitely classy, classy status symbols. And the Avant Garde is more likely to involve new techniques and unconventional philosophies of art.

Though, part of it is based on familiarity and tradition, the Impressionists were controversial in their own way as I recall.

In the end though, I recommend seeing if your local library has a good book on art history covering Western Art since the Renaissance.

As an aside, for the "comic books as Art" conversation, I love Pittsburgh. Of course, we also have our share of pop art, more traditional fine art and some really astounding installation art, if you are into that sort of thing.

I would recommend going to museums to experience art. It's really not the same in books or photos. I never cared for Picasso until I saw them in person, and absolutely did not get Rothko before going to the Rothko Chapel. Context is important, doubly so with abstract stuff.

Y'all are all crazy and I don't want to wade into any of this, but I'll just say that I play background music for receptions and galas at my local art museum sometimes; I go there a lot and I agree with Josh that seeing art in person is a radically different experience than seeing facsimiles of it. I for one would've thought that the enormous Katamari Damashiiesque ball of lawnchairs and that solid bronze window curtain they have there were stupid ideas if I hadn't seen them up close. I have no idea what either of those things say about the human condition, but they're pretty neat.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kindablue

Y'all are all crazy and I don't want to wade into any of this, but I'll just say that I play background music for receptions and galas at my local art museum sometimes; I go there a lot and I agree with Josh that seeing art in person is a radically different experience than seeing facsimiles of it. I for one would've thought that the enormous Katamari Damashiiesque ball of lawnchairs and that solid bronze window curtain they have there were stupid ideas if I hadn't seen them up close. I have no idea what either of those things say about the human condition, but they're pretty neat.

---

This is definitley a good point. A lot of stuff you need to physically be there and see to get the real feeling of it. If nothing else, 90% of photos and scans don't really capture the proper nature of a photo. This is really obvious when dealing with Van Gogh, since his works use so much paint applied a certain way that doesn't translate well onto photos and in most lighting.

The art thing is so complicated it's not even funny.

On one hand we have the fact that critics (and artists) look down on things that most "commoners" enjoy.
On the other hand you have things like video games and comics wanting to be considered as art. To me, these two things do not go together.

On top of this, I am those who has come to accept the most common criteria for "what is art": If someone thinks it's art, it's art. The main reason for this is that otherwise it is impossible to define art these days. Of course this means that everything is art. Period.

As for answering the OP: To me, it seems there is a number of things involved:

1. the death of painting as the only way to describe the world, as noted severaltimes above.

2. the freedom of the artists, starting at the turn of the last century. You are no longer contracted by a nobleman to paint or sculpture what he tells you to. Nor is a king going to behead you for putting a royal crown on a toilet seat.

3. the switch among critics and art schools towards favoring controversy at all cost.