When is Art, Art?

Recently I've been dabbling with what would otherwise be called art becuase I've got little else to describe it as—but when is Art, Art?

That is Frida you disapproving poopy-head

As I develop as a human, turning more adult by the day, I'm finding myself both understanding art and questioning it more than ever—even partaking in creation of something I'd mildly class as art.

As I walk around a gallery, I find myself looking at artworks that I would have otherwise dismissed; one artist in question going through this internal Walden phenomena is the infamous Rothko.

As a younger male, I used to spit through my teeth at the single colour canvases that could be seen hanging around any particular Tate wall, but now as I think about it a bit more I see them as wonderful things of imagination. Realistically they didn't take great finesse or massive amounts of talent to physically produce but there is something to be said about the contrast of looking directly into a deep blue square, three metres high. For myself, I've starting to look into them as a psychologist might into colour theory, linking the hue to a perceived emotion or feeling.

There are many ways I could describe the various colours and compositions he's created, and that's part of the beauty of them. They are ambiguos enough to allow you to reflect your own emotions onto them, read your own meaning but also delve into the viewpoint of Rothko himself.

What I perceive to be art is anything that is made to be art, as there is no real definition for what can or cannot be a piece of art—like many thing in our world, it's merely a battle of personal perspective.

Moving away from Rothko, I have personally been playing around with what I might call Art as I can't for the life of me class it as design; as it hasn't any real purpose of existence other than to be pleasurable for myself. With shapes on the mind, and likely a subconscious craving for simplicity I've been playing around with something I can imagine you might find in the throw away corner of a student exhibition. It's some kind of mixture between a visual balancing act, with shapes leaning on one another inside a corresponding frame and the metaphorical idea of balancing; balancing large above a structure of small, all balanced on the point of a needle.

Above is what I've been working on – or worked on for a couple of hours – which I titled "The Shape of Shapes to Come" a pun at one of my favourite Jazz albums and a prediction of my on-going desire to draw endless shapes. I think subconsciously I was trying to make some kind of hybrid between Columbria record sleeves and the Suprematism movement—both in ethos and aesthetics, rejecting the detailed designs I was working on through the process of creating this.

So the question is When is Art, Art? I don't bloody well know, I'm not an artist.

My best guess is art is art when it's created to be so, defining design as a development upon art; being Art for a purpose. Next time on Walden Wisdom Week we tackle the tricky world of Modern Sculpture!