Response to Andrea

                I think we insist on saying that art is either good or bad because it has to mean something and if it does than each one cannot portray that meaning equally. People often think of art as a way to express emotions and some expressions of emotions are stronger than others. Some people think of art as a way of communicating emotions and some must do this better than others. If art is just lines and shapes and colors than one example is not better than another but then art is pointless. I think art has to have emotional content and if it does not than it is bad art. If every work of art was created equal then no artist could be really respected in their field because they could never be better than average. Everyone would be the average. There would be nothing to strive for. In order to know whether a work of art is good or bad if first needs to be determined what the goal of that piece of art is. The degree to which it reaches that goal would determine how good or bad it is. If a piece of art is made to portray a social message and manages to do so it is likely a good piece of art even if it is not aesthetically appealing while a work that is meant to be aesthetically pleasing is a good work of art if it is for many of the people that view it. I do not know if all art should be held to the same standard or if art has more than one purpose. Maybe it cannot be defined because as such a broad category the different categories are not only different in their methods but in their intended purposes. Art is a difficult concept to define and until it is defined it cannot be known what is good and what is bad, but if nothing is good or bad then art can never be judged. If it can never be judged no work can be superior to another. In a practical sense this would be bad because art chosen to be in a museum would be completely arbitrary. There would be no reason to choose one piece and not another, so museums could have no standards and would be unjustifiably denying anyone they did not include in their exhibit.

                Does this make sense and what other reasons are there for determining whether art is good or bad?    

Response to Christine

Other art forms that could be considered living and breathing are spoken poetry, comedians, anything with live people. I also wonder if film could be considered as such. It involves performances by people that viewers often say they could watch over and over again and still see something new. Artists are not actively participating in the sense that their performances are not live, but they are unique if people see different things or react differently on subsequent viewings. The role of the audience is as important as the artist when it comes to viewing art and if they find differences then those differences are real to them. The movie itself does not change but the experience changes. The reason this is especially true of film is because it is so complex and includes layers of art including lighting, acting, costuming, set design, musical scores and more. Other art forms could be the same if they have multiple or detailed aspects that people discover upon multiple viewings. People will always be more complicated then objects, but this does not mean that people will necessarily see everything worth seeing in an object on the first viewing. Recordings of people also have depths of expression, inflection and other aspects of their performance that is distinctly human even though the recording itself never changes.  

                Does performance art always have more depth than art using physical objects?

Response to Brycen

I do not think that performing art is better than other art simply because it has the ability to change. There is some pleasure in consistency and when an artist makes an object they can spend as much time and effort on its creation as they want. They can fix any flaws before it ever reaches an audience. In the case of music, they can add aspects in the studio that they may not even be capable of during a live performance. Performance art because of its unique qualities can never fix the mistakes made during a performance for the people who were in the audience that day. Once the mistake is made it is a part of the piece for that person. It is possible that these mistakes will add variety and interesting qualities to a piece, but it is just as possible that they will make it worse. People are unique so the same performance will never be seen twice but that only makes performance art better if it is seen multiple times verse seeing non-performance art multiple times. Most of the time people do not want to see the same performance piece repeatedly anyway. There is also a comforting familiarity to having the same work of art in one’s home or listening to the same c.d. one knows by heart. Performing arts may be the only type of art that can be completely unique, but uniqueness is not the only positive aspect a work of art can have. I do think Piper has a point that performance art is more unique and that art is often fetishized, but I do not think this makes performance art better, only different. I also think that people can enjoy art for the lyrics, colors or other qualities that do not serve to fetishize it and people can enjoy performance art because of its “mysterious” qualities where they do fetishize it. I think Piper would agree with this statement but it is still worth saying.

                Is some art only enjoyed because of fetishized qualities?