What is Art?

I suppose that from a technical standpoint, the question of art falls under the category of aesthetics and axiology, which is a starting point if nothing else. So, it is up to us to investigate sensori-emotional values and the larger categories of value and quality in a general way. So what is quality? What is value? What is sensori-emotional value?
In what may be called my semi-ignorance of the topic, let us first say that I believe value to be a learned attribute. One of the most notable examples I can think of is Ulysses. The book was banned as obscene for twelve years in the United States of America, and in 1999 The Modern Library ranked it Number One on its list of English language books of the 20th Century. The clearest understanding that can be gleaned from this is that there is a world between fear of the seemingly unintelligible and quality. What I see going on here is precisely that people are afraid of what they don’t understand. It would be argued most clearly in the case of the so-called modern art with a conversation between myself and my father—or at least how I would imagine it would go.
(Standing in front of Rene Magritte’s This is not a pipe.)
Me: Kind of incredible isn’t it?
Pop: What?
Me: It’s kind of incredible.
Pop: It’s kind of stupid if that’s what you mean.
Me: What? What do you mean?
Pop: It doesn’t make sense.
Me: Why not?
Pop: Well, that is clearly a pipe.
Me: No it’s not pop.
Pop: How so?
Me: It’s a painting.
Pop: But it’s a painting of a pipe.
Me: Precisely, which makes it not a pipe.
Pop: Why would you waste your time making a painting about something to say that the painting isn’t that something?
Me: To remind your audience what art is.
Pop: And what is that?
Me: The space between reality and impression.
Pop: It’s still kind of silly.

But therein lies the nut I suppose. Art invades this space that is generally uninhabited by anything. It bridges the gap, somehow, or exists inside the space between what is actually there and impression that is made on the audience. Art is an invasion of the consciousness by an object, by an in-itself, that causes one to feel. In a way it is the water at the end of the desert for the weary traveler, because upon seeing it they feel towards that object, that thing, that unconscious piece of something-or-other in the same way that they feel about consciousness. As a matter of fact, it could be said that art has the same structure as the consciousness: it is a nothingness that nihilates itself and thereby creates freedom.

A painting is just a painting. Get over it, would you? From an absolutely technically standpoint, there is nothing special about a picture drawn on a piece of paper or a piece of canvas or on a computer screen or piece of clay that happens to look like something or a piece of metal that has been molded into some kind of shape. It is a thing in the world, the same as a hammer or a coffee cup or a bed or a key or any other kind of object that exists in the world. What happens when it is art, however, is that it nihilates that essential existence as a piece of something-or-other and creates for itself freedom (of) interpretation. A hammer can be nothing but a hammer. A picture of a hammer is free to be interpreted as anything. By creating the visual image, and nihilating the reality of itself as a picture, the viewer is placed in a situation where suddenly they are being stared at by the piece of art. The art has created a for-itself. Art is the for-itself. It stares at us. It makes us uncomfortable. It says, “Here I am. Make sense of me.” In this sense, it could be said that art is a dare, a challenge. This object-in-the-world, this in-itself-for-itself stares at you, daring you to understand it. In a way, and sometimes I simply hope this for some of my own personal project, art is that which is incomprehensible to most people. That which is understood by everybody is not art. (Holding a hammer): “This is a hammer.” There is no work there. (A painting in hypercolor tie-dye of a hammer sitting in a gallery): “This is a hammer.” There is work here, because it isn’t a hammer. It is unintelligible technically. It could be a hammer for your senses. It could be a hammer that could be. What is it? How did they conceive of it? Why did they conceive of it? There are actual questions to be asked here.

But there is an essential problem for artists: their art must be challenging. It must be difficult. And yet the only way to distribute art is make it marketable in the first place. This is probably why most artists aren’t fully appreciated until they’re old or dead. I would imagine the process probably goes something along the lines of a person realizing that this artist devoted their life to this concept, to this idea, to these words, to this form, and starts to investigate. Over the course of the investigation, what is revealed is intentionality. The artist was well aware of all the conventional forms and could probably imitate them pretty well, but consciously chose to do something different, and in the gap between the style/form they chose to make happen and their understanding of historically accepted forms and style is the artists mind.

What does the artist risk by first developing a “fan base” and compromising their vision?
What do they gain?
Is more rapid dissemination detrimental to the artist process?
Do you lose credibility?

My first-ever setlist for a show I played in Busan this weekend was full of obscure tunes that are what I consider to be real art. They are what I have learned to be quality music. Do I start playing popular catchy pop tunes to develop a fan base? Do I maintain my line? Is that plain stubbornness to maintain? Anybody with any suggestions for things to read, things to try… by all means, let me know.

I am at a loss.