art = intent + execution

if you took the subject you're studying for this exam and then stretched it out for three years during which it is implied that your own art work is a footnote to the aforementioned discussion then you would be studying at a prestigious english art school.

i thought that duchamp's urinal was meant as more of a two fingers up to the artworld rather than as the opener to some kind endless circular arguement about what is and isn't art thus opening the door to worthless twats like gabriel orozco, rikrit tiravanjica, jeff koons and that prick who puts piles of sweets in a corner because his boyfriend died of AIDS

I love this. I'm going to call it the Merzboat.

Everything Is Art, Darlings. When the wind blows the leaves of a tree, that is Art. Art is anything that causes a reaction. Art is everywhere, everpresent.

The replies here are pretty interesting.
I gotta say though, that sometimes pieces like this just make me wonder that so many folks are trying so hard to capture and claim everything great and small in this world, from naming stars to copyrighting phrases. Things like this make me more think that it's about owning stuff, even hoses.

What phoenix wrote in post 10.

Don't knock it, it's a way of life (Albeit a futile one). I'm half way through a degree in Fine Art now, and I've got to mention here that rarely, if at all, has the question "is it art?" come up. I have no memory of posing or being posed that question. Mainly I think because the "is it art?" question is just a massive cop-out on behalf of the viewer. If something isn't art, it doesn't cease to exist, it's still a THING, and a thing you've got to deal with, or as the case may be, not. The word "art" isn't there to separate things that aren't worthy of you attention from those that are. I'd say about 20% or even less of the officially-certified-by-the-mysterious-afficionados-on-this-subject art is even worthy of the faintest smidgeon of my attention.

All Art Is Pornography

we rarely argue about it because what we do in the graphic design/illustration department is not really considered art: our work usually has a function, and even if it's a free assignment, we tend to tell stories. we learn how to work around a theme, in funcion of a subject, for someone, and with limitations, but still make it something creative and recognisable as our own work. a lot of students make quite conceptual graphic design that is similar to conceptual art anyway. i remember a guy who midified a photobooth so it would cut up different pictures of people who'd sit in it and create a video with them, it was his final project for graphic design.

i do this because i love to tell a story in my work, and i love how it can reach people. lately i've been doing some actions in public, mostly with my boyfriend, also related to another interesting question: can art change the world? we've been debating about this, and came to a conclusion that what is seen as 'high art' can give a nice impulse to the public to actually make a change, but its main problem is that it only reaches a very small part of the world. here in antwerp an artist/theatre maker has spent all year doing small actions to disturb daily routines in antwerp and open eyes, this worked for some people (he has a rather large fanbase now) but most people don't know about it or don't know the meaning of what he does. that is why the world needs these 'popular' artists giving out a message, even though they're not considered 'high art'

me and my friends love bringing unfamiliar elements into the street, we even keep it quite legal. in the summer we went around at night making chalk drawings that pointed small funny things out that would have been gone unnoticed, or posting little notes between announcements and posters on walls or in mailboxes. right now we're working on a set of poster prints to hang on shop windows. they say things like 'very small man is looking for very small woman' and then we post them low to the floor. they're meant to surprise people and make them smile.

i realise this isn't very related but yeah.

Ploesj these interventions or actions of yours sound lovely. You probably already know about her, but be sure to check out VALIE EXPORT, though, she was a bit all-guns-blazing about it, for more subtle interventions like your own, I highly reccomend you check out Jiri Kovanda.

Can you send me link to the artist that's doing the actions to disturb daily routines in Antwerp, I'm intruiged.

I know what you mean n'all, but this phrase really made me laugh :o

I've got an art degree from St Martins, I'm entitled to knock it, because it was a bag of shite

hey-lo, I wus ches wonderink eef chu wood like to buy dees peenk hose I gots.

haha yeah me too, i re-read it and just giggled.

http://www.kalender09.be/kalnder/index.php?pages/index

here is the link, the project was called 'calendar 09'. the site is full of pictures and texts about the actions.

Yeah it looks like a hose to me. I have that hose. Wonder if mine is worth as much.

Art is a nebulous term.
If everything is art then nothing is art.
a hose is not art. putting a hose on the ground and labeling it as an art piece does not make it art. it makes it a joke. the joke is on anyone who would consider such a stupid thing to be art.

if a hose on the ground speaks to you then you gots some issues.

Art is money.

it certainly attracts a lot of wankers

I don't believe this is true. In this universal kind of sense, I think of it as related to yet distinct from science. Just as everything is quantifiable, everything is qualifiable.