Art or Not

The article I chose to read was Art or Not from the website Slate.com. The article dealt with the on going debate on what is Art. The Brooklyn Museum constructed an experiment to determine what makes photography art. They collected a sample of photographs and asked both experts and non-experts their opinion on the different pieces. The author Mia Fineman describes the exhibit as an art installation addressing the conceptual nature of a crowd-curated exhibition. She adds her own opinion about the experiment by stating her concern that art is treated as data instead of an actual work of art. In her critique, Fineman explained the breakdown of all photographs submitted. Since the project centered around New York, mainly people submitted famous New York landscapes, such as, Coney Island, the Brooklyn Bridge and other romantically crumbling architecture. After the experimented was tested, the Brooklyn Museum came to the conclusion that there were many likeness similarities between the experts and the non-experts. On the other hand, there were photographs that they both did not agree on. For example, some more “artistic” photographs were appreciated more by experts than patrons with little to no art education. I think Mia Fineman’s voice came out the most when she was explaining the argument of the exhibit. They wanted to test Surowiecki’s theory about the wisdom of crowds in the realm of visual arts. Since majority of their participants were amateurs it really allowed for a wide range of photographs. In the end, the article and the exhibit came down to taste. There are no right or wrong qualifications for art, because it will still be split between the people that love it and the people that hate it. The most interesting part of the article was when a painter surveyed American’s and found the most appealing attributes of a painted. He then used all of his findings to create the painting entitled “American’s Most Wanted”.