What is Art?

by

Ryan Clement

OF COURSE, I don’t really know the answer to this age-old question, but my very good friends, F and M, and I may well have come very close to an – rather than ‘the’ – answer.

WE WERE CELEBRATING A VICTORY in a recent court case. We were enjoying our meal in Wembley – they had kindly made the journey South solely for my convenience. We, sorry, I had elected for an Indian meal. Had I known that F was a regular Master Chef of the dish as often as I am a regular consumer of the cuisine, I would have elected for Thai, followed by Chinese instead. Too late, but that hadn’t damped our wonderful evening of laughter, reminiscence of the case, joking and everything else in between. In fact, to label or limit our evening solely as ‘wonderful’ does not, in any way, do it justice.

ANYWAY, back to the theme of the title. As the evening unfolded and I consumed my chicken Dhansak with pilau rice washed down subsequently with a large glass of cold mango lassi, M revealed that F loved to paint and was an artist. Naturally, I asked to see some of her work, which she showed me on her phone. Magnificent! I was genuinely taken aback. They were colourful, unique and engaging. I loved and love her works of art.

F revealed that she did not have a studio in which to paint and would erect her easel wherever she finds space at the time to create. Whatever the process, it works! We then embarked on, What is Art? To me, Art is anything that is created or arranged in some way that moves someone to react emotionally in some way. I know there is more to this – and tonnes of books on the subject – but that’s my short take on it. We spoke about Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ as a case in point, a porcelain urinal signed “R Mutt. 1917” - that’s it! – being a famous work of art. By my definition, a work of art is fluid and may mean different things to different people; even the same piece. Two of us could listen to some music and be moved in different ways or one of us may not be moved at all! I say fluid because I am a big jazz fan today but was not a fan until I saw Randy Crawford and The Crusaders in concert in London. We went to see only the former and ended up falling in love with the latter (we already loved the former!).

I guess the fluidity of it hit me more when, a few years ago, there was this discussion or debate over what was art? It arose because people were questioning whether some of the works of Damian Hirst and Tracey Emins were truly art. It was topical at the time because of the recent exhibition of Ms. Emins’s ‘My Bed.’ Years later, my soulmate and I visited Tate Britain in London and saw the bed in question, live – until that time I had only seen pictures of it. We tagged on to a group who was having the ‘inspiration’ behind the bed explained. Prior to this, the bed meant nothing to me beyond resembling my messy bed as a teenager – with some exceptions. Then, it changed. It made sense.

One is supposed to separate the Art from the Artist, but on this occasion the story behind the art made me appreciate the art itself or at least understand it. In my mind, at that moment, to ME, it became Art. Why? Because I had a reaction to it in a way that a creative piece – music, film, literature etc. – does. I took this picture of it at the time.

MANY YEARS LATER, the family and I were in Liverpool and visited Tate Liverpool. Unbeknown to me, Ms. Emins’ bed was now being exhibited there. I took a picture and then remembered that I had also taken a picture of her bed in London. You can compare how accurate the two are – between London (above) and Liverpool (below) – or how close she managed to recreate the same.

ANYWAY, back to the evening. We left the restaurant a little jollier than we had when we arrived – which was some achievement because we were already cheerful, jovial and good-humoured before we arrived! However, we were not entirely convinced that we had, in fact, cracked the age-old question of What is Art? But, we had a great time over good food, good talk and, above all, good company trying!

Copyright © Ryan Clement 2023