Perhaps the valued reader has noticed that public debates repeatedly flare up around the question of what art is — and what it is not. In Austria, the recent example was the so-called “Powder Dance,” which triggered the usual outrage. The accusation is quickly formulated: this is not art. Spending public money on it is absurd. It appears arbitrary, provocative, perhaps simply bad.
One could conduct this discussion on the level of taste. I like it or I do not. That is legitimate, but not particularly interesting. A more revealing question is why this resistance emerges at all. Because the rejection rarely concerns only the individual work itself. It is directed toward something more fundamental — the unsettling feeling that familiar rules have suddenly ceased to apply. A dance that no longer appears recognizably as dance. A work that does not immediately reveal itself. A form that resists familiar categories. That creates irritation.
And irritation, within art, is not necessarily a malfunction. Very often it is intentional. The problem begins when we confuse art with confirmation. When we expect a work to provide what we already know: beauty, virtuosity, technical brilliance, recognizable form. When those expectations are not fulfilled, the suspicion quickly arises that we are being deceived. That the entire thing functions only because nobody dares to question it.
This skepticism is not new. Many works now regarded as unquestioned masterpieces were mocked, rejected, or simply misunderstood in their own time. That does not mean every irritation automatically becomes art. Not everything that disturbs is relevant. Not everything provocative possesses substance. Bad art exists. And there are works that hide behind obscurity. The difficulty lies in distinguishing between these things.
And this is precisely where the discussion often becomes tedious. Because the statement “This is not art” is ultimately not an analysis at all. It is a termination of the discussion. It does not explain what is missing. It merely states that something feels wrong.
Perhaps it is useful at this point to step back for a moment. The question of what art is will continue to occupy us — far beyond what can be addressed here. Entire libraries have been written about it. Theories, schools, counter-theories. And none of them has managed to provide a final definition. That alone should make us suspicious. Because when something resists definition so persistently, perhaps the problem lies less in the object itself than in our desire to fix it into certainty.
I visit galleries regularly and, truthfully, I have not been involved with contemporary art for all that long. But it would never occur to me to stand before a work and declare: “This is not art.” There are many things I do not understand. And that is, initially, all it means. I do not understand quantum physics either. That does not prevent it from existing. I do not fully understand how my television remote control functions. Yet it still serves its purpose. My lack of understanding is not a valid measure of its legitimacy.
Why should art be different?
Perhaps the problem is not that something “is not art,” but that I simply have no access to it. That I do not possess the language in which the work speaks. Art is not a unified system. It does not operate according to a single logic. Every epoch, every movement, often every individual work develops its own language. And like every language, one may understand it, learn it — or fail to understand it entirely. But that initially says nothing about the language itself.
Perhaps a work fulfills a function I fail to recognize. Perhaps it addresses a level to which I have no access. Perhaps it presupposes something I lack. That is not necessarily a flaw. It may simply be a limit. My own.
And perhaps this is the blind spot within the entire debate. We argue about whether something is art or not, as though that alone settled the matter. Yet the label itself often says remarkably little. At most, it determines whether a ticket is taxed at one percentage or another. It determines the context in which something is shown, the category under which it appears. But it tells us almost nothing about whether a work deserves attention — and even less about whether it will actually receive it.
Because attention does not emerge from definition. It emerges from effect.
The question of public funding leads into another territory entirely. And there things become complicated. Because now the issue is no longer only art. It becomes a matter of decisions, priorities, and what a society considers relevant enough to support.
And this is precisely where even I begin to hesitate.
Not with the Powder Dance. There, at least, I can understand where the irritation originates and what questions may lie behind it. More difficult for me are works where even my own openness reaches a limit. Recently, for example, there was discussion surrounding a publicly funded project involving a pool filled with urine. And I must admit honestly: at that point, I too begin to withdraw internally.
But perhaps that is precisely the interesting part.
Because my disgust or resistance still does not answer the question of whether something is art or not. It answers only whether I personally can find access to it. Those are entirely different questions.
Perhaps a work is unpleasant, banal, or empty. Perhaps it survives only through provocation and media attention. Perhaps irritation itself eventually becomes exhausted through repetition. I consider that entirely possible. Since Marcel Duchamp and the emergence of the readymade, the concept of art has expanded so radically that provocation alone can no longer function as a sufficient measure of quality. A urinal inside a museum was once a radical attack on the concept of art itself. Today, simple boundary-breaking has almost become a tradition of its own.
But even this does not automatically lead to the conclusion: “This is not art.”
Perhaps it is bad art. Perhaps irrelevant art. Perhaps a work whose effect remains inaccessible to me. Perhaps even a work that depends more heavily upon the institutional protection of the art world than upon its own substance. All of these possibilities may exist. Yet none of them can truly be captured by the simplistic formula: “This is not art.”
And that is why these discussions so often become exhausting. Some defend almost anything the moment it appears within a museum. Others reject anything that provokes or irritates. Both sides often seem remarkably certain. Perhaps too certain.
Because perhaps the real difficulty lies in tolerating uncertainty.
Perhaps it would therefore be more useful to ask a different question. Not: Is this art? But rather: Is it relevant enough that we are willing to engage with it?
The answer to that may vary.
And that is perfectly acceptable.