No matter what criteria you choose to define art, it always is possible to conceive of a work that would violate them, because one of the things art is well known for doing (although it doesn’t always, or else that would be a defining criterion) is traversing boundaries.
Part of the problem in debates like this is that many people seem to assume that “artiness” is an intrinsic property like “redness”. So the Mona Lisa IS art always, under all conditions, and a pile of potatoes ISN’T art, no matter what.
But art doesn’t work that way. Art is a social construction like money or marriage. There’s nothing intrinsic in a dollar bill that makes it money. It’s money only because enough people agree that it’s money. And if you take it out of it’s proper context (to a remote village in the Amazon for example) it can stop being money and revert to being just a piece of paper with green markings on it.
Enough people thought this particular pile of potatoes was art to go to the trouble to show it in a museum. So clearly there does exist a context where a pile of potatoes can be art. That doesn’t mean that all piles of potatoes are art in all circumstances, but this particular pile was. Think of it as a bank note issued from some obscure European principality. Most places in the world it’s just a piece of paper with markings on it. But in the limited confines of its country of origin, it’s money.
The interesting question isn’t “Is it art?”. It’s “Is it GOOD art?”. And unfortunately that impossible to answer in this case because none of us except for the OP have actually seen the piece. Judging a work of art on it’s concept alone without considering it’s execution is like panning a movie because you don’t like its title.
Nitpick: pseudotriton ruber ruber has – see his post #22 – and, actually, I have as well. FTR: I found it interesting but wasn’t knocked out by it.
Other than that – outstanding post. I’m always delighted to encounter someone else who remembers that reality is just a matter of social agreement… 
I don’t know about that. It’s a worthy enough question, even if there’s no “right” answer. It almost always leads to an interesting discussion.
Oh, God, no. No one cares whether you like it. Why you like it is much more important.
Well, it certainly failed in this case.
Art is just craft with inspiration. If you see a pile of spuds with a volt meter attached and it makes you go, “Neat-o” then it’s art.
If I take a dump and seal it up in a can, that’s just weird. But if I want to mock those who already adore everything I do as art, I can take a dump and put it in a can and sell it for thousands of $$$ and know that they have no choice but to worship my excrement. Context is everything.
Did the potato pile have any kind of an artist’s explanation next to it? Or did it just seem to be there for the purpose of eliciting a “WTF is art coming to?” moment.
You should have taken a bit out of one of the spuds and then put it back in the pile. That would have added a whole new meaning to the exhibit.
John Lennon did it first.
What…the electric potato pile?
Yoko Ono had an apple on a stool as an art piece. John Lennon picked up the apple and took a bite.
(of course the story may be apocryphal, though Ono definitely had a famous apple as an artwork, and I think rumors of her acquaintance with Mr. Lennon have been confirmed)
Ah, now for me, if there needs to be a little plaque by the side to tell me what I ought to be feeling when I look at the work, then it has failed; because the plaque, not the work, is what’s generating the impression.
Of course this too is subjective.
And yet, you’ve posted in here six times. Strange, that.
Vincent Gallo writes: