Saturday, March 12, 2005

What is art?

I have never appreciated art and I have never been in an art museum that I wanted to stay in for more the 15 minutes. But I must also admit that I have never been able to distinguish between genuine art and crap.

Today, I am glad to find out that I am not alone. Consider this.

We ran a test.

On ABCNews.com, we showed four reproductions of art works that are considered masterpieces of modern art along with six pieces that will never make it into any museum. We asked viewers to decide which work was art and which was not.

I assumed the famous art would get the most votes if only because art lovers would recognize them, but they didn't. Most got far fewer votes than the winner.

The one that received the most votes as a "real" artwork was a piece of framed fabric "20/20" bought at a thrift store for $5. . .

Four of the art works in our test were done by 4-year-olds, and when we showed their artwork on the Web, and showed it to people at the mall, the kids' work ranked ahead of most of the masters.

I assumed real artists wouldn't fall for the trick, so we invited some to take our test. Most of them also put at least some of the kids' work up there with the masters.

One artist, Victor Acevedo, described one of the children's pieces as "a competent execution of abstract expressionism which was first made famous by de Kooning and Jackson Pollock and others. So it's emulating that style and it's a school of art."

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