What is Art...?

Years ago, this was a dinner time conversation topic for a group of friends at Penn State, I among them. (Hi, TMIs, Betty, Hope, Joanne, Allen, Chuck, Jim, Dave; and remembering Woody, this fine day...)

A number of us were architecture or art history majors, others were graduate students in the English department. We had begun what would be an ongoing series of evenings going to see films by a noted director. We had decided that dinner after was a good idea, to talk about the films and so we took turns making the meals, and sharing in the enthusiastic discussion that ensued. We often returned to the topic of what was and was not art.

"Is a brick art?" was the very lively theme of one of those evenings. We placed a brick on the middle of the table as our centerpiece, and away the discussion ran.

I recall that in that time period, several of us also made a trip to D.C. and among the places we visited was the Hirshhorn Museum. As we went from one gallery to the next we had a strolling conversation about the art displayed there, all of which could be put into the category of modern or post-modern art. Some of it, we "got". Even admired. Other works left us cold for one reason or another.

"We're walking...we're walking..." and talking about the art we are seeing.

We turned a corner, and found, facing us at the end of the next gallery, a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood, hung vertically, on which were a few paint spatters, as if it had been used as an impromptu drop cloth.

Well! That was the "last straw". We promptly sat down in the middle of the gallery and had a long conversation, agreeing among ourselves that modern art had gone too far when a piece of plywood with a bit of white paint could be hung in a world-class museum as if it were "art". Any of us, we concurred, could have done THAT...! All the while, this particular plywood panel was in our middle distance, as if to illustrate all we were saying.

I suppose we had about a half hour's worth of conversation. And having put the nail in the coffin of modern art, as it were, we then stood up, and began to make our way out of the gallery. As we did so, we drew nearer to the plywood panel. And as we got close to it, we had one of those "Ah Ha!" moments. Because it was NOT a piece of plywood. It was an artist's canvas, the precise size of a standard piece of plywood, on which the artist had first painstakingly created the pattern of the wood grain, and then, on top of that, the stamped "lumber yard" marks, and then on top of that, the white paint effect.

The artist, is and was a genius. He created a work of art that did exactly what was intended, engaging the viewer completely in the work. I noticed that it is not currently on view at the Hirshhorn, which is a tremendous shame. You can see it, here:

"Plywood With Roller Marks #5", by John Clem Clarke, 1974.