Learning English

Who decides what art is?

Does an object become a work of art just because an artist says it is?

Look at the four things in the image below. Not everyone has agreed they are art.

(Top left, Flying Machine by Carsten Holler; top right, Self Portrait by Vincent Van Gogh; bottom left, some graffiti street art; bottom right, Fountain by Marcel Duchamp)

Read the text and complete the activity

Now you're going to read an article adapted from a video blog by the BBC's Arts Editor Will Gompertz. He recently visited an exhibition in London which displayed flying machines and slides. It made him ask himself: what is art?

Before you read

Look at these two summaries. Then read the article once, quite quickly, and decide which summary is correct.

1. Will Gompertz thinks that not everything in an art gallery is really art.

2. Will Gompertz thinks that if an object is in a gallery, it is art.

Is it Art?

Part 1
In 1917, a French artist called Marcel Duchamp bought a urinal, laid it on its back, signed and entered it for an art exhibition. The committee were appalled, they thought it was disgusting and vulgar, and certainly not a work of art.

But after Duchamp, the art world started to believe that anything an artist puts into a gallery automatically becomes a work of art. Can that be right?

Part 2
An exhibition of the German artist Carsten Holler's work has opened at London's Hayward Gallery. It is full of playful installations, which the visitor is invited to interact with. These include a spiralling slide, a flying machine, two remote control beds, and goggles that turn the world upside down.

Part 3
But are his flying machines and spiralling slides works of art? If they were in a theme park I'm not sure that we would think so. At least Duchamp changed the context for his urinal – he didn't install it in a bathroom in a local art gallery. He stopped it from having any functional purpose at all – he put it in a gallery, laid it on its back, and called it a sculpture.

He was asking us if art has to be beautiful and why it has to be made by an artist. The urinal sculpture became a way of delivering his message and so I think yes, it's an artwork.

Part 4
But I'm not so sure that I'd call Carsten Holler's interactive installations artwork. They are fairground-type rides that happen to be in an art gallery. Their purpose and function hasn't changed at all and I reacted to them as if I was at a funfair. Maybe I'm missing some profound point but I just found them amusing - a distraction. They didn't move me like a great Picasso painting or indeed many works by Duchamp.

Part 5
I'm not saying that Carsten Holler isn't an artist but just that not everything he says is art is necessarily art. And I think that applies to many other artists and their installations in galleries. It's time, I think, to question what is and what isn't art.

This article was based on a video blog by the BBC's Arts Editor Will Gompertz.

Which was the correct summary?

The correct summary was:

1. Will Gompertz thinks that not everything in an art gallery is really art.

To do

Now it's time to look at the article in detail. Read it again and then answer the questions. They will test your general understanding and your knowledge of adverbs and adjectives. Good luck!

End of Session 3

We hope you enjoyed that discussion about art and learned some interesting adjectives. In Session 4 Finn interviews artist Shan Pillay - the man who created the artwork for our drama, Alice in Wonderland!