I am good friends with a man whom I consider to be a
great artist. He recently lost
first prizes in two
juried exhibitions to works involving
Barbie dolls. I consider this a great
travesty; however, I understand that I am one man with one
opinion.
On the wall of my office, I have a picture of him standing beside one of his pieces, his ear to one of its wooden panels, and I reflect upon its attached note frequently. It reads, in full, "Here I am trying to get some advice in Washington. I think it was telling me not to count on anyone understanding my work."
This is his personal cross: that he creates works which have great meaning for him and the other literates who have an idea about what he's trying to accomplish, but such artistic endeavors seem to many others to, in the words of the node title, make no sense. For example, he often adorns his work with obscure scriptural passages in the original koine. At the above-mentioned show in Washington, the head of the Theology department at the host university strenuously argued the case for my friend's piece. This advice was overridden, and he ultimately lost, I believe, to a collection of television tuning knobs fashioned in the shape of a cross.
It is easy to understand what might be behind a composition including a crucified Barbie doll or television knobs. These things may not always make sense, but it is easy to ascribe some sort of meaning to them without actually delving too deeply into the actual composition. These things, because they are easy to understand, will find some sort of market and will eventually be generally acknowledged as "art," while many things of true artistic character will remain hidden in the shadows. This is the way of things. I would therefore rewrite the node title to read, "The fact that someone thinks the absurd things you produce make some kind of lame societal statement doesn't mean you're an artist."