What is art?

The Gagosian Gallery in New York will look at the workshop of the Italian architect Renzo Piano in an exhibition there from June 27 until August 2. He said recently, “real architecture, real painting, real poetry, real music is never detached from physicality, architecture is at the edge, between art and anthropology, between society and science, technology and history – architecture is about illusion and symbolism, semantics, and the art of telling stories.”

Whilst it is easy to immediately understand what is meant by anthropology, society science, technology and history, I struggle to define ‘art’. Is it readily definable in any sort of a serious, meaningful way? Perhaps the very fact that it is a struggle to pin down art tells us something about its lasting hold over all of human life.

Share