Oooo, the classic debate!

I err on the side of yes, because it was effective at making people react and think.

If an artistic attempt isn’t purely decorative, and/or expressive, it damn well needs to make people respond and think and maybe even feel.

Would that specific work have done that if it wasn’t so in-your-face about the concept of what art is? Nah, probably not. But art doesn’t have to be subtle, it just has to work.

That being said, it’s art in the guise of provocation. It’s as much commentary as art itself. So I can’t call it “pure” art, the way something like a Mondrian can be, where it challenges what art can be while also being a direct expression of the artist and their take on things.

That’s a valid aspect of art as a part of human existence, being a provocation, being meta-art. But it tends to make the actual work boring as hell. The interesting part of a banana taped to a wall is that it was done, not the banana and tape itself. It’s really rare for that kind of thing to have lasting value and impact. It’s transient, empty once the idea is reported on and discussed. You no longer need the banana or the tape; you have the idea Of a banana taped to a wall as a piece of art.

That’s where such efforts are interesting and invigorating. They aren’t about the piece. If the piece is delivered in the right way, at the right time, and then gets transmitted, the actual art is in the minds of little people, not on the wall. You can just piss on a statue, and that can be art in the same way if the idea gets transmitted, becomes a meme in the older sense. The artist, by being provocative and meta, creates the art not on the wall, or in the original act, but on the canvas of human thought and communication.

And, going back to the beginning, that’s what art is all about, if it isn’t purely decorative.

I don’t care much what people call ‘art’ and ‘not art’. I’m an adult and I don’t need an authorization or anyone’s validation to experiment and appreciate the deep emotional/spiritual/physical or even intellectual emotions provoked by what I consider art, even when others around me don’t like it.

What I do care a lot about (and in recent years I’ve been forced to care more and more about that) is when I see people deciding their own definition of what is art/not art, or of whatever else, should be mine too, must be mine (because they’re right and I’m wrong if I dare not agree with their definition and that should not be tolerated). But then, the question is not what is art/not art anymore.

The question is rather to decide what is freedom of speech and freedom of thought (edit: maybe even freedom of love). As well as deciding what type of society people want to live in, and if that society still deserves to be called a democracy. It’s quite a different question.

That said, in order to not be completely out of topic, here is my take on art/not art:

In 1917, Marcel Duchamp did put an urinal on display in an art exhibition. Was that art, or mere provocation? Over a century later, what is that urinal considered? Art? Provocation? Marketing? Financial investment? And how is Duchamp considered? And what does it make out of all the others persons that imitated and still imitate Duchamp, with or without a banana and a roll of tape?

Did you enjoy the last expo, art gallery, museum you visited? I did. A lot. And to me that’s what matters with art ;)

edit: slight corrections/clarifications