On the Nature of Art

Do you need an artist to make art?

(flash of genius?)

We can claim:

Making art makes an artist

as much an artist makes art,

through one the other is born

to give birth to it.

Art is deliberate creation.

(in the marble the statue
was already present to the sculptor)

BUT

Art is not a deliberate creation by an individual

aware of their role as an artist. 

(craftsman elevated by posterity!)

Someone else,

someone with authority,

needs to confirm the creation as art:

Art critic, art historian, "other" artists.

Someone who has been given this authority

by a society or a slice of it.

Only the stamp of authority creates

art out of an object,

an artist out of a person.

(social contract of art)

Art and artist are both communal creations.

An individual in isolation

can never be an artist,

their creations can never be art. 

(ouroboros?)

In the end

stand the one or those who first

came up with the idea of art,

the maker or makers

of all artists.

14.05.2015