- If words are used, and they proceed from ideas about art, then they are art and not literature; numbers are not mathematics.
Is literature not art? Is math not art? What does this separation mean? Is “art” a definition that it relegated to how it can demand a gallery or Wester Art critics attention? This definition seems very hollow and meaningless to me, as it is one that has no use in how I perceive a piece (whether or not it falls into the bucket of “art” or the bucket of “not art.”) A definition like this seems more like an excuse or a defense then an action definition. Insert a popular medium and how one interreacts with it (ie: music and listening, movies and watching, books and reading) and this definition becomes even more useless. If someone says the music I listen to is not music, it does not stop me from hearing it, enjoying it, processing it’s meaning. But for some odd reason, the idea of art that I believe Lewitt is using needs this defense. I take issue with the idea that work needs the approval of the gallery space, it needs the stamp of “this is art” to be able to function. In my belief, if you’re spending this much time trying to define what art is, then perhaps what your making doesn’t do too much other then be “art.”
