12 - Caroline Sedano: what is art

I recently read this article, which influenced the way I’d like to define art. In many respects I feel that art can be anything. Be it something beautiful, unsettling, moving, merely declared as art, fun or powerful. But I think an important aspect of art is the way it can reflect and create social and cultural ideas. This article chronicles the public’s reaction to Mel Ramos’s comic style of depicting nearly naked women over forty years.

At first, Ramos was heralded as a smart social commentator with a unique perspective. As the feminist movement took hold of the nation, many people shifted their responses to offended or disgusted at the crude or demeaning quality of his work. And with a new acceptance and embrace of female sexuality with second wave feminism, Ramos was seen in a sympathetic, even wholesome, way.

Over thirty years people’s response to Ramos’s art completely changed. And they changed multiple times. One moment he’s a social commentator, then he’s an ignorant pig and the next he is high art. A more extreme example of this is the presence of pornography in the art world. Twenty years ago pornography would never be considered art. Today there are people who could argue that pornography can be high art. People’s ideas as to what qualifies as art changed. Their standards, opinions and reactions changed as the politics, philosophy, beliefs, morals and culture of the world around them changed.

Ultimately, I feel that Ramos’s work reflects an important aspect of art: it is always evolving. Art is not merely ‘anything.’ It is held to standards because we live day to day in a culture that has standards in beauty and value. These standards change all the time. Not only can art be anything and mean different things to different people, but as we change, personally and culturally, we alter the criteria and values by which we judge and define it.