Revolution yes...plagiarism (copying someone else's idea and presenting them as your own) sometimes.

Add to that, "The criminal, like the artist, is a social explorer.” David Carson.

To be creative one has to break with the standard ways of doing things. Discuss amongst ourselves!

I was thinking about Gauguin in regards to his painting, which I assume he considered "revolutionary". Today, his paintings dont seem revolutionary to me at all. Why do you suppose he said this concerning 'his' art?

I'm pretty sure he meant that Art is defined by the artist and the viewer, while entitled to their opinion, can either accept it as it is or move on.

Defining tangible kinetic evidence of an individual act of expression as having meaning of their own is the same as remembering a memory or a dream. It has meaning but only to you, any attempt to intellectualize what is meant to be accepted verbatim is pointless. Art is art, the same as belly button lint is belly button lint.

How exciting! Someone bit!!! Hi DazCox, do you really think the definition of art is a simple as, say compared to as plain old belly button lint? When I see art I see such a wide diversity of what people perceive art to be... most of the time Im awed by what art is, and sometimes what it isnt. To me, art is a more like a cesspool of creative mystery that has all the creators floating in it...

Hmm, cesspool - while I have often felt the creative urge is similar to bowel movements for some of us - i.e we have to produce and sometimes get blocked or the opposite, it was usually only a joke. Maybe drain pool would be a better word? Or maelstrom ?

As far as art being art - well, I think we can have a very specific definition of belly button art - what it is and where it is found. I don't think art is that easily definable . What some people think is art, others don't. I truly believe that art must have a producer, a message/thing that is communicated and a receiver, that it has a social component. (not a political message, what is communicated can be awe.) I don't believe that the artist is always aware or intentional in what s/he communicates, but I believe art is quite different from creative production and it needs to be recognized as art by more than one person and it needs to communicate something related to some absolute whether it is one person's sense of truth, beauty, fear, awe, etc. I do believe in a broad sense of the sublime. (Which is not to say art must be beautiful, but i that it creates a glimmer of recognition/ of something abstract in the viewer.

I always upset people by saying that the secret manuscript locked in someone's bottom drawer is not art until it is read by someone (and not necessarily even then.) I agree with the supreme court - there is a redeeming social importance (even if that importance is a reaction against too heavily message-laden art and is a minimalist square carefully and perfectly painted white. (Although I don't really "like" minimalist art).