The topic of this post comes from Andrea Whitney's blog.
There are several ways I could answer this question, not all of them entirely serious. Just to get it out of my system, a sarcastic answer: "Because we are academic snobs." And another: "Because we have nothing better to do than crush fake artists' hopes and dreams" (no, humor was not my intent, I'm just terribly immature sometimes).
Now, on the more serious side, I think we feel the need to define art in part because we are hungry for both standards and truth. So many things today are carelessly classified as art, and surely not all of it can fit into this category. Sometimes the label "art" is given as a matter of convenience. If you wanted to encompass drawings, paintings, music, poetry, and fiction (just a short list) under one label, chances are you would classify it as art. But is all of it really art? Maybe the two paintings in my previous post belong to the same category, but what about a child's stick figure drawing? What about ancient pottery created for function more than form, sitting behind glass in art museums? What about photomanipulation? Where do we draw the line between art and non-art? Shouldn't there be a line somewhere?
Even apart from having some sort of cut-off point that separates art from non-art, we want to know where that point is (at least, I do). I want this knowledge for selfish reasons: I want to be respected in the art world, I want to look like I know what I'm talking about, and I want to know for my own peace of mind. Having a question like this posed, and being unable to answer it, is maddening. I think as humans (although maybe this isn't the right class to discuss it) we want to know the truth, even if we don't always tell the truth. I think we feel the need to learn and grow and know more than we did yesterday, and this is one more thing for us to ponder.
My question: going back to an earlier point in this post, where does photomanipulation fit into art, if at all?
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