This is Tomorrow exhibit, 1956 pages from the catalog
“This is Tomorrow,” London, 1956
•	“was conceived by architectural critic Theo Crosby, who was the editor of Architectural Design magazine, and a member of the ICA. Theo Crosby had attended a congress in Paris in 1954 on the drawing together of fine and applied arts, and was later approached about a similar concept to This Is Tomorrow by representatives of Groupe Espace in London.

•	The This Is Tomorrow exhibition included artists, architects, musicians and graphic designers working together in 12 teams—an example of multi-disciplinary collaboration that was still unusual. Each group took as their starting point the human senses and the theme of habitation.” Wikipedia  (accessed April 26, 2011)

The exhibition's most remembered exhibit was
•	the room by Richard Hamilton, Johnn Voelcker and John McHale, with collaboration from Magda and Frank Cordell. It included the Op Art dazzle panels, collage Space modules, and pop art readymade of a Marilyn Monroe poster, the Van Gogh Sunflowers poster, a film advertising billboard of the Forbidden Planet, Robby the Robot, a Jukebox, the strawberry perfumed carpet, an endless reel of film depicting the Royal Navy Fleet at sea, large Guinness beer bottles, a Marlon Brando poster image and a 'CinemaScope' collage mural design, and the design of the Pop art collage poster that were all provided by John McHale.

•	The graphic designer Edward Wright  (1912-88), who taught typography at the Central School of Art from 1950 to 1955 and then the Royal College of Art, designed the catalogue 

Morris Weitz, American Philosopher (1916-1981)
"The Role of Theory in Aesthetics"  (1956)
writings
•	Philosophy of the Arts, 1950 
•	“The Role of Theory in Aesthetics,” 1956
•	editor of Problems in aesthetics, 1959 
•	Philosophy in literature, 1963 
•	Philosophy of the arts, 1964 
•	Hamlet and the philosophy of literary criticism, 1964 
Is aesthetic theory possible?
•	Such a theory would provide a true definition or set of necessary and sufficient properties of art.
•	But we seem no nearer to this than in the time of Plato.
•	Yet those interested in aesthetics still hope for such a theory.
Weitz:  theory in the classical sense is never forthcoming.
•	We should supplant the question "What is the nature of art?" with other questions.
•	The inadequacy of theories of art is not due to the complexity of art but to a misconception of art.
•	Those who wish to define art misunderstand the logic of the concept of art.

•	A formula about the necessary and sufficient properties of art is never going to happen.
•	But theory is not meaningless or worthless: It is of the greatest importance for art.  [He’ll explain why later.]

Assumption:  true definition
–	Each of the famous theories on the nature of art assumes it has given the true defining properties of art.
–	Formalist (Clive Bell):  significant form
Emotionalist
•	Emotionalist: (Tolstoy) expression of emotion in some sensuous public medium
•	Leo Tolstoy 1828 –  1910), Russian writer, novelist.
•	What is Art? (1897) 
Intuitionist:  Benedetto Croce (1866 –1952) Italian critic, philosopher.

•	Intuitionist: (Croce) [Collingwood] art is not a physical, public object but a creative, cognitive and spiritual act bringing intuition of the unique individuality of things into clarification and expression.  
•	L'Estetica come scienza dell'espressione e linguistica generale (1902), commonly referred to as Aesthetic in English. 

–	Organicist (early Weitz):  artworks are organic wholes with parts interacting presented in some sensuous medium 
–	Voluntarist: (Parker) need a complex definition:  art is provision of satisfaction through the imagination (desires imaginatively satisfied), social significance, and harmony

•	Dewitt H. Parker (1885-1949) was a professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan.
•	Principles of Aesthetics, 1920.   
Failings of these theories:
•	Each leaves out something that others take as central.
•	Some are circular:  Formalist [significant form]
•	Some emphasize too few properties:  Formalist [excludes descriptive art] and Intuitionist
•	Some are too general, covering examples of non-art too:  Organicist
Some rest on dubious principles:
–	Voluntarist (art rests on imaginary satisfactions), Intuitionist (there is non-conceptual knowledge)
–	Although supposedly factual reports, none are open to verification or falsification [they cannot be proved true or false].
–	They may actually be honorific definitions of “art” (redefinitions in terms of chosen conditions) and not factual reports.

•	Yet, all these criticisms have been made before.
•	A more fundamental criticism is that art cannot be defined.

Weitz's new criticism
•	The very use of the concept of art demands its openness.
•	The problem is:  What sort of concept is "art"?
•	The root problem of philosophy itself is to explain concepts and the conditions of their correct application. 
Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889 – 1951 
Wittgenstein’s Major Works
•	Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) translated by C.K. Ogden (1922)

•	Philosophical Investigations  (1953) tr. translated by G.E.M. Anscombe (1953) 

Wittgenstein’s idea
•	Wittgenstein's [1953] idea:  don’t ask “what is the nature of x” but  "What is the use of 'x' in the language."
•	This is the way to solve any philosophical problem.
•	In aesthetics we should elucidate the actual employment of the concept of art, giving the conditions of its correct use. 
•	We should not construct definitions of philosophical entities [concepts].  

Wittgenstein asks the question  “what is a game?”
	
•	We do not see something common to all games, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them.
Family Resemblances
•	We find not necessary and sufficient conditions but a complicated network of similarities:  family resemblances.

•	We pick sample games and say this and similar things are called “games.”
•	Knowing what a game is is being able to recognize games and decide among imaginary and new examples.

Swarm by J.V. Multimedia: “a completely new type of game”?
Application to “art”
•	Similarly, being able to recognize, describe, and explain things called “art” in view of similarities is knowing what art is.
•	“Game” and “art” are “open texture” concepts:  paradigm cases (but no exhaustive set of cases) can be given. 
–	I can list some conditions, but not all.

•	A paradigm case of art.
•	Portrait of Mona Lisa (1479-1528), also known as La Gioconda, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo; 1503-06 Musee du Louvre, Paris 

•	For novel conditions are always forthcoming.  
•	[with games, for example, a novel condition would be something new that would seem to be sufficient for something to be a game…it would probably come with a completely new type of game]
A concept is open if its conditions can be changed and corrected.
•	That is, situations can arise that call for a decision to extend the use of the concept to cover a new case, or close the concept and invent a new one. 
•	A closed concept is one in which necessary and sufficient conditions can be stated.
•	This can only happen in math and logic
•	or in other areas if we arbitrarily close them by stipulation
Example:  novels
•	“Is X a novel?”:  what is at stake in this question is not a factual analysis but a decision whether the work is similar enough in certain respects to works already called “novels” to warrant extension of the concept
A sentence from Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce, 1939
•	The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner-ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthur-nuk!) of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later on life down through all christian minstrelsy. 
similarly with other sub-concepts, e.g. whether a collage is a painting

•	Richard Hamilton, Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Homes so Different, so Appealing, collage, 1956. 
“Art” is an open concept.
•	New conditions and cases constantly arise with new art forms and new movements demanding decisions, mainly from professional critics.
•	[Clement Greenberg:  leading art critic of Weitz’s time]
Aestheticians may lay down similarity conditions
–	but never necessary and sufficient ones.
–	New cases can always be envisaged or created by artists, or even nature [?] which would call for a decision to extend, close or create a concept.

•	A paradigmatic sculpture.
•	Michelangelo, David
c. 1501-1504
Accademia delle Belle Arti, Florence 
But is this a sculpture?  Alexander Calder, Big Red, 1959 
Metal, wire, and paint, San Jose Museum of Art.
Or This? Calder Red Mobile, 1956, Painted sheet metal and metal rods. 
The expansive adventurous character of art makes it logically impossible to define it.
–	Closing the concept of art, or related terms like “tragedy,” would make creativity in those realms impossible.
–	There are legitimate and serviceable closed concepts of art, for example extant Greek tragedy [the list of tragedies written in ancient Greece].
•	A critic here could work out a real definition in which he lists the common properties of these.
•	Aristotle’s definition, although incorrect, can be interpreted as such.
There is a danger for the critic
•	of mistaking a linguistic recommendation for a real definition of an open concept:  e.g. taking a chosen closed class for the whole open class.
•	This involves transforming correct criteria for recognizing members of legitimately closed classes into recommended criteria for evaluating any member of the [open] class 
Evaluative use of "art“
•	The evaluative use of “art” praises:  includes certain preferred properties of art.
•	example: to say “x is art” in the evaluative sense is (for some people) to say it is a successful harmonization, or to say something praiseful on the basis of this

•	Criteria of evaluation are converted into criteria of recognition.
•	Theories of the evaluative use of art are not true definitions of the necessary and sufficient properties of art: they are honorific definitions in which "art" has been redefined in terms of chosen criteria.

These honorific definitions are supremely valuable for the debates they generate.
•	The great theories of art are correctly understood as honorific definitions of art.
•	Each should be valued for the reasons they give for changing the criteria of art.
•	This makes the history of aesthetic theory important.
•	Each theory states and justifies criteria neglected or distorted by previous theories.

•	Bell's theory can then be understood to mean: return to plastic elements since these are indigenous [native] to painting.
•	Honorific definitions are really summaries of seriously made recommendations to attend in certain ways to certain features of art.

George Dickie, born 1926
Dickie’s Books
•	Aesthetics: An Introduction (Pegasus, 1971) 
•	Art and the Aesthetic: An Institutional Analysis (Cornell University Press, 1974) 
•	The Art Circle (Haven Publications, 1984) 
•	The Century of Taste (Oxford Press, 1996) 
•	Evaluating Art (Temple University Press, 1988) 
•	Art and Value (Blackwell, 2001) 

George Dickie
“Art As a Social Institution” [from Aesthetics:  An Introduction  1971]

•	Weitz is wrong that “art” cannot be defined.
•	Some subconcepts of art, e.g. tragedy, might lack necessary conditions.
•	But, vs. Weitz, artifactuality is a necessary condition for art.
•	Weitz thinks that there are some works of art that are not artifacts.
The evaluative and classificatory senses of "work of art."
•	The evaluative sense is used to praise an object: “That driftwood is a work of art.”  This means that it has qualities worthy of notice and praise, not that it is art in the classificatory sense.
•	One does not usually say "this is a work of art" in a classificatory sense.
Driftwood Crafts 2008 accessed
Sheridan Alexander.  “The elements of nature create a stunning driftwood sculpture on Jekyll Island Beach in Georgia.”  accessed 2008
Heather Jansch, driftwood horse, accessed May 2008
Alldriftwoodfurniture.com
Carl Andre example
–	An example of using “art” in the classificatory sense is "Do you know that you are walking on a work of art?" said of a [Carl Andre] sculpture. 
–	"That painting is a work of art" is not classificatory:  "painting" already implies art.
–	Artifactuality is a relational, non-exhibited property. [Weitz assumed wrongly that the essential properties have to be things that are seen, i.e. that can be exhibited.]

Carl Andre 
144 Copper Square     (1969 ) 

•	"144 Copper Square" is one of several squares that American sculptor Carl Andre made of various metals: lead, magnesium, iron, zinc, aluminum, and copper. Each square is composed of one metal and shows the distinct physical properties of its material: weight, colour, lustre, the sound that the plate makes when walked upon. To underscore his focus on materials, the artist displayed a periodic table of elements on the wall in earlier installations of these works, referring to the table as his "palette". Reduced to square grids that recall scientific tabulations, Andre's sculptures allow the viewer to observe and experience the materials directly. Even the form he uses refers back to their elemental materiality.”  
National Gallery of Canada   accessed Nov. 22, 2010
Carl Andre. Steel Magnesium Plain. 1969. 6 X 6 ft. 
Weitz’s conclusion, that “being an artifact” is not a necessary condition, is based on a confusion.

•	It is only not necessary for something to be art in the evaluative sense of “art.”
•	Focusing just on the classificatory sense of “art,” we realize that what we mean when we say something is art is partly that it is an artifact [something made, e.g. by a human]

Nonexhibited property
•	Artifactuality is a nonexhibited property [i.e. you cannot see that something is made just by looking at it].
•	Perhaps other definitional properties of art are nonexhibited [for example its institutional nature]
Dickie's definition is an attempt to capture Danto's insight in a formal way.

•	Arthur Danto (1964): to see something as art requires something the eye cannot descry [see] – an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of history of art:  an artworld.
•	This is a nonexhibited property.

•	Brillo Boxes, Andy Warhol,
•	1969
1961 Robert Rauschenberg sent a telegram to the Galerie Iris Clert  which said: 'This is a portrait of Iris Clert if I say so.' This was his contribution to an exhibition of portraits. 

•	Robert Rauschenberg. Bed. 1955. Combine painting: oil and pencil on pillow, quilt, and sheet on wood supports
Compare to: de Kooning, Gotham News, 1955
Dickie’s definition of art.
     a work of art in the classificatory sense is (1) an artifact (2) upon which some person or persons acting on behalf of a certain social institution (the artworld) has conferred the status of candidate for appreciation.
Conferring Status

•	An example of conferring status is a king [or queen, as in the picture here] conferring the status of knighthood.

•	Other examples of conferring status include conferring a Ph.D.

•	Ceremony is not always required: a person can acquire the status of a wise man in a community  [without that status being formally conferred].

Acquiring Status
•	Similarly, an artifact can acquire the status of candidate for appreciation.
•	An artifact's hanging in an art museum as part of a show is a sure sign of conferred status.
•	A performance in a theater is too.

Sol Lewitt “Wall Drawing 725” (Detail) On a blue wall, a black square within a white border, April 1993 India ink, color ink wash, gouache, Yale University Art Gallery, 
Who confers status?
•	A number of persons are required to make up the social institution of the artworld, but only one person is required to act on behalf of it.
•	Many works are only seen by the creator and are still works of art.
•	The status may be acquired by one person's treating the artifact as a candidate for appreciation:  it is usually done by the artist who creates the artifact.
Marcel Duchamp “Fountain” 1917  Alfred Stieglitz  photographer.

•	At the time Duchamp was a board member of the  Society of Independent Artists and submitted the piece under the name R. Mutt, presumably to hide his involvement with the piece, to their 1917 exhibition, which, it had been proclaimed, would exhibit all work submitted. After much debate by the board members (most of whom did not know Duchamp had submitted it) about whether the piece was or was not art, Fountain was hidden from view during the show. Duchamp and Arensberg resigned from the board after the exhibition.
Fountain (Duchamp)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, access 11/22/10
•	“Marcel Duchamp arrived in the United States less than two years prior to the creation of Fountain, and had become involved with Dada, an anti-rational, an anti-art cultural movement, in New York City. Creation of Fountain began when, accompanied by artist Joseph Stella and art collector Walter Arensberg, he purchased a standard Bedfordshire model urinal from the J. L. Mott Iron Works, 118 Fifth Avenue. The artist brought the urinal to his studio at 33 West 67th Street, reoriented it to a position 90 degrees from its normal position of use, and wrote on it, "R. Mutt 1917". 

•	The New York Dadaists stirred controversy about Fountain and its being hidden from view in the second issue of  The Blind Man which included a photo of the piece and a letter by Alfred Stieglitz, and writings by Beatrice Wood and Arensberg. The anonymous editorial (which is assumed to be written by Wood) accompanying the photograph, entitled "The Richard Mutt Case,“ made a claim that would prove to be important concerning certain works of art that would come after it:

He Chose It!
•	“Whether Mr Mutt made the fountain with his own hands or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view – created a new thought for that object.”
•	In defense of the work being art, Wood also wrote, "The only works of art America has given are her plumbing and her bridges." Duchamp described his intent with the piece was to shift the focus of art from physical craft to intellectual interpretation.
•	Shortly after its initial exhibition, Fountain was lost. According to Duchamp biographer Calvin Tomkins, the best guess is that it was thrown out as rubbish by Stieglitz, a common fate of Duchamp's early readymades.

http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/theory/appropriation-remix-dossier.html

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Duchamp, “Fountain”
1917/1964
sculpture | glazed ceramic with black paint 

Conferring status is not the same as simply presenting for appreciation.
•	A plumbing salesman can present his wares for appreciation.
•	Duchamp's placing a urinal in a show (he called his work "Fountain") took place within the institution of the artworld. [Thus, the act made “Fountain” a work of art.]
A Urinal Salesman an Artist?
•	The salesman could turn his urinal into a work of art [but he would have to be the kind of artist Duchamp is, or he would have to be able to conceive of himself as an agent of the artworld:  this raises a problem about insane plumbing salesmen who think they are artists but are really just selling urinals].
•	"Fountain" is a work of art (although not necessarily a good one).

The artworld is an informal institution.
•	The artworld confers status at the level of customary practice:  a practice defines a social institution:  it need not have a formally established constitution, etc.  
•	Every person who sees himself as a member of the artworld is an officer of it and may confer status in its name  [raises a problem with nut cases].
Titles
•	Walter de Maria goes through the motions of a formal procedure of conferring status:  this shows that the act of naming works of art is significant.
•	Giving a work a title makes clear that the object is a work of art:  any title is a badge of status.
Walter de Maria, High Energy Bar, 1966,  certificate, 1970
Nothing in the definition is said about actual appreciation.
•	We must not build into the definition of the classificatory sense of "work of art" value properties such as actual appreciation.
•	If we did we could not then speak of bad works of art.  We must be able to say that some works of art are bad. 
Appreciation
•	Not all aspects of a work of art are included in candidacy for appreciation: not the back of a painting, usually.
•	"Appreciation" means "in experiencing the qualities of a thing one finds them worthy or valuable":  there is no special kind of aesthetic appreciation implied here.
Chimps as artists?
•	Betsy the chimp's paintings are not art if the Field Museum of Natural History exhibits them:  but they are art if exhibited at the Chicago Art Institute by the director:  the one setting is congenial to conferring status, and the other is not.
•	The works would not be Betsy's but the work of person who conferred status:  Betsy cannot see herself as an agent of the artworld.
Congo the chimp
“Paintings by a chimpanzee netted more than £14,000 today after going under the hammer alongside works by Renoir and Andy Warhol.  The 3 abstract pieces up for auction at Bonhams in London were painted by Congo in 1957 and were estimated to fetch between £600 and £800.”   June 20, 2005
Work by Congo the chimp,1954-1964, painting 1956-8
Congo the chimp, untitled, 1956-8
Jackson Pollock Number One 1948 
Franz Kline, Untitled, c. 1958
Oil and collage on paper
BIRD RED SLICE by Koko
10 x 12 acrylic on canvas, 1984, koko.org 
Cheeta the Chimpanzee, AKA Jiggs IV, acted in Tarzan TV shows, may have been born in 1960
Works by Cheeta/ Jiggs IV
Robert Smithson Spiral Jetty, 1970, Heller, pg. 89

•	Chris Ofili, The Holy Virgin Mary, 1996; Paper collage, oil paint, glitter, polyester resin, map pins, elephant dung on linen; 

Damien Hirst
A Thousand Years
1990
Heller,  pg. 103 Steel, glass, flies, maggots, MDF, insect-o-cutor, cow's head, sugar, water 
Julian Schnabel The Walk Home 1984-5
Untitled (portrait of Ross in LA), 1991
Felix Gonzalez-Torres
175 lbs Fruit Flasher Candy, size variable 
Damien Hirst, A Thousand Years,1990
Steel, glass, flies, maggots, MDF, insect-o-cutor, cow's head, sugar, water

Marc Quinn, “Self,” 1991
Géricault, Heads Severed, 1819