What is art?

It's obvious that the type of creativity which can be associated to the idea of art has existed as an integrated part of a human being since always. And with time human beings started to appreciate and value this aspect of their existence which gave it a particular meaning and role inside the society. In this way art was recognized as something that is. It was recognized as a fact. But for many centuries the question that artists tried to answer through the history of art was just how art should be, what was it supposed to express and what its role was. They didn’t try to define art for what it might be per se and in its essence but they simply shared their views about how it should be. Art was taken for granted. Until Marcel Duchamp started to wonder what makes art be art in the first place. And the lesson we learned from him was that under certain conditions and circumstances anything can be considered as art. And so it seemed that in principle all the questions regarding the definition of art were more or less answered…

But did that also answer the question about what art is not? And did it answer who is an artist?

And so I decided to turn my life into a product and sell it as such. And the product is an Artist making art™. The significance, the importance and the value of such a decision and action inside the context in question can be fully understood only when we consider the fact that every art form/idea needs and uses a platform to give itself both the legitimacy and purpose. Art doesn’t happen in a vacuum. And most of the times if not always this platform comes in the form of “social universe” which consists of everything that our society is made of. Art is always related to the conditions, processes, ideas and possibilities that define our society at a given point in time. The difference in this case is that the platform itself was created as part of the artistic process. Andy Warhol for example didn’t create the conditions that influenced the ideas behind pop art. Pop art as well as any other artistic movement or idea so far was simply an artistic reaction to what was going on around the artist. They used what was already there and their works were dependant on what it was already there. While what I use is a platform that I created by myself by deciding to turn my life into a product and sell it as an Artist making art™.

The artistic platform

By turning my life into a product and offering it for sale in a form of an Artist making art™ I am actually not selling anything with a concrete form or content. My product exists as an idea and not as something real. Unlike with traditional products which are defined as products because they offer something real to the consumer’s real needs. The product I am offering exists as a product solely because of the idea of that being a product that was applied to it. It’s not a real product but it is simply thought as a product which won’t necessarily deliver what it was thought to deliver. Actually, it doesn’t even have to do that because for something to be thought you don’t need any bits of reality to be applied to it or involved in it. And because of that such concepts as the quality of a product, the usefulness of a product and similar are completely irrelevant. And why should they be relevant since there is no product (a real one) in the first place? The product is defined outside the boundaries of the definition of the product. It's merely a concept. And the product in question is an Artist making art™.

The artwork

But this Artist making art™ as well doesn’t consist of anything concrete or real. There is no art but only the idea or an intention of making art. This again doesn’t imply anything concrete or real. This idea or intention doesn’t necessarily imply that there will indeed be art produced. Because it doesn’t have to. This idea doesn’t imply that there is an artist as well. And this fact means that first of all it’s completely irrelevant if something will be indeed produced or not in the first place but it also means that whether what will be produced will be art or not is as well the same irrelevant. So, such a questions as does art exist, what art is and what good art is become completely irrelevant and unnecessary when it’s about the making of art. And this means that art simply exists as an idea or a thought which will be the most close to its possible materialization when the product which is mentally designed as me making art will be bought. And this moment in which something to be possibly art doesn’t require to be art at all brings the reflections about art to its end. Because even if there was no art my idea wouldn't be anything less.

Buy the artist not the artwork

In the historical understanding of art there is no artist without an artwork - as there is no artwork without an artist. This is simply a dogma that hasn't been challenged so far. The Show it with money project is doing just that since it offers a platform that doesn't require an artwork for the artist to exist. Because the idea, the concept of an artist is no longer about a human being who produces art but becomes an object that is offered for sale - a product that implies only the idea of an Artist making art™. And in marketing a product is anything that can be offered to a market that might satisfy a want or need. Obviously there is a want or need for artworks but is there also a want or need for artists?

The most important breakthrough in art so far was an urinal - a common product which Marcel Duchamp turned into a "Fountain" (artwork) in 1917. The new breakthrough in art is a human being - an artist which the Show it with money project turned into a common product. For the first time in the history of art the concept of an artist gets disconnected from the concept of an artwork. That means that not only anything and everything can be an artwork but also that anything and everything can be an artist.

Whether I am an artist or not has no importance. I SOLD (am selling) myself as an artist making art. I took a human being, thought him as an Artist making art™ and offered him for sale as an Artist making art™.

Duchamp showed us that art is not a matter of physical craft but intellectual interpretation. But at the same time an artist is not a matter of physical action but again intellectual interpretation. And finally even the connection between the artist and the artwork is not a matter of physical relation but yet again only intellectual interpretation. The artist doesn't need an artwork to be an artist. And the artwork doesn't need an artist to be an artwork.

Art didn't happen in a vacuum. It was always related to our social reality which dictated its form and purpose. My suggestion is that the artist of the 21st century has to come in a form of a product the purpose of which is to liberate art from being "art". This is not meant as a critique to anything. It's simply about making sense of art inside the reality we live in. Today anyone can be an artist because you can buy it.

If Marchel Duchamp's "Fountain" invented and defined the contemporary (contemporary in the conceptual sense and not meaning an art period) artwork the "Show it with money" project invented and defined the contemporary artist. Because there is of course a difference between the cave paintings, the art of the 16th century and the art of Jeff Koons. But there is no difference between the artists of today and those from the past. They all are or were people who created or still create artworks with their own knowledge, ability and/or imagination. Thus the idea of a contemporary artist had no conceptual value (the same conceptual value that the idea of a contemporary artowrk has) until the project "Show it with money" came to light.

Polona Seme, the first person who paid 1€ to become an artist by buying The Artist making art™ product became the first contemporary artist ever.

I also wrote a short essay on this topic. The title is "To live or so sell".