How do we consider a piece to be a work of art?
How do we differentiate between mass media and fine art?
Is it the time and effort put into the piece?
Is it the materials used?
Or, is it the meanings and interpretations that surround the work?
These are all questions American scholar Johanna Drucker tackles in her chapter from Critical Terms for Media Studies.
Art has long been recognized as a concept that is difficult to define. We often hear the saying “art is subjective,” and that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” So, if the term “art” is so complex and personal, why attempt to define it at all? In an era of mass media and reproduction, it is important for us, as media studies students, to understand what makes art valuable.
The methods by which modern artists create are very distant from what was originally used to classify works as pieces of art. These previous conventions included:
- Art as a Set of Practices and a Class of Objects
Modern artists are no longer limiting themselves to traditional materials and methods once used to create art. Instead of using paint or clay to create a piece, artists are now incorporating digital media into their work. This means art can no longer be classified solely on the basis of its making.
- Mass Media vs Fine Art
Before, there was a clear boundary between “fine art” and “mass media.” Now that we are living in an age where reproduction is limitless and our access to images is immediate, those lines have now become blurred. Iconography, themes, and technology that are largely associated with “popular culture” or “commercial media” have now made their way into contemporary art practices.
- The Idea of an “Artist”
In the past, the classical idea of an “artist” revolved around being some sort of genius. They were trained professionals with formal skills who adhered to traditional notions of beauty, harmony, and proportion. However, these skills are no longer required to be given the title of an “artist.” Present-day artists instead explore diverse media and forms, not needing conventional skills.
- The Role of Fine Art
Art no longer has to establish aspirations toward “higher” values (spiritual messages or moral grandeur). Now art is no longer conforming to fixed genres, just as it is no longer being crafted from elite materials.
Drucker starts off the chapter with a quote by Charles Ogden from The Foundations of Aesthetics: “Art is the exploitation of the medium.” Beginning the chapter with this quote establishes the important role media plays when defining art. The definition of art, as Drucker suggests, is never going to be fixed; it will shift along with the media through which they are expressed.
History of the Term “Art”:
In the foundational understanding of art, the medium allows for the very existence of art.
As the chapter unfolds, the author guides us through the evolution of the definition of “art” across different time periods. As art expanded beyond technical perfection to embrace ideas and personal expression, the meaning of its media expanded as well.
The Classical Period shows us an art form that was primarily associated with applied skill. At this stage, individual talent wasn’t connected to personal expression. Instead, form followed a strict sense of aesthetic, and we can see this clearly in the work of sculptors like Praxiteles in the 4th century BCE.
Moving into the Medieval Period, we see artistic skills applied to more specialized tasks – things like illumination, calligraphy, painting, drawing, and bookbinding. Importantly, art was not yet recognized as a separate domain in itself, but rather as a craft embedded in other practices.
The Renaissance is where the idea of the artist as a gifted individual really emerges. Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Artists, published in 1550, cemented the notion of the artist as a kind of genius. Figures like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo embody this new artistic ideal, where personal vision and technical skill were celebrated together.
During the Romantic Period, the emphasis shifted toward imagination and emotion. William Blake, for instance, highlighted art’s power to open “doors of perception.” Art was no longer just about beauty or mastery – it became a way to challenge the rationality of the Enlightenment (Adorno, anyone?).
Finally, in the Modern and Postmodern periods, we see radical shifts in how art relates to media. Pablo Picasso disrupted traditional artistic representation with collage. Marcel Duchamp pushed even further with conceptual art, famously exhibiting a porcelain urinal as artwork. And Andy Warhol brought mass media and popular culture into frame, blurring the lines between high art and commercial imagery.
Through these shifts, the chapter shows how the definition of art and its relationship to media have continually evolved, reflecting broader cultural values and reshaping what we consider art to be.
Defining Art
As the chapter progresses, Drucker starts to formulate two key definitions of art, both of which directly correlate with the evolutions of art’s role, technical definition, and position of the artist themself.
The first is art as autonomous, first introduced by philosophers of the Frankfurt School in the early 20th century- most notably, Walter Benjamin. His 1937 essay, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, expands on this idea by introducing the concept of “aura,” a unique, unintelligible quality an original work holds, and cannot be replicated by mass media reproductions. This idea of aura was then expanded upon as a method of preserving older values through defamiliarization, the idea of not viewing a work through its original context, but informing a newer audience of the time and space it was conceptualized in.
This theory was not only employed by Benjamin and his contemporaries such as Adorno and Horkheimer, but also by the cultural critic Clement Greenberg. In his essay, Avant Garde and Kitsch, he argued that fine art was to be used as a preservation of civilization in the fight against mass culture, insisting that the visual flatness of art was characteristic of its autonomy, in its ability to separate past capsules of time through art from ever evolving, ever shifting ideology.
Although Greenberg’s writings championed experimental fine art as the perfect cocktail of aesthetics and values to capture the present, his insistence of visuality was criticized as being despotic in its desire to critique ideological references and narrative qualities. Through this criticism, another definition was born- Art as conceptual, based not on formal principles and technicality, but on the individual ideas and concepts the artists employed. The origination of this school of thought can be traced back to Duchamp, in his work’s suggestion that art is not founded off of technical ability or formal principles, but off of conventions of thought and ideology. However, this definition started to go mainstream in the 50s and 60s, with artists and writers equally examining the concepts behind a piece as much as its material form.
A quote that may encapsulate this definition best is Sol LeWitt’s, “An idea is a machine that makes art,” written in a 1967 essay, Paragraphs on Conceptual Art. Critic Lucy Lippard expanded on this further, observing the concepts of dematerialization within the art of the day- noting that artists were viewing material form as secondary to the work’s concept. Media that otherwise would not be used in a work started to be introduced in wanting to represent the artist’s ideas and concepts as purely as possible. Most audaciously- in the case of Yves Klein’s exhibition Void (1958), where he famously showed it was not the medium, but rather the lack thereof that made a piece luminous in its conceptuality- making it possible to enforce his ideas of direct, tangible presence and concept without the burden of medium.
This definition was not free without criticism, however. In one of her earliest works from 1966, Against Interpretation, Susan Sontag argued that modern art criticism was too focused with attempting to decode a work’s concepts, meaning, and ideas, sacrificing the fostering of direct, felt, sensuous experience in the attempt to make art decomposition an intellectual exercise of translation. But today, exemplified in contemporary art’s ideals of unorthodox media and materials, a colliding definition of fine art and mass production, and an emphasis on conceptual expression over strict formalism, the definition of art as conceptual lives on.
Takeaways
The meaning of art and media will never be fixed; it shifts as culture evolves and as we, the audience, reshape what we consider “art.”
In the modern and contemporary periods, our perception of media has moved on from being at the service of art to becoming the very subject and substance of artistic creations. In other words, instead of merely carrying the artist’s message, the medium began to gain recognition as an artistic presence in itself.
In the final pages of the chapter, Johanna invites us to reinterpret the chapter’s opening claim, “Art is the exploitation of the medium”.
“‘Medium is a message.’ But it is the art coefficient that provokes wonder and seduces us into consideration of the way it inflects and shapes meaning”. By identifying art as the ‘coefficient’ of the medium rather than the central figure of the piece, the traditional hierarchy between art and medium is redefined. In this sense, art can be understood as a ‘meta-medium’: a tool that engages the audience and invites them to consider the potential and power of the medium itself.
Her final statement, “Art becomes a way of paying attention”, ties it all together beautifully. Art is now defined less by its materials or composition, and more by the way it is interpreted as being tangibly different from an everyday product of a different cultural industry, marked by its uniqueness to the artist and its context.Since our existence as humans is mediated by perception, shaped by personal and cultural backgrounds, art really is everywhere. It emerges whenever we choose to slow down, pay attention, and wherever we find beauty and meaning.
Sources:
Mitchell, W. J. T., Hansen, M. B. N., & Drucker, J. (2010). Art. In Critical terms for media studies. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226532660.001.0001
Hi Lucy! I liked how your post emphasizes the historical shifts in how art has changed in definition. What stood out the most for me was how you frame media not as something secondary to art but as central to its very definition. It reminded me of “the medium is the message” and the way you connected Drucker’s idea of “art as the exploitation of the medium” really captured how fluid and contested the boundary between fine art and mass media has become. My question for you is whether art can be defined less by medium or technical skill and more by concept, attention, and context. Does this mean that anything can be art as long as it is framed in such a way? Or do you think there are still limits to what we should consider “art”?
Sorry!! Lucy, Rose, Nate, and Helen. You guys did great 🙂
Hi Celeste!!
Thank you for your comment and the original shout-out 😀
As for your questions, I believe that what Drucker was trying to get at is that technical skill and material (canvas, clay, etc) no longer hold the same weight in defining the concept of “art.” We have now entered a new era where “high-brow” artworks are no longer measured by the intricacy of their creation, such as works from the Renaissance, but instead by the depth of it’s meanings and in the way it is being presented. An example of this is the kind of works you would find featured in the MoMA, some are very simple in their design, yet complex in it’s creation and conditions. However, I think it’s pretty interesting to think about how both historical and contemporary forms of “high art” can still come across as elitist or pretentious, but for very different reasons.
As for your second question, I think Fountain by Marcel Duchamp (aka R.Mutt, as he signed) was a pivotal moment that shifted how we now define art. It’s literally just a unirnal. But it’s also so much more than that!! This is because of the factors surrounding the piece, which was that the work was submitted by an artist to an art gallery as a deliberate artistic statement. He is forcing the audience to pay attention to the medium of the piece, and is therefore leading the audience to reconsider what art could be. The object itself does not inherently carry meaning, but Duchamp’s choice to exhibit it transformed it into a piece of conceptual art. So yes, in a way, anything can be considered art as it is not about what we see, but instead how we perceive it 🙂
Hi guys! I loved this blog. I particularly love the quote “Art becomes a way of paying attention”, because I truly believe that the beauty in art comes from the way we individually interpret it. The artworks that stand out the most to me have always been ambiguous pieces, and sometimes understanding the history behind the piece and the artist’s context can drastically change my interpretation! It’s awesome and I think you guys worded it perfectly how our existence as humans is shaped by personal and cultural backgrounds. We are all so unique and art really is EVERYWHERE!
Hi Kim Chi!!
I love this comment!! I think now that we are in an era witnessing an influx of mass media and constant content consumption, it can be difficult for us to view the world through an artistic lens. The overwhelming volume of media that we encounter daily can distract us to the point where we are no longer recognizing the art present in our everyday lives. Your comment also reminded me of how, in the chapter, Drucker highlights cultural works as well as functional objects (such as ceramics) as examples of items that often go unrecognized as art. These are works that we could be encountering regularly, yet we fail to see them as artistic because we are not conditioned to view them that way. This had me even thinking about how many installations and sculptures we walk past every day on campus without a second thought.
Great blog post, I enjoyed how you guys highlighted the evolving definition of art in today’s media landscape. It’s interesting to see how our perception of art has blurred the boundaries between fine arts and mass media with the rise of digital media. I agree on how the arts value is in the ability to engage us, not just the technical execution of how it’s made, but making meaning out of our personal perception.
Hello Alisha, thanks so much for your comment! We completely agree! The shift you mention really shows how art today isn’t confined by traditional boundaries. Digital media especially makes it clear that meaning often comes less from the medium or technique itself, and more from how audiences interpret and connect with it. That idea of art’s value being tied to engagement and perception really resonated with us while reading Drucker too.
Hey guys, I really liked how you walked us through the different time periods of art! It made Drucker’s ideas easier for me to follow. The part about mass media and fine art blending together stood out to me, since that feels very relevant today when we see memes, ads, and actual artworks all mixed together online.
One thing I kept thinking about, though, is how much Drucker focuses on the medium itself. Do you think that leaves out the role of the audience? Like, Benjamin’s whole “aura” idea is kind of about how people experience art differently once it’s reproduced. It made me wonder if “art as the exploitation of the medium” is a bit limited if we don’t also think about how audiences give it meaning. Overall, your post made me think less about art as a fixed definition and more about “artistic practices” that keep shifting with culture and media. Super interesting read!
Hi Lea,
This was such a lovely and thoughtful comment, thank you so much for taking the time to read our blog!!
Only after reading your comment did I realize that Drucker’s emphasis on the medium throughout the chapter does indeed disregard the role of the audience to a large degree. I really appreciate you for pointing that out. That said, I do think Drucker’s final comment that “Art becomes a way of paying attention” could be her way of giving some power back to the audience. Since this line could be interpreted as suggesting that the ultimate medium of any piece of art revolves back to the viewer’s lens, and that art only gains meaning once it is perceived and acknowledged (?).
!!
I really enjoy your blog! Your content reminds me of our discussion last year on the topic of art reproduction. While reproductions diminish the value of authentic works, their existence does allow more people to understand and appreciate art. This reminds me of the rise of online “virtual tourism.” People can tour art museums on their phones, even zooming in to see details of artworks. This perfectly illustrates the concept of “art as the exploitation of the medium.” People can use media to further understand art, which in turn promotes art.
Thank you Saber! That’s such a great connection! The idea of virtual tourism really does highlight how media can expand access to art while also shifting how we value “authentic” works. It ties back nicely to Benjamin’s point about reproduction – while aura may be lost, new forms of engagement and appreciation are gained. I find it fascinating to see how technology doesn’t just replicate art, but can actually shape the way we experience and interpret it.
I adored your post so much and so beautifully written it so eloquently charted the development of the definition of art throughout history from the mastery of an art to concept and meaning. Your abstract of Drucker’s thesis concerning the relationship of art to media was especially well done I enjoyed how you kept asserting that art and media evolve simultaneously and the definition of art changes together with its medium.
Your explanation of Benjamin’s “aura” and Greenberg’s stress on autonomy situated so nicely against Duchamp and conceptual artists that it really showed how the artwork bridged the physical to the mental realm. I also enjoyed you bringing in Sontag’s criticism—it grounded the theory so we would not forget about the emotional content of art. Reading your entry made me think of our current time when digital art and AI are redefining creativity yet again. Do you think Drucker’s idea that “art becomes a way of paying attention” holds today when so much of what we see is algorithmically generated or mediated?
Hi Mio,
Thank you so much for the kind and thoughtful comment!!
To answer your question, yes, I do believe the “Art becomes a way of paying attention” quote still holds a lot of truth and value, even in this era of digitized passive engagement. Although our senses and perception of the world are certainly heavily desensitized by the bombardment of information we are fed each day, at the end of the day, we are still humans who live to experience. We could spend hours on end on screens each day, but still, our time on the internet does not define our entire existence. There is still plenty of room to pay attention and discover art during our visits to the café, on the transit, and short walks at night. Also, it’s a little annoying to admit that the content brought to us through internet algorithms contains an endless amount of beauty and inspiration, too! But it is way too fast-paced, so our minds often can’t properly appreciate what is presented to us. For me, at the end of the day, the key is still to slow down and pay attention :]
Hey guys, great post! It was structured well and is really easy to read. Your explanation of how art was defined and valued throughout time made me think of how art is tied to religion and power. The production of artworks with religious themes was especially prevalent during older periods largely due to the power of religious institutions, and their perception of these artworks to be of higher value. Now, in the age of Modern art and the popularization of non-traditional, secular pieces, it seems that the grip that religious institutions have on how art is valued and produced has loosened.
Great job guys! I really liked how you guys explained Walter Benjamin’s concept of aura regarding art really well, considering it’s a pretty confusing concept to grasp, it made it really easier to understand art and reproducibility better.
It made me think of how I went to the Museum of Modern Art with my Mom and each piece we passed by she kept joking how artists make “easy money” by making whatever and selling it off as “modern art”. I think it’s pretty understated when we actually think about the process of making art which give them that uniqueness, as explained by Walter Benjamin in regards to the “aura”. Jacob Geller is a YouTuber who made a great video essay in regards to the topic of modern art called “Who’s Afraid of Modern Art: Vandalism, Video Games, and Fascism” where he discusses art that seemingly isn’t aesthetic and therefore has “no purpose” when the cultural reactions to them give them meaning, much like how you guys talked about the way that the meaning of the art work is shaped by the “time and space that it was conceptualized in.” Great post!