ABSTRACT
Even though paintings can achieve prominence beyond the artworld, the question remains whether it makes a difference to the historical understanding point of things that are or that resemble artworks whether any given painting is an artwork or not. How can anyone tell whether any given painting is or is not an artwork? There is nothing to prevent an artist from appropriating anything as art. Since the early twentieth century, some artists have claimed that art is whatever artists make or designate. This chapter demonstrates that such claims are mistaken. It argues that to achieve and sustain the use of any given thing as an artwork, the authority of the artist is not sufficient. Rather, that use requires a viable community of appreciators to sustain it. Further, this chapter argues that gaining and losing artwork status are not symmetrical operations. It is far easier for a thing to become an artwork than it is to lose that status, no matter the use to which it is put. This observation means that anyone using tangible things as historical evidence should take into account not only the use of any given thing at any particular time, but the uses to which it has been put over time. A distinction between being an artwork and functioning by convention as an artwork may seem trivial. On the contrary, to acknowledge this difference diminishes the authority that many artists claim. This chapter refers to scholars Simon Blackburn, Arthur C. Danto, George Dickie, and Nelson Goodman; writer Laurence Sterne; and artists Joseph Beuys, Mike Bidlo, Chris Burden, Michael Craig-Martin, Marcel Duchamp, Tracey Emin, James Harvey, Willem de Kooning, Pietro Lorenzetti, Charles Lutz, Piero Manzoni, Robert Rauschenberg, Rembrandt van Rijn, Hercules Segers, Kurt Schwitters, and Andy Warhol.
