What Makes Art?

Ok. The title is to catch attention. I cannot answer that question. Cannot even attempt to. Being fairly artless, and somewhat down to earth, this is one of those questions I am happy to let go.

But why did this question crop up?

In the recent past, I and a friend of mine participated in Chitra Santhe – an once a year, full day street art market in Bangalore. We put up a stall to sell our photographs. To get the photographs to a level were happy to show to people and hopefully will also be able to sell, we took lot of help – from people who actually were artists and knew about photography. All said and done, we were there for a lark.

Participation itself went through a bit of twists and turns. Initially powers that be (who decide who are artists and who are not) were divided over whether to treat photography as art or not. Finally, it was decided that photography is also art. We tied up with a artist friend to get a stall.

And we had quite a bit of fun in getting the photographs to the level we thought was good enough for public display and sale. This took time, patience, imagination and expertise.

Which were certainly in short supply. Most often, the expertise of editing the photos needed a friend who is a professional photographer. Selection of photos was again another involved process. Another artist friend critiqued.

If nothing else, I learnt two phrases – ‘it is not talking to me’, ‘there is no drama’.

Each photo went through many steps – selection, a sense of what the photo should be saying, transformation of the photo to say that.

Finally, each photo had contributions from 4 people – 2 photographers, 1 artist/photographer, 1 photographer/artist.

This is when the question came up – what makes an art? Was it the photograph? Was it the thinking as to what the photo should be saying? Was it the expertise that transformed the photo?

I don’t really know. All I can say is that, many people who saw the photos in Chitra Santhe had a smile on their faces. May be that is what art is all about. To bring out the emotions in people.

I have another question – What price art? That is another story altogether.