What is Art

I was listening to NPR the other day and they were doing a piece on the Matthew Barney Installation, The Cremaster Cycle, at the Guggenheim in New York. They got comments from the people looking at the show. One lady said something like, "I like it just don't make me call it art. It's just a conglomeration of popular culture."

Excuse me? What is art if not a reflection of the artist's culture?

Artists don't appear out of a vacuum. They get their ideas from their lives. That they warp it a bit is what makes it interesting. Art is art because the artist says it is art.

The consumer's job is to decide what the art does or does not do for her. If she wants she can even pass judgement on it and call it good or bad art. Or better yet buy it! or not.