When Art Literally Moves Next Door to You

There is art sitting next to my house, on the sidewalk. I am told this art piece will be there every day between 8 am and 8 pm, and people are invited to pass by and view it. This piece of art is a human being. He is doing this for a year. He will be next to my house few a couple of months, I understand.

Of course, I can see some of my art friends gathering around this human art piece.

“What’s this?”
“It’s art.”
“It can’t be art. It’s a person.”
“Why can’t a person be art?”
“But it wasn’t created by an artist.”
“It was created by someone. It’s God’s art.”
“Does God consider this art?”
“I should think it’s one of his better works, up there with the armadillo.”
“If a person can be art, does that mean anything can be art?”
“Art is subjective. It’s what you think is art.”
“So, do you like this particular piece of art?”
“I think it represents the insensitivity of humans that we are so biased that we minimize the definition of art to a select pieces that can appreciated only by wealthy collectors and museums and then presented to a less wealthy public who are made to feel inferior by their inability to purchase art, when in fact art is all around us.”
“Do you like it?”
“It’s not to be liked or disliked, it is to point out the inhumanity of how we limit our appreciation of art while neglecting that all around us is art, and all things can be appreciated for their own beauty, and that we walk past beautiful things every day while pretending to only appreciate things that towards which we told are that which are limited to appreciate as art.”
“I like it. Especially the shirt.”


Further down the street, someone has placed a tall orange potted plastic palm tree on the sideway. My art friends continue their conversation:

“Is this art?”
“It’s the most evil thing you’ll probably see today. It represents the insensitivity towards our natural world that we must take something from nature, form it into orange plastic, and use it to represent something from nature that is alive and even more beautiful.”
“I like it. Especially the leaves.”

Today’s lesson: You might have a drinking problem if you so drunk, when you breathe into your car’s breathalyzer, the engine catches fire. Now that’s art.