Most ridiculous thing touted as "art"

[BonsaiK]

Someone starved a dog half to death and called it art.

Actually they didn't. They just fooled lots of people into thinking that they did, it's a well-known hoax that the artist and the art gallery played on the public, and suckers all over the world fell for it. The reactions of the fooled public were the real "art" in that piece. The maker of the piece was making the point that thousands of stray dogs starve on the streets every day, but nobody gives a shit until someone puts one in an art gallery for toffee-noses to look at.

Personally I think that whether or not something is art is a matter of opinion. After all, some of the things I've heard about that are called art to be utterly ridiculous. The most prominent example to me would be Tracy Emin's "My Bed". It makes no sense to show of some messy, unmade bed and call it "art".

Anything is art, if someone thinks it's art, it's art. No exceptions, ever, no matter what it is, and no matter who did it, or even if no-one did anything. If you don't like the art, it might certainly be bad art, but it's still art. The confusion comes because people assign a qualitative value to the word "art" that doesn't actually exist. Basically "art" "artistic". Two different things.

 

[rockera]

think of a semi circle of marble with a a small stick of metal coming out of it selling it for i kid you not £565

 

[the Dept of Science]

A lot of the examples touted here are meant to make us, to some extent, question art and provoke discussion (or outrage), and by the looks of it, it has succeeded. If nothing else, things like this have broadened the spectrum of what a lot of people see can be art.
I think a lot of art is about teaching us to appreciate the beauty of everyday life. People have given the example of 4'33", a peice which taught me that sounds that I hear every day can be interesting to listen to.

(I know this argument does sound a bit like when you fluke something cool and go "well, thats what I intended to do". I do accept that some of it is silly. While one painting that is a single colour (eg. Black Square) can be an amusing challenge to what our expectations and definitions of art, any single colour paintings after the original are just derrivative)