Considering i have not seen what you are talking about its hard to say if its art or not. It probably was however because it was meant to be art. It pretty much all comes down to purpose of creation.
For you it might have been justs platter of paint over canvas, or randomly glued together bits and bolts, but not that long ago works of Picasso for many were seen as as something similar, not worth the name of art.
Generally, everything form of human creation that in some way affects emotions or senses is considered art. Maybe the splatter of paint had exceptionally interesting shape, maybe its position on the canvas was somewhat intriguing, or maybe it was metaphoric illustration of everyday struggle of a lettuce seller 2 blocks away from the artists place.
The very fact it pushed you to ask such question on public forums proved its purpose, to spur discussions making it art whenever you like it or not.
Omikron009 said:
We should come up with two categories for art. "Real Art" for things like classic painting and sculpture that requires a lot of skill to produce, and "Pseudo Art" for everything else, like paint splatters and bibles dunked in feces.
Oh, and the categories are there already. They are called classic art and modern art.
