Last week I went to the Uppsala Konstumseum to view their Tyra Kleen exhibition and listen to a conversation about her art. My favorites of her pieces combined the exploration of humanity, myth, and spirit. I loved her pencil, graphite, and ink most of all.

Satisfyingly, the subsequent philosophy seminar last week was also about art - specifically, how art is (or should be) defined and when something becomes it. As well as the difference between something being art and fulfilling the function of art. My rough notes from the discussion are below.

The definition of art

A proposed definition was that something is art if and only if it has been declared to be art.

Why does defining something as art matter?

If we look at a beautiful tree, it’s just a beautiful tree. If it’s a beautiful tree artwork, that changes how we use and engage with it.

Becoming art

If a person in 1500 made a drawing but never called it art, and no one else did either, yet in 2025 an institution declares it to be art — was it art in 1500?

• One response: No, it became art when it was declared as such. Compare to Genghis Khan—was he a war criminal? Not at the time, as those rules did not exist, but today we categorize him as one. Similarly, we can talk about historical works as art today if they fit contemporary criteria.

Unbecoming art

It was proposed that once something is delared to be art, it will never stop being art. If an artwork stops fulfilling artistic functions, is it still an artwork because it had one day been declared as such?

This was counterintuitive to some, as most social constructs can be undone. You can be declared married and then stop being married. Something can be declared money and then stop being money.

To me this didn’t seem so strange. Once you are declared a parent, even if your child dies the intuition is that you will always remain a parent, no? Once you become a widow, you cannot unbecome a widow. When you’re divorced, are you ever no longer a divorcee, even if you get remarried?

Lost art

Imagine two ancient civilizations, A and B, with nearly identical artistic practices. In an alternate history, all of A’s works are lost, while B’s works survive.

• Neither civilization had a concept of “art,” they only saw these works as decoration, ritual objects, or something else.
• Today, institutions declare B’s objects to be art. But A’s objects, having been lost, were never declared art. Does that mean A’s artifacts were never art?
• This highlights one strangeness of the proposal: identical objects could be categorized differently based solely on survival and institutional recognition.

Can you become an artist posthumously?

• If art requires a declaration, can someone become an artist after they die?
• Seems possible, according to this proposal — if a painter creates work that is later declared art, they were its artist.
• But what if someone leaves behind trash, and it is later declared art? Perhaps, in some cases, the person doing the declaring is the artist as opposed to the person doing the creating of the original object.

The role of institutions and authority

• Some traditional views say something is art if recognized by institutions.
• A key difference in this seminar’s perspective: art doesn’t require authority. Anyone can declare something art. But does this make the definition too open-ended?
• If one person insists something is art and another disagrees, does the declarer always “win”? According to this definition, yes.

Gradual declarations & false beliefs

What about cases where something slowly becomes art over time? Example: a urinal placed in a gallery, initially not declared art, but over time treated as such by visitors.

Can something become art through mistaken belief? Suppose visitors wrongly assume the urinal was declared art — does their false belief make it art?

Analogy: two villages never explicitly mark a boundary, but by consistently acting as if a certain road is the boundary, it becomes one. Could art function the same way?

The ontology of art

• If a marble block is carved into a statue, is the statue a new entity distinct from the marble?
• Some views say only the statue is art, not the raw marble.
• But if anything can be art, does that mean we could declare a marble block art, without modification?
• Does declaration create new entities? Or does it just assign new functions to existing objects?

Repeatability question

• Some artworks (e.g., paintings) are singular; others (e.g., operas, symphonies) can be repeated.
• If a symphony is never performed again and all records of it are lost, does it still exist as an artwork?
• Intuition: Yes, even if lost and never instantiated further, it remains an artwork.

Can you be wrong about art?

• If art is based on declaration, can someone be wrong in declaring something as art?
• According to this view, if one sincerely believes something is art, it that is sufficient and it is art.
• Could we develop conditions where declarations fail—for instance, if someone declares something art as a joke, does that count?
• Concern: In a debate, the person who insists something is art would always win, since mere sincere insistence then suffices.

Final Thoughts

The discussion touched on very interesting questions while at times, by the end, veering into seeming triviality. With art being declarable by literally anybody sincere, does the definition of art lose all meaning?

It seems like it should matter, considering whether something is art may change how we treat it - will it be placed in a museum? Does it warrant certain legal protections? Etc. But if all we need is a sincere declaration, a piece’s ‘official artness’ seems unimportant, since the real debate then simply moves to how valuable or good a piece of art it is - how worthy is it of museum placement, protection, archiving, etc?

But other questions stick with me: When does art begin? During the process of creation, or maybe when an artist says “This is now done. It is now art”. Is art just a function of social recognition, or does it exist independently of declaration?

No firm answers - but then, sometimes the questions are all you need.

If a tree falls in a forest…

Personally, I consider my books art - I even consider some of my coding projects ‘art’, in their own way. But at least for books, something about them just feels incomplete as an artwork until I know they are published for someone to consume.

So I say being witnessed, in the case of my fiction, is a critical part of my work’s final transition into ‘artness’.

“Here - I made this weird, flawed, yearning thing. In being consumed, it becomes.”