Is it art?

Let's say that there is a sign. A simple sign, white background with a green border and red letters. It states simply "No Art Present" in a place where one would normally expect to see art. You don't know who put it up there or why. Is it art? Is it an official notice stating that whatever would be on display is not? Am I simply being messed with?

I've never gotten the same answer twice. Well, I've asked five people and gotten multiple "yes" and "no" answers, but the reasons were always different. I think this is a function of how the art industry... Industry? Establishment? Thing? ... I don't even know what to call it any more... works.

This... economic structure... exists for a very simple and important reason. To turn things that are art into money, so that people with the talent, vision, and aptitude can spend their time creating art as opposed to doing something else to support themselves. This can, when done properly, lead to much more art existing of a higher quality. I firmly believe that this is a good thing.

What I don't think is a good thing, however, is some of the things being sold as art. There are times when I have been in an art museum and found myself baffled as to why something is art. The remark "my four year old could do that" is often true, a four year old could produce some of the pieces in museums. What a four year old cannot do is convince people that something is art, and therefore worth money. I do believe that this comes from more than a century of "pushing the boundaries of art", which was an effective marketing tool to creating the artistic personages that generate the money that fund the art world as we know it, but the boundaries have been pushed so far that they now appear to be entirely arbitrary. What is art? I am beginning to suspect that it's whatever someone calls art.

I am unconvinced that Warhol's 32 Soup Cans or the Incoherents art movement of the 1880's are actually art, with the exception that they convinced people that they were. I like art, but I have always preferred art that has a point or message. Art that tells me something. I have heard from an art major that this is a primitive view of art. Whatever. When I require an expert in art to discern the differences between a child's scribbles and art, I'm over the whole thing. There are better things for me to do than ponder if that is a coffee stain or a statement about modern, industrial society.