Is it art?
While we’re on the subject of art I would like to honor an artist who asked the same question I have been asking for years. Only he asked it about 90 years before I did.
Marcel Duchamp, upon his arrival into the US, said that American Art was the sewer of Modern Art. And i’m not completely sure he was that far off.
Marcel Duchamp was a French American artist that associated with the Dada and Surrealist Movements, although his early works relate more to Post-Impressionist and he would experiment with Cubism and Fauvism. Duchamp moved to the US around 1912 where he began to question art itself . He asked “Does art really exist?”, “What is Art any more?”
Duchamp began to toy with the notion that an artist could create anything and call it art. And as long as the Artist said that it was a piece of art, then it was a piece of art.
This is about when Duchamp began to create art using the “Readymade” process. An art process in which you would use normal everyday objects and display them as art. Duchamp’s first Readymade piece was Bicycle Wheel(1913)
He then went on to create a piece called “Prelude to A Broken Arm.” This is when Duchamp truly began to question the idea of true art. He took a snow shovel and displayed it standing straight up, and called it art.
After creating many more Readymade pieces, and continuing his negative attitude towards American art, he goes on to create the most influential piece in American Art. (Beyond my understanding)
In 1917 a Museum put out an open call for artists to submit any work they would like to display, all they had to do was pay the fee and the shipping and they were in. So Duchamp, is his true way, took a Urinal, dated it, signed it R. Mutt, and sent it in with the idea to beat the museum at their own game as well as to state a clear fact the art can be what ever the artist wants it to be. 
The Fountain by Marcel Duchamp(1917)
This piece was voted the Most Influential Work of Modern Art by 500 art experts in 2004, for the exact reason the Duchamp was questioning in the early 1900, and I remain questioning today. The experts said the it ”reflects the dynamic nature of art today and the idea that the creative process that goes into a work of art is the most important thing - the work itself can be made of anything and can take any form.”
But then what is art anymore? Who’s to say that any random person can’t just take a trash can, turn it upside down, and sell it for 43.8 million dollars. The exact question the Duchamp was asking in 1910 is now the reason that his art, intended to stick it to the American art scene, is the most influential piece in Modern Art.
