If you’ve ever stared at a messy bed in a museum or a urinal on a plinth and thought, “Come on, is that really art?” — congratulations, you’ve stepped right into one of the biggest questions in aesthetics: what makes something a work of art at all?
Most of us feel like we “know art when we see it.” But the moment someone asks us to define it – not just for ourselves, but in a way that would convince a neutral outsider – things get slippery fast.
So let’s imagine that outsider: not a grumpy uncle, but an alien. They arrive on Earth with no concept of art, and they ask you:
“What is this thing you call art?”
How do you answer?
Why “Art Is What’s in Museums” Doesn’t Work
The quickest answer is tempting:
“Easy. Art is what you find in art galleries and museums.”
You take your alien to the Louvre, Tate Modern, or the Met. Problem solved, right?
Not quite.
Walk through any major museum and you’ll find a lot of things that are inside the building but clearly not art:
- The gift-shop mugs and keychains
- Directional signs pointing to the toilets
- Your crumpled ticket from the cloakroom
Our alien might point at a painting on the wall and then at the sign next to it and ask:
“This rectangle is art, that rectangle is not. Why?”
If all you can say is, “Because we treat that one as art,” you haven’t really explained anything.
The opposite problem also appears: a lot of art isn’t in museums at all.
Think of:
- A symphony performed in a concert hall
- A novel you read at home
- A sculpture in a park or on a windswept hill
Take The Singing Ringing Tree in Burnley, England – a strange, musical steel sculpture on a hillside. It would be absurd to say it “stops being art” just because it’s outdoors and not sitting in a white cube gallery.
So “art is what’s in museums” fails both ways:
- Some things in museums aren’t art.
- Some art isn’t in museums.
We’re going to need a better answer for our alien.
When Everyday Objects Become “Art”
The problem really bites when we get to readymades – ordinary objects presented as artworks.
Think about Tracey Emin’s notorious piece My Bed (1998):
Her actual, unmade bed, complete with rumpled sheets, empty bottles, and personal debris, was shown in a gallery and hailed (and mocked) as “art.” It later sold for millions.
Our alien might reasonably ask:
“Did she make this, or did she just leave her life messy and then point at it?”
Biographically, Emin didn’t set out to create a sculpture by sleeping and drinking in bed. The “art” moment comes later, when she chooses to treat that bed as an artwork and presents it as such.
But then a tricky follow-up question appears:
If Emin can declare her messy bed art, could she also declare a used tissue art? A half-eaten sandwich? A pile of laundry?
If we just say, “Anything an artist decides is art is art,” we risk making the concept completely empty.
This isn’t a new problem. Marcel Duchamp got there first.
In 1917, Duchamp presented Fountain – a mass-produced urinal laid on its back and signed “R. Mutt” – as a work of art. He argued that the creative act wasn’t in crafting the object by hand, but in choosing it and presenting it within an art context. The ordinary urinal, once submitted as an artwork, becomes something else.
Some people hate this. Others think it’s brilliant. But either way, these works force a hard question:
What’s the difference between a random object and a work of art that looks just like a random object?
Enter the “Artworld”: Arthur Danto’s Idea
Philosopher Arthur C. Danto tried to get to the bottom of this by looking at Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes.
Warhol’s work consists of wooden facsimiles of commercial Brillo soap pad cartons. They look almost exactly like the real cardboard boxes you’d find stacked in a supermarket.
So here’s the puzzle:
- A real Brillo box in a supermarket: not art.
- Warhol’s Brillo Box in a gallery: art.
What changed?
It’s not just the material, because in theory the company could start making wooden boxes, and Warhol could have used cardboard. Yet even if the factory swapped materials, their boxes wouldn’t suddenly count as artworks.
Danto’s conclusion: there must be something more than physical appearance that makes Warhol’s version “art” and the factory’s version “not art.”
He called this extra layer “the artworld.”
For Danto, the artworld is a kind of conceptual atmosphere surrounding artworks – a network of ideas, theories, practices, and histories. You need that background to even see something as art. Without it, Warhol’s boxes are just… boxes.
It’s a bit like the “spirit world” for psychics, except here the spirits are theories of art, cultural contexts, and historical narratives. To perceive something as a painting, a performance, or a conceptual artwork, you need training, vocabulary, and familiarity with how art has been discussed and made.
This is where our alien is at a disadvantage. They don’t just lack museum tickets. They lack access to this artworld of shared meaning.
George Dickie and the Institutional Theory of Art
Another philosopher, George Dickie, took Danto’s idea and turned it into a more straightforward definition. He wasn’t interested in any mystical “plane” that only art experts can see. For Dickie, the artworld is simply the community of people who make, curate, display, critique, and study art:
- Artists
- Critics and theorists
- Gallery owners and curators
- Collectors
- Philosophers of art
Out of this idea, he crafted a now-famous formula:
“A work of art is an artifact of a kind created to be presented to an artworld public.”
Let’s unpack that.
1. “Artifact”
An artifact is something humans make or shape for a purpose. It doesn’t have to be physical:
- A poem
- An improvised dance
- A piece of digital video
All count as artifacts in this sense.
2. “Of a kind created to be presented…”
This is where Dickie is clever. He doesn’t say the work must actually have been presented; it just has to be of the kind that artists typically make for presentation to the artworld public.
So:
- A finished painting locked in an artist’s studio drawer: still art.
- A sketch intended as practice only: arguably still art, because it’s of the same kind of artifact artists normally show.
3. “To an artworld public”
The “public” here isn’t just random passersby. It’s the audience of the artworld – people who participate in, or at least stand within, that ecosystem of making, showing, and talking about art.
Dickie’s theory does not try to distinguish good art from bad art. That’s the point. The definition should cover:
- Masterpieces
- Mediocre paintings
- Terrible sculptures
- Controversial installations
If we defined “art” as “good art,” we’d have no way to talk about bad art at all.
Applying the Theory: Beds, Sharks, and Gift Shops
Let’s see how this helps with our alien’s questions.
- Why is Tracey Emin’s My Bed art, but her ex’s random old bed in a shed isn’t? Under Dickie’s view:
- Emin’s bed is an artifact of a kind created (or reframed) to be presented to an artworld public. It was exhibited in major galleries, discussed by critics, and bought by collectors.
- The bed in the shed has no such status or intention. It’s just furniture.
- Why is Damien Hirst’s shark in a tank art, but an identical replica in a science museum might not be? Hirst’s work — The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living — was created and presented specifically as an artwork in the artworld. An identical shark tank built as a biology exhibit is an artifact, but not of the kind created for an artworld public.
- What about the gift shop mugs and signs in the museum? They’re artifacts, but they weren’t made to be presented as art to an artworld audience. They’re products and practical items.
Now you can give your alien a cleaner explanation:
“According to one influential theory, something is art if it’s a human-made thing of the kind created to be shown to the community we call the artworld.”
They may still dislike Emin’s bed or Hirst’s shark. That’s fine. The theory allows for that: they can simply say, “I think it’s bad art.” But on this view, it’s still art.
Does the Institutional Theory Really Work?
Dickie’s definition has been hugely influential because it explains a lot of tricky cases:
- Why Warhol’s Brillo boxes count as art but actual Brillo packaging doesn’t
- Why conceptual works and performances count as art even when there’s no traditional “craft” involved
- How art can evolve and still be recognized as art without chasing some eternal essence like “beauty”
But the theory has its critics.
Some worry it’s too circular:
- What is the artworld?
- The group of people who deal with art.
- And what is art?
- Whatever they present to their public.
Others point out that this gives a lot of power to institutions and gatekeepers. If the artworld is the group that decides what gets in, then artists who can’t access galleries, curators, or critics might be locked out of “official” art status, no matter how strong their work is.
And on a gut level, many people don’t like being told that something must be art just because a small circle says so, especially when it looks indistinguishable from junk.
So… Who Really Gets to Decide?
The institutional theory doesn’t solve every problem, but it does shift the question in an important way.
Instead of asking:
“What magical property makes this object art?”
it suggests:
“Look at the social practice. Look at the people, institutions, and conversations that treat certain artifacts in a special way.”
On this view, art is not a mysterious essence hiding inside objects. It’s a human practice, a role certain artifacts play inside a particular cultural game.
So the next time you see a controversial piece – a bed, a box, a urinal, a dead shark – try this thought experiment:
- Who made or selected it?
- For whom was it presented?
- How is it being talked about, displayed, and understood?
That’s the artworld in action.
Whether you personally call it “brilliant,” “nonsense,” or “a waste of space” is another question. But if nothing else, the institutional theory gives you a clearer way to explain to your imaginary alien — and maybe to yourself — why that messy bed ended up in a museum, and your own didn’t.
