ArtTraveler's conundrum: Wnat is art, anyway?

I returned a couple of weeks ago from visiting the Tate Modern in London a second time to see the retrospective of Gauguin, at least 100 images. But my recent intense excursions into the Royal Academy, Tates Modern and Britain, National Gallery, revealed that virtually anything that turns you on is art if the museum curator says so and the secondary art market soaks up the PR and inflates the values of name brands.

I know. Sounds like sour grapes. But today, the good news is anything goes. You can find a massive oak tree's stump saddled across a heavily bent iron fence surrounding a public school in London, a product of storm damage and insurance reimbursement, and then pay for the log, fence spearing the log with a lovely U-shaped bend, and somehow call it found art, win a chance to install it at a gala modern art expo at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. Cool. Why not?  I subscribe to a more traditional definition of art. I still largely reside in the 20th Century.

This the small 16th C. chapel of St. Anton in Canillas de Albaida.

Is this art?

Silouettes almost as tall as the 16th C. doors to the hermita/chapel of St. Anton, patron saint of animals; each year in Canillas de Albaida, St. Anton is taken for a procession around the village; and the priest blesses with holy water horses, mules, dogs, cats, every kind of animal, pet goats, the works. And I live with 9 cats and feed 12 (3 feral invitees).

Rock on and practice peace. Check out ArtTraveler's videos at: http://bit.ly/h1vruw

Stefan, the ArtTraveler(TM)