What?

what does one do when in front of an ‘artwork’ that one does not see the point of and another person says, ‘isn’t it good’

what does one do

what are the options

1.  that one’s own power of appreciation is deficient
2. that the other person is somehow deluded
3. that one is just not ready to appreciate (same as 1)
4. to think that some works of art appeal to some people and not to others

this last point needs unpacking – I can imagine a piece of ‘art’ that I do not like but that I can still recognize as a piece of ‘art’ with some point (ok so what is ‘point’?)

I know there are some pieces of ‘art’ that I neither dislike nor like and that I do not recognize as having a ‘point’

that is okay but how does one deal then with other people’s evaluations of it as ‘good’

one is left with a feeling of inadequacy

or a suspicion that people’s judgements are easily manipulated

a wondering whether there are some definite criteria to judge art by

and a knowing that there definitely are functional criteria by which it is decided what pieces are praised, what artists are remunerated, what principles are passed on to students  and what of these three are not.