During the latter half of the twentieth century, a faction of aestheticians known as Institutionalists proposed a radical solution to the perennial philosophical problem of defining art. Abandoning the centuries-old search for necessary and sufficient intrinsic properties—such as formal symmetry, beauty, or emotional resonance—Institutionalists argued that an artifact achieves the status of 'art' exclusively through the conferral of that status by representatives of the 'artworld,' a network of curators, critics, and established artists. This sociological approach elegantly bypassed the subjective quagmire of aesthetic evaluation that had stalled earlier theories.
However, the Institutionalist framework is fundamentally flawed. By insisting that institutional validation is the sole generative criterion for art, these theorists inadvertently empty the category of art of any descriptive power regarding the object itself. If a meticulously sculpted marble figure and a randomly discarded piece of industrial debris are both 'art' simply by virtue of gallery display, the term conveys nothing more than the object's social trajectory. Furthermore, the Institutionalist model takes for granted a relatively unified artworld, conveniently ignoring the intense ideological factionalism that routinely fractures institutional consensus.
Which one of the following statements about the classification of art is most strongly supported by the passage as a view held by the Institutionalists?
- AThe ideological factionalism present among curators and critics is the primary mechanism driving the evolution of what is considered art.
- BThe intrinsic physical characteristics of an object play no role in the artworld's deliberations when deciding whether to confer art status upon it.
- An artifact need not possess any specific intrinsic properties in order to be legitimately categorized as a work of art.Answer
- DThe concept of art derives its descriptive power primarily from an object's social trajectory rather than its formal aesthetic qualities.
- EEarlier aesthetic theories failed primarily because previous philosophers stubbornly refused to recognize the cultural authority held by established artists.