A 2016 survey from YouGov (survey, not study) found that 28% of UK citizens didn’t consider Roy Lichtenstein’s Whaam! (1963) to be art.

65% dispute the status of Rothko’s Orange, Red, Yellow (1961) and only 17% of people agreed that Duchamp’s paradigm-shifting Fountain (1917) was art.

The survey doesn’t present a working definition of art. That 97% of participants agreed that Mona Lisa was art does imply some working definition, namely that “art” is anything from the Italian Renaissance (harmonious colors, linear perspectives, realism, etc). But I wonder how responses might shift if offered a working definition that encompassed the distinct aims and challenges modern art approaches. One compelling definition is from Martin Heidegger (as paraphrased in Art Thinking by Amy Whitaker):

“A work of art is something new in the world that changes the world to allow itself to exist.”

Given that definition, how might responses change?

Read the YouGov survey here.

Ultimately, my favorite video about modern art is here.