What Art
Is Online
Supplement to What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand (Open Court, 2000)
by Louis Torres & Michelle
Marder Kamhi
Appendix A - Part I
New Forms of Art
Reprinted from What Art Is
For examples invented (or learned of) since the book's printing, see Part II below.
Following are some of the alleged art forms invented since the beginning of the twentieth century. As a rule, if the term art is
preceded by qualifiers such as conceptual, incendiary, or Pop, one can be reasonably certain that the work in question is not
art by the standards outlined in this book.
- Abstract art
- Anti-art
- Appropriation art
- Artists' book
- Assemblage art (Assemblage)
- Billboard art
- Body art (Tabooing, Piercing, Body Modification, etc.)
- Book art (also Offset-book art)
- Byte art (see Computer art, Web art)
- Cartography (see Map art)
- Ceiling piece (see Floor piece, Wall piece)
- Ceramic art
- Circus art
- Collage
- Combines
- Computer art (also Byte art, Web art)
- Conceptual art
- Construction
- Crop art (wheat field, for example, seen from the air)
- Cyber-art (also Net art, Web art)
- Dance piece
- Designated art
- Digital art
- Diorama
- Documentary film
- Earth art (also Land art)
- Electronic art
- Environmental art
- Environmental theater
- Environment(s)
- Experimental art (dance, fiction, poetry, theater, etc.)
- Fashion
- Floor piece (also Ceiling piece, Wall piece)
- Found object
- Fountains (also Hydraulic art, Water sculpture)
- Fractal art
- Furniture art
- Glass art
- Goth art
- Graffiti (also Tag art)
- Happenings
- Hydraulic art (also Fountains, Water sculpture)
- Incendiary art (Fireworks)
- Installation art
- Interactive art
- Interface art
- Internet art
- Junk art
- Kinetic sculpture
- Land art (also Earth art, Environmental art)
- Light sculpture
- Lighting design
- Literary translation
- Magic
- Mail art (also Postal art)
- Map art (also Cartography)
- Media art
- Memoir
- Minimal art (Minimalist painting and sculpture)
- Mixed media
- Mobiles
- Monologue
- Net art (also Cyber art, Web art)
- Op art
- Organic sculpture
- Participatory art
- Participatory installation (also Installation)
- Performance art
- Photography
- Pop art
- Postal art (also Mail art)
- Procedural art
- Process art
- Puppetry (Puppet art)
- Quilt art
- Radio art
- Robotic art (Robot art)
- Scanned art
- Sculpture installation
- Sculptural simulacra art
- Site-specific art
- Sonic art
- Stage lighting
- Street art
- Tag art (also Graffiti art)
- Telecommunications art
- Telematic art
- Telepresence art
- Television
- Text-intensive painting
- Theater piece
- Verbatim art
- Video art
- Virtual art
- Wall piece (also Ceiling piece, Floor piece)
- Water sculpture (also Fountains, Hydraulic art)
- Weather art
- Web art (also Cyber art, Net art)
Appendix A - Part II
New Forms of 'Art'
In the Introduction to What Art Is, we referred to the "bizarre alleged art forms [that] have proliferated at a dizzying rate"
since the first decade of the twentieth century. Appendix A (reprinted above from the book) cites examples then known to us.
Listed below are examples invented--or learned of--since the book's publication. Some terms overlap in meaning.
June 2008 - Added this month [
]: Portraiture art, Text art
- Acrobatic dance
- Acrobatics
- Aerial dance
- Air ballet
- Aquatic dance
- Audio art (also Sound art)
- Audio-walk art
- Bamboo sculpture
- Bioart [more]
- Body prints [more]
- Botanical art (botanical illustration)
- Body piercing (see Body art, in Part I)
- Carcass art (also Taxidermy) [warning: not pleasant viewing]
- Cast sculpture (by Rachel Whiteread)
- Cell-phone music
- Computer-controlled interactive installations (see Interactive
- Computer music
- Computer graphics
- Concrete poetry [more: see definition and examples]
- Constructivist sculpture
- Corpse art
- Dance-theater
- Design art (see Furniture art, in Part I)
- Desktop design
- Docudrama
- Documentary film
- Documentary theater [more] [more] [more] (see Reality-based
theater)
- Driftwood art
- Earth art (see also Environmental assemblage art and
Environmental sculpture, below, and Environmental art, in
Part I)
- Eat art [more] (also Edible art, Food art)
- Edible art (also Eat art, Food art)
- Electronic literature
- Envelope art (see also Mail art, Postal art, in Part I)
Environmental assemblage art
- Environmental sculpture (also Environmental art, in Part I)
- Fern sculpture
- Fabric sculpture
- Fiber art (also Textile art)
- Fireworks (also Pyrotechnics and Incendiary art, in Part I)
- Floral sculpture (flower design)
- Food art (see also Eat art, Edible art)
- Found art [more] (also Readymade art; see Found object, in
Part I)
- Found poetry [more] [more] (also Found text)
- Found text (also Found poetry)
- Functional art [more]
- Games [see Video Games for links]
- Garbage art (also Sanitation art)
- Gene art (as in genetics)
- Habitable sculpture (by architect Philip Johnson)
- High-tech art
- Ideograms
- Improvisational installation art
- Information art
- Intervention art [more] (Interventionist art; also, "Activist art";
a sub-genre of "Performance art")
- Jewelry art
- Kinetic art (genre, abstract painting; see also Kinetic sculpture,
Part I)
- Language art (see also Word-works)
- Living sculpture
- Lowercase sound (type of electronic music)
- Minerals (rocks, gems, crystals)
- Molecular art
- Mugshot [more]
- Multimedia art
- Neon art
- Neon sculpture (see also Light sculpture, Part I)
- New media art
- Olfactory art (also Sniff art, Scent installation, Scent
sculpture)
- Performance sculpture (also Social artwork, Social sculpture)
- Pictograms
Portraiture art
- Process art
- Pyrotechnics (also Fireworks)
- Readymade art (also Found art; see also Found object in Part
I, above)
- Real-life confession (also Docudrama, Documentary theater,
Reality-based theater, Stage biography)
- Reality-based theater (also Docudrama, Documentary theater,
Real-life confession, Stage biography)
- Recycled plastic bag art
- Reed sculpture (as in botanical reeds)
- Sanitation art (also Garbage art)
- Scent installation (also Olfactory art, Scent sculpture, Sniff
art)
- Scent sculpture (also Olfactory art, Scent installation, Sniff
art)
- Sniff art (also Olfactory art, Scent installation, Scent
sculpture)
- Social artwork (also Performance sculpture, Social sculpture)
- Social sculpture (also Performance sculpture, Social artwork)
- Software art (see Computer art, in Part I)
- Sound art [more] (also Audio art, above, and Sonic art, in Part
I)
- Sound collage
- Sound environment
- Sound painting
- Sound score (music)
- Soundscape art
- Stage biography (also Documentary Theater, Docudrama,
Reality-based theater, Real-life confession)
- Sticker art [scroll down to find]
- Tattoo art (see also Body art, in Part I)
- Taxidermy (also Carcass art)
Text art [more] (also Text-intensive painting, in Part I)
- Textile art (also Fiber art)
- 3-D computer-generated art
- Trapeze dance
- Vertical dance
- Video games [more] [also Games]
- Virtual environment
- Virtual reality art
- Yarn sculpture (by Fred Sandback) [more] [more]
- Wall work
- Websites (see Web art, in Part I)
- Wheelchair dance
- Word-works [more: search for Kay Rosen] (see also Language
art]
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