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LILEKS: Is it Art? The courts say no, but who makes up these rules? 

The Appeals Court has settled the issue for good with a decision you can sum up thusly: Oh, c'mon.

It's obvious the bar's managers were trying to get around the law, right? They weren't making a grand philosophical point about the nature of Art. They just wanted to let consenting adults light up a nail indoors without standing outside where the winter wind flays faces to the bone. But if they said it's art, well ... isn't it? . . .

But this goes against everything we've been told about Art for the past 50 years. Art is not a matter of conforming to academic rules set down by stern, gray-haired men in frock coats and watch chains; Art is what you say it is. . . .

If the bar folks filmed the event as part of a 19-hour-long video installation, they would have had a better case. If they'd had a grant, even better. But no. Here we are: It's not art if the court says it isn't, and that's the part that ought to rankle.

On the other hand, on behalf of everyone who has paid admission to a gallery only to find big canvases covered in black paint and Lucky Charms -- let the lawsuits begin!

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