{"id":10828,"date":"2018-06-21T04:32:36","date_gmt":"2018-06-21T04:32:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/?p=10828"},"modified":"2018-08-19T07:50:47","modified_gmt":"2018-08-19T07:50:47","slug":"2018-07-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/2018-07-15\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Define Art"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>Alfred Jan<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><strong>July 15, 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>From ancient times to the present, one of the main philosophical issues concerning visual art is how to define it. Art-making is a quintessential humanistic activity, but can it be defined, and if so, how? In this presentation, Alfred Jan will offer some traditional versions and several contemporary attempts for the audience to consider: how to define visual art as a category rather than as a term of praise or approval.<\/p>\n<p> Alfred Jan has an MA in Philosophy specializing in Aesthetics. As a critic, he published 500 reviews and articles in 20 different art magazines from 1982 to 1995. In the  mid-1980s, he curated an exhibition called \u201cSculpture As Used in Performance\u201d at the San Francisco State University Art Gallery. He has appeared on many panel discussions about art in Bay Area art departments and art schools, and taught \u201cIntroduction to Aesthetics\u201d at DeAnza College in 1995. One of his reviews was analyzed in the textbook titled \u201cCriticizing Art: Understanding the Contemporary\u201d by Terry Barrett.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/285644280\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/285644280\">How to Define Art &#8211; Alfred Jan<\/a> from <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/hcsv\">Humanist Community-SiliconValley<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\">Vimeo<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong><br \/>\nRSVP on Meetup <a href=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/humanistcommunity\/events\/251979276\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<br \/>\nLike us on Facebook <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/humanistcommsv\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<br \/>\nFollow us on Twitter <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/HumanistCommSV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<br \/>\nSee videos of our past Forums <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/user2798508\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alfred Jan July 15, 2018 From ancient times to the present, one of the main philosophical issues concerning visual art is how to define it. Art-making is a quintessential humanistic activity, but can it be defined, and if so, how? In this presentation, Alfred Jan will offer some traditional versions and several contemporary attempts for &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/2018-07-15\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;How to Define Art&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[243,26],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10828"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10828"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10938,"href":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10828\/revisions\/10938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}