HARSH WORDS FOR HARSH TIMES

i'm struggling with ideas involving some of the contemporary art that is taking place. I have read in art books about art that is basically a program for things like giant clean-up projects and stuff like that. For example there is the project in New York that is cleaning up the dumps outside of New York City. What I will say next I'm not directing at this dump-cleanup project but i thought that i would give you an example.

I understand and embrace the idea that art is a very wide word that encomasses many things. As one of my teachers said though, it's wide open for "better or for worse."

I think that somehow (and I might be a heretic for saying this...please don't kill me...maybe i'll change my mind soon...maybe i'll receive some sort of revelation and everything will make sense) the idea of art has not so much been made wide open as it has been destroyed.

I think that because anything and everything could be considered art there have been people who take advantage of it. I spoke with a friend who said that she wonders if some of this social work art would still occur if the currators weren't recognized as artists...and this point creates an extremely important question...what is the motive behind some of this social work? Are people cleaning up, building houses, creating change because they are compassionate towards all people and desire to see their neighbors succeed or do they want to be recognized as "cutting edge" artists.

It seems to me that many of the students here at school have these questions gnawing at the back of their mind but are to afraid to say anything because that would not be accepting the whole "art is sooooooo open" notion. Is it important maybe to redraw some boundaries as for what we should consider art, or should we just let any person do whatever they want and give art a bad name?