P3D What is not Art?

[Rod Sage <rsage@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

My wife and I went to the Denver Art Museum last week for the first time
in many years, mainly to see the special "Impressionists" exhibit. After
oooing and ahhing over the Van Gogh's and Monet's, we headed down the
hallway to the Modern and Contemporary art.
I first came upon a 10 ft. x 20 ft. painting (?) which appeared to be
gallons and gallons of glossy black tar which was smeared on with a
deeply notched trowel. Later I find a 5 ft. x10 ft. panel painted
completely black except for a 5 in. x 10" stripe of red paint in the
lower right corner. Then there was the electronic display which ran
words of hate and ignorance across it's face. Then there were the 2 huge
panels of cold pressed steel which looked like 2 panels of cold pressed
steel. I could go on, but I found them interesting, intriguing, baffling
etc.
But are they art? If all those pieces are art, then the brick on any
building is art. A pile of dirt and weeds in my yard is art. The ever
changing image on my computer screen is art. The hole in my jeans is
art. etc. etc. I could wrap my dog in aluminum foil, throw some green
paint on him, hang him in a tree, and call him art. "Space Dog in Tree".

If that is the case, then surely any photograph is art. Even an
extremely over-exposed side with only a hint of a visible image would be
art.
My Webster's says that art is an "aesthetic work, as painting,
sculpture, music etc.. And aesthetic as " 1. of beauty or aesthetics  2.
sensitive to art and beauty".
I have seen art which is not beautiful, but is downright ugly. So what
is not art? Is art anything which affects an emotion or response? Even
if it's negative?
By the way. There was one photographically related art object. Someone
placed 2 opened projection screens side by side, painted a black area in
the center which overlapped both screens, then added some nonsense
wording in the black area.
Do museums actually pay for this stuff? I would gladly offer them "
Sputnik in Orbit" or "Realist Smashed With Blue Sledge Hammer".

RDS