What does "Art is what you can get away with" mean?

Question

It comes from Andy Warhol btw

Answer 1

I think it probably means that you push the envelope as far as you can with whatever your particular art may be.  At some point, the public isn't going to "get it" so that's the point you can no longer get away with it.  That's just my interpretation.  I'm sure there are some art experts out there who will have better explanations.

Answer 2

In my interpretation, I think it means that if you sculpt a naked man sitting on a rock contemplating life and wonderness of being...you can call a naked man sitting on a rock "art".  Of course that can also be applied to some of the modern art as well.  The only way you can get away with something like burning the U.S. Flag in a garbage can is to call it "art."  Personally, I put that kind of art up the with John Wayne Gassey's...

Answer 3

it means that you can do anything draw anything and make any thing

Answer 4

cheese

Answer 5

It means some people actually like art and feel it is important.

Others feel that if you lable it art you can do anything.  Like that guy who took pedophile pictures of underage children and teenagers naked and called it art and the police had to let him show these illegal pictures.  What a great day for pedophiles everywhere.  B/b it was called art.  Therefore, "Art is what you can get away with"

Answer 6

The phrase isn't originally Warhol but from the Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan, "Art is anything you can get away with."  

During the peak of contemporary art, art became something to go "against art" or "show society".  It was probably sparked by cubism beforehand.  Look up Dada art or performance art, probably the most prominent in that period which was basically a school of artists who decided that they'd take ordinary objects and put it in a gallery to make it art purposely to show that it was art.

Though the statement might've been somewhat of a mock on art, but it was true and Warhol definitely embraced it.

Answer 7

If you think about it, Art is the only thing that has no rules. Any normal rule is completely bypassed by it. Whether its nudity, mass murder, making fun of an important figure, mutilating some important phrase, monument, person, or whatever.

That can also mean something else, too. It could mean the way you feel free when you are making art. You can release all your emotions without disturbing anybody. Unlike music, which is relatively the same way, anybody can make art, whether it's a little stick guy, or the Mona Lisa, art is art is art. It is absolute and total freedom with no rules and no boundaries.

Hope this helps.

Answer 8

I'd put that quote in the context of contemporary U.K Art. Super rich Charles Saatchi bought lots of putrid stuff by Damien Hirst, Tracy Emin etc. Because he paid loads of money, he legitimised their work and helped to make them famous artists, who then could basically do anything and sell anything. Tracy Emin got away with flogging an unmade bed and an embroidered tent. All you need is a good patron, a gullible gallery and anything becomes art. Look at Marcel Duchamp exhibiting a urinal. People are mugs.