In his book, “Playing to the Gallery,” the artist Grayson Perry attempts to answer this question. I&#x27;ll summarize his definition because I found it interesting and challenging:<p>He begins by stating that it&#x27;s now widely accepted that anything can be viewed as art. Seeing as that&#x27;s an infinitely broad definition, he goes on to describe the following “scorecard” for what counts as art. A “yes” means it&#x27;s more likely to be art:<p>* Is it in a gallery or an art context?
* Is it a boring version of something else? Does it lack entertainment value?
* Is it made by an artist?
* Is it limited edition?
* Is it admired by hipsters?
* If you put it in a dumpster, would a passer-by wonder why an artwork had been thrown away?
* Does it detain and suspend us in a state of frustration and ambivalence, making us pause and think rather than simply react?
* If it&#x27;s a photograph that&#x27;s smaller than 2m and costs less than five-figures, then it scores negatively.<p>He says that the above tests aren&#x27;t watertight, but if you put them together in a Venn diagram, the bit in the middle (the bit to which all the answers are yes) is pretty well guaranteed to be contemporary art.<p>I dislike the definition, but I wonder if it might be accurate. When I try to come up with a better definition, I wonder if the concept I&#x27;m trying to describe is something else—what art _should be_—not what art is.