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Now, I'm late to this discussion but of course feel I must weigh in...I'm glad that gmarceau actually saw this- that give us a better understanding of the images.
What seems to be a current through most of the definitions of art presented is the Western European based cultural tradition of art and aesthetics. This field of inquiry and practice has resulted in the works of Giotto, Michaelangelo, Goya, Van Gogh, O'Keeffe, Duchamp, and our friend with the glowing bunny- Gac.
What about Balinese masks? What about that Taiwanese ghost lantern? What about the caves of Lascaux? It that art? I see it in art museums and text books. The makers dont' use that word or concept. It is or was part of life. part of dynamic culture. And we've done our best to mold and understand these phenomema through the label- art. Its made for some messy, disrespectful and just plain wrong presentation, in museum or gallery settings. There needs to be the recognition of context. In this case its the context of medical understanding- in the western clinical sense and all of the ethical considerations surrounding that.
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