Singular dualism

Mark Glazebrook applauds Gilbert & George’s latest work at the Venice Biennale

When I was learning some art history by teaching it, at Maidstone College of Art some 40 years ago, there was a student who invariably raised his hand after each lecture, no matter what the subject or period. ‘Excuse me, sir, but what is art?’ he used to ask.

I appealed to his common sense, but to no avail. I referred him to the Oxford English Dictionary, which leads with ‘skill as a result of knowledge and practice’, but without success. ‘Try thinking of it as what is produced by those who are called artists at any given moment in history,’ I hazarded, but this did not satisfy him either. Luckily, a Duchamp exhibition at the Tate enabled me to refer him to the Dadaist icon’s repudiation of all known values of art. In this nihilistic context the repetitive-questioning disorder vanished.