who decides what is art?

France, evening

I decided today that in months that I live here, I still didn't pay a single visit to the local museum. A friend of mine told me a week ago that the exposition about videos that is currently showed at the museum was great. So, today I went there.

I may not get art, which is probable. I like what I like and it doesn't matter how fancy it is or if the artist is famous or whatever critique tells me that what I am looking at is a unique piece of art. For me art is about what the thing I am looking at transmits to me. I love Van Gogh. I like Kandinsky. I think Leonardo da Vinci was a genius and Michelangelo was amazing. Actually part of my family is really artistic in terms of painting, architecture etc. I don't think I took anything from that side of the family. But still, I appreciate beauty. I appreciate when some author is able to transmit me something. The Sagrada Familia in Barcelona is amazing. It is something that doesn't leave me indifferent. It is something I would stare at for hours. And this is just an example. I loved Dali'.

But what I saw today. I just didn't get it. I mean, I know a lot of computer scientists who make more complicated and beautiful things that what I saw today. And they don't have an exposition in some big center of modern art. Of course, that is TOO TECHNICAL. Which means, it is automatically not artistic. What I saw today is about emotions, thus, it is art.

AH, Sorry, I didn't get that!!!!!!!
I think that the artistic part of my brain is not well developped.

There was one thing, a black wood panel. Simply like that. A black wood panel.
And that was art. And I paid to see that.

I don't get it. Who decides what is art and what no?
Next person who will ask me who pays me to do what I am doing for work (the most classical question I get from non-scientists is "do they really pay you to do that?"), I will buy him a ticket to visit this exposition. Because if you wonder why scientists get paid to study a fruitfly (like Sarah Palin does), then maybe he will need also to wonder who pays all the billion of artists in the world who make a plain black panel and call it a piece of art....