What is art?

I re-read the handout from David Wallace and it mentions high art and low art. High art being the kind of art that makes you “uncomfortable” and low art being the kind that makes the artist money, like mainstream TV and film. In my film discussion class we were asked “what is art” and we had a very similar discussion on art as we did in this class on the question of “what is literature”. The conclusion was art is a form of expression one uses to express their thoughts or emotions. That seems like a pretty basic explanation. Would it work for literature I wondered; literature is a form of expression one uses to express their thoughts or emotions. I like that simplistic approach to our previous debate. In this film class we were then shown a ‘sculpture’ by an early 20th century artist who put on display at an art gallery an upside down urinal. (http://www.fineartregistry.com/articles/altabe_joan/images/duchamp_artwork.jpg) Some argued that this isn’t art but based on the definition we arrived at, how could you argue that this is not art? The artist is choosing to express himself using an upside down urinal. What is he expressing? I don’t know. I think he really just put it out there to challenge people on their understanding of art – just as it did in my film discussion class.