Art and Anti-Art

When a work declares itself anti-art, like Duchamp's white porcelain urinals (the first in the anti-art movement), or Manzoni's can of his own shit which he sold to the Tate Gallery, than it is of course not art, no matter how much the piece fits the criteria for art, eg. it gives direct pleasure (ironic pleasure in this case), shows skill, shows novelty, etc.

Art grew out of evolutionary sexual selection (which grew out of natural selection) and spread out to all social life, as Denis Dutton points out so well in “The Art Instinct.”  The high art theory I prefer grows out of the high affirmation of what the group holds sacred, great art has done this and so has folk art, and this is based in sociobiological dynamics. It's that simple or difficult.

We can't remove art or culture from it origin in natural selection and sexual selection and the biological origin of social behavior, why would we want to? I am suspicious of those who want to remove art, social life, political life, etc, from its evolutionary foundations. I suspect a biological motive behind it in any case.  This all is related to the devaluing of biology and material evolution which has been going on for thousands of years. When it is seen that we evolve to real Godhood in material/supermaterial evolution, then this great blockade may end.