Wanted: witty, pithy definition of one of life's great questions

Alice Jones' Arts Diary

ICA Art Rules website

The ICA has a new aim – to define art, in just 100 characters.

The social media initiative, Art Rules, invites anyone to answer the question ‘what is art?’ online and interact with the rules that others have put forward.

The more people that agree with a definition, the bigger the bubble it will be given on the site’s homepage.

Tracey Emin (“No critics, no galleries, no curators, no museums, no museum directors, without the artist.”), Rob & Roberta Smith (“Never do anything that does not annoy someone in power.”) and Jeremy Deller (“Throw away the rule book”) are among the artists involved.

The democratic nature of the project means that all manner of gems have also made it onto the homepage – not least “ART is an anagram of RAT”, “Art is what artists make” and “Follow Hans Ulrich [Obrist] on Instagram.”

Actually, that last one is quite a good tip. The Serpentine Director has been posting handwritten artistic epigrams – not dissimilar to Art Rules, in fact - on the photo-sharing site for some time now.

Comedian Stella Graham

 

A comedic turn beats going to the gym

Comedians are not known as the fittest bunch so it’s surprising to discover that stand-up can be good for your health.

Stella Graham wore a heart monitor while performing at the Edinburgh Fringe and discovered that she burned 568kcal over the course of her hour-long show and 30-minute warm-up.

During that time her average heart rate was 117bpm – significantly higher than her usual resting rate of 78-82bpm. So nerves can be good for you, after all.

Also in the Arts Diary

Ballet star Carlos Acosta makes movie debut in Day of the Flowers

Tim Minchin and pals perform Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead down under

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