Proceduralism and Functionalism

In the late 19th century, the emergence of “avant-garde art” in the art world sparked a debate over what art actually is. Representative examples of avant-garde art include Duchamp’s Fountain and Andy Warhol’s Brillo Box. Duchamp took a mass-produced urinal and, as-is, named it Fountain, declaring it a work of art; Andy Warhol recreated Brillo soap-pad boxes — the kind found under brands like Downy or Fairy — through silkscreen printing and likewise called them art. Two identical urinals could thus exist side by side, one a work of art and the other not.

This gave rise to a debate over how art should be defined, and in the course of that debate two broad approaches emerged.

• Proceduralism: Defining something as art if the community of artists declares it to be art. This approach could explain fairly well why works by Duchamp or Andy Warhol counted as art, but the definition remained highly arbitrary and vague.
• Functionalism: Defining art in terms of its function — for example, “that which expresses beauty.” This approach, however, struggled to explain straightforwardly whether works by Duchamp or Andy Warhol were art at all.