Complexity and the Popular

There exists a whole series of approaches to recognizing artistic merit in artifacts that are simple, genre-bound, clear, and exemplarily formed. The popular can then easily be counted as (good) art, even if the artifact in question is simple and schematic. As such, proving that the popular is complex is not at all necessary in order to confer art status on an artifact or to ascribe high artistic value to it. Indeed, from the point of view of the supporters of simplicity, this could even be a counterproductive attempt. Still, from the perspective of those who despise that which is simple and schematized, it remains an indispensable step. In artistic contexts, the diagnosis that an artifact is complex gets linked very often to the assessment that it is a good work. Thus the popular artifact would be granted a further opportunity for being recognized and appreciated as ‘art’ if it were also acknowledged as being complex.