The Institute has concluded a lengthy investigation into a question submitted by no one but considered by us essential: is your cat art?
The findings are conclusive, and faintly upsetting.
The Evidence
Your cat meets every criterion the committee holds dear:
- It is a one-of-one. There is no other cat exactly like it, a fact your cat is aware of and weaponises.
- It has a secret origin, namely a damp afternoon and a cardboard box, which it refuses to discuss.
- It resists interpretation, sitting in a sunbeam with an expression that says everything and means nothing.
- It is wildly overconfident about its own significance, a quality we recognise immediately and respect against our will.
The Complication
The trouble is that your cat already knows. It has always known. While we were busy founding institutions and feuding with mirrors, the cat was simply being art, effortlessly, and looking at us as though we were slow to arrive.
Our Recommendation
We advise patrons to photograph the cat and submit it to the studio, where it will be transformed into an abstract work that the cat will ignore completely. This is the correct relationship between an artist and its subject, and the cat will accept no other.
We will not be investigating dogs. Dogs do not need our validation, and that, in itself, is the most artistic thing about them.
Curatorial Research, outranked by a cat