I think your comment is really insightful. > Or, more generally, any potential value of it is subjective, and evaluations of merit aren't actually taking even

I think your comment is really insightful. > Or, more generally, any potential value of it is subjective, and evaluations of merit aren't actually taking even that into account. Art is art, there doesn't need to be some line in the sand where things are suddenly "good" or "art", or "bad" and "garbage". But there's definitely some kind of range of quality, and subjectively if the work isn't moving the audience, it's not subjectively "good". I think you tap into the notion that "good" can be different for different audiences, and I think that also makes sense. I'm not particularly moved by most religious art, but I recognize it as art because of its capacity to move others. Trying to create a precision semantic framework around art is a fool's errand. But I think there needs to be some kind of recognition that there's a kind of ordering in art that happens. The stuff on display at the MoMA or the NGA's Modern Art wing or the Tate Modern? Somebody ranked that better than anything else they could have spent their limited conservation funds on. It was more "worthy" than other pieces. So this ranking happens de facto no matter what any philosophy of relativism in art pretends to be about.