No matter how beautiful the rising sun, brilliant the uncut mineral, or majestic the towering redwood, the stars, rocks and trees cannot themselves be works of art. A poorly capped can of paint spilling on a carelessly stored canvas cannot itself be a "painting." A steel girder bent during an earthquake cannot itself be a "sculpture." The improbably pleasant sound of a clumsy cook stumbling into a loaded pot rack cannot itself be an opening allegro to a Baroque concerto.

For natural or accidental things to become art, there must be intentional action (for example, acts of creation, production, appropriation, ostentation or exhibition) that renders them as no longer purely natural or accidental.

Join Christy Mag Uidhir for a lively presentation that explores and explains what makes art "art." His book Art & Art-Attempts, which serves as inspiration for this event, was awarded the 2014 Outstanding Monograph Prize by the American Society for Aesthetics.