Is text art art? It’s not for me to say.

If I type the words “Is Text Art Art?” into a piece of written text, as I’ve done here, it’s not art. But if I paint the same words on canvas or construct them out of fluorescent tubing and hang them on a gallery wall they are.

The image below looks like it might be art to me. It’s a deliberately designed and nicely coloured rendering of the words “Is Text Art Art?”. And it’s in a frame. What more do you want?

The whole debate may hinge on the concept of context. To go to the go-to example of context in the wider “Is it art?” debate, Marcel Duchamp’s urinal was just a urinal when it was in the shop, but it became a work of art when it was put on a plinth in an art gallery. In the same way words are just words when they are written on the page but they become text art when transferred to an art medium.

That doesn’t mean it’s good art though. And of course words aren’t necessarily just words when they are written on a page. I think William Shakespeare would have something say about that. (Again I’m using Shakespeare as a go-to, and thus rather clichéd, example. Other writers are available).