Quote - There were certain styles of graphics and font treatments popular in the '70s. Would you consider those things 'art' because they clearly reflect the culture of the time? Does it matter if they weren't considered 'art' at the time of their construction (I suspect not but I'm asking just in case)? Please note that I'm not at all challenging or arguing - I'm just trying to clarify what you mean.

No worries. I am not at all sure what I mean. I think what I am thinking is that what distinguishes art from non-art is not intention, and maybe not even reception, but maybe whether or not the thing has meaningful cultural content. A certain spoon might have content due to style while another might not. But merely historic significance in this case does not rate. Something that is perceived as having cultural meaning when it was made might at a future time be found not to have it while something taken for granted as neutral in terms of cultural meaning might be found in another time or in another place to have cultural meaning. 

Cultural significance, cultural meaning... I am not sure what that might mean. The thing conveys substantive information about their culture or have a certain strong or even inchoate resonance in their culture or when viewed by another culture?

Bad art is art by virtue of its relation to culture and its relation to good art... Steven King may be compared to George Elliot or Jackson Pollack on its artistic merits but to compare it to a sandwich is fatuous... unless the sandwich has some cultural significance that is recognized, say in the case of a McDonald's Hamburger.

Kitsch is interesting to consider, it is often created as Art then rejected as Art and then rehabilitated as Art with the admixture of nostalgia or irony and then maybe dismissed again as intellectual fashion changes. The problem with "what is Art" today is irony... irony can invest anything with spurious significance... most people rebel at this but can not articulate why.

I think that where I differ from some people is that I think of art in functional terms... does it serve as art. Bad art serves as art. It allows people to speculate financially, to show off  economically or intellectually, to forge group identity as with the audience for the Avant Guard or for Kitsch, and to fuel ego by rejecting it or valorizing it in the face of opposition by philistines and the unwashed masses. These are the functions of art. I can not see art in Platonic terms since it is not an object like a table or a chair. The functionality of an abstract is different than the functionality of a real object.

An academic standard for art? Stuff normal people hate.

Over and over as an art student art a prestigious institution I was told regular people just were not equipped to appreciate art, I said that they appreciated art a whole lot, they just don't appreciate /your/ Art. I grew up "disadvantaged" but I don't remember ever being in a home that didn't have a calender or a porno centerfold or a picture of Jesus, Mary, Martin Luther King or JFK on the wall.