"Will somebody please tell me where this absurd idea comes from that the purpose of art is to make statements..." Glad to oblige. Absurd or not, it comes from the history of art. It flourished both as a purpose and a topic of debate throughout the prior century. Robert Hughes' "Shock of the New" sought desperately to devalue the notion, generally failed, but managed to present some interesting arguments in favor of the "absurd" dismissal. Tracts by critics such as Sontag, Bell, and Danto offer further interesting elucidation. Not everyone agrees, however, there's no "question that this is one angle of aesthetics which some creative people have pursused in various contexts throughout history. That's the nice thing about art. Anyone who says they have the be-all, end-all definition of it is full of pink pony poo. By the same token, those silly people who are so eager to dole out underinformed judgements of this-or-that NOT being art tend to be equally full of it. "Art" is simply not containable in one tidy definition. If it were, it would have died centuries ago. >"What a bunch of modern clap-trap." You mean you weren't really asking?