Consider an example of an artist who has had a transcendent experience, say while meditating.  She then paints a canvas in order to help her reach this mental state when she stares at it.  A friend of the painter, an art historian, declares it a masterpiece of minimalist art – and it is, in fact, beautiful – despite the intended use that will, be different than for a work of art.  Suppose she intends to destroy it when it no longer works as a tool for her mediation.  Can the painting be a work of art in spite of her having made it exclusively for a personal use?  Or consider another hypothetical case.  An accomplished artist declares himself, from this point in time, to be no longer an artist.  He leaves his gallery, severs all relations with the art world, and yet continues to make useless, art-like objects.  His new objects continue to evolve and have no obvious dissimilarities from his previous products but he makes them for different, non-utilitarian, contemplative, or decorative, reasons.  Can he continue producing objects as he has in the past and be exempt from the category of artist?  Perhaps whatever this individual has said about being an artist does not affect what he makes.  Perhaps his intentions and motivations play no part.  He may not be able to determine the meaning of his future production of objects, as long as the objects adhere to the standards of excellence that he has attained previous to his declaration.

We can contrast the two cases above with the intentions of an artist who, with permission from the proprietors, places indiscriminate trash in a gallery.  The trash might be accepted as an “artwork” and examined for his non-formal motives, such as his disdain for the art market and the hierarchy of art professionals.

Artworks are paintings, sculpture, photographs, and installations that are made by amateurs in their homes, art professors in universities, and serious artists with or without commercial affiliations. Artworks may, or may not, have intrinsic value or monetary value, other than what the artist believes they are worth.  Non-utilitarian fashion objects, as opposed to utilitarian fashion objects that are worn or carried, such as expensive shoes and handbags, are artworks that have a lot of monetary but little intrinsic value.  Rather, they are “meaningful”, “innovative”, “politically correct”, etcetera, and they may set historical precedence within the ever-expanding arbitrary modulations in contemporary art.  These objects and their producers are known to a wide audience and are bought, sold, and traded through primary dealers, collectors, secondary dealers, and auction houses.  Collectors of non-utilitarian fashion objects often collect to accumulate artworks of an individual manufacturer or artworks in an identifiable style within a specific time period, much as a stamp or baseball card collector will strive to complete a series.  This differs from, but is not exclusive of, collectors of non-utilitarian fashion objects who collect for speculation. They look for young unknowns with primary dealers or visit select graduate schools to find artwork made by students in their early twenties.  They buy the product in hopes the aspiring artist becomes sufficiently famous to profit later in the secondary market.  Part of the dynamic is based on the reputation of the collector, how acute his or her “eye” has been, and what his or her status is within the layers of the business of international art.  The better the reputation of the collector the greater the chance that the artwork known to be in his or her collection will gain in monetary value.