Anish Kapoor’s current exhibition in the Gladstone Gallery’s 24th street Chelsea location (May 4 –  June 11, 2016) provoked me in a way that art never before has.

This show departed from Kapoor’s past work of shiny sculptures and reflective forms. Instead he created more bodily pieces, though they maintain his usual scale. The huge silicone sculptures threaten to consume you as you step into the gallery space. They are reminiscent of mangled, massacred flesh, though also somehow seem womb-like. Surrounded, you are faced with violence, and your body is suddenly inside another. It is disgusting and intriguing all at once.

The sculptures maintain a certain tension in their relationship to viewers. They at once invite you to explore their materiality in more detail, and loom threateningly – daring you to step up and examine their solid yet squishy forms.

When I first walked in to the gallery space I was overwhelmed. My instinct was wrap myself up, to shield my own intact torso with my arms. I was in a butcher shop or I was a fetus or I was a witness and inside and outside all bled together in a space that felt smaller because I hesitated to close the distance between myself and the art. I was caught off guard. I was unsure. I was engaged.

And I continued to be engaged even as I stepped outside to the gallery after seeing the entire show, when I had to shake out my arms and hands to absorb and recover from the experience of the art. The art stayed with me.

So while I can’t say that it was my favorite of Kapoor’s work, I will say without hesitation that the show was absolutely a success.

What is “good art”?

The experience of art is a subjective one. Aesthetics range from one individual to the next, despite an overarching cultural conditioning. That’s why people have different favorite colors or patterns and why some people are bored by classical portraits or intrigued by impressionism or confused by contemporary installations.

Yet despite personal and cultural preferences there exists a canon of art which is the established pinnacle. The best.

But what makes it that way? Is it flawless brushwork, excellent color choices, elegant form, critical subject matter? Is it the execution of one of these things or the perfect recipe of some combination?

Perhaps. Though maybe good art is also defined by the experience of the work. Perhaps it is notable for the way it transports you to a foggy world, or dwarfs your fragile human frame. Perhaps it enrages you or leaves you thinking about it after it is no longer in your immediate presence.

If art is about experience though, then how do you separate good  art from successful art? Is there even a difference at all?

If a piece makes you react – whether in awe or disgust, then the artist has successfully engaged you. But does that merit the label of “good” or simply “provoking”?

For me, good art is always provoking, though not all provoking art is good. I may react strongly – viscerally – to a piece, and thus it is successful. But it still may not grip me. Whereas any piece that I love will make me react: it will inspire and engage and inform me of something. I will hear what it tells me. I think good art relies on that element of conversation. And because of that even some art that is widely accepted as good is not for everyone. Just as in normal conversation, some pieces are easier to talk to than others. Pieces of art have personalities, and some gel and some clash – this is the individuality of aesthetics, and why the discussion and debate over the definition acceptance of good art will continue to take place. People will always develop new and different ideas that challenge art, and art will in turn evolve and challenge us right back. That conversation will go on infinitely, and in that way art as a concept will always remain “good”, even if ever elusive (though perhaps that’s part of the fun anyway).