<p>Well, if I consider the negatives the score and the print the performance (and I'm not convinced of the efficacy or helpfulness of that analogy even though it's used often enough), then I'm not too worried about whether Maier "finished" her own work or not. Though Chopin and Beethoven could perform their own solo piano scores, they can't continue to do that, and their music (art) still lives via the performances of others. Though Chopin wrote no symphonies, Beethoven famously did, and he could, of course, never perform them since he's only one man and it takes an orchestra and a conductor to interpret and perform the score. Some art is necessarily collaborative. A playwright does not perform his own plays, unless he writes a one-man show that he is to perform himself, which is not the norm. A choreographer does not perform his or her ensemble pieces. Plenty of art exists through others' interpretations of the score and that doesn't negate calling it art, experiencing it as art, and appreciating it.</p>
<p>Plenty of photographers who didn't die before their work was printed didn't print their own photos, for a variety of reasons. These photos are no less art, they simply come about through a less individualized process.</p>
<p>There is controversy, deservedly so, around Maier's photos and how they're being shown and edited. (Some feel that too much of her work is being shown and not many artists wouldn't first edit out much of their stuff before showing to the public).</p>
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<p>Not all art, of course, <em>becomes</em> art. Some of it is art from the moment it's made. Art is a complicated web of qualities, some more about the work itself, some about acceptance and recognition. I can't approach a discussion of art relying solely either on intrinsic or extrinsic qualities, but prefer to consider a nexus of these aspects.</p>
<p>Art without commerce can still be art. There are artists working in studios all over the world not making any or a lot of money. They're producing art, whether anyone buys it or not. Art as commerce is a business. That's different from art <em>per se</em>.</p>
<p>You don't have to intend to make art in order to make it, which may or may not have been the case with Maier. But many artists, in fact, do intend to make art, just as many doctors intend to heal the sick. Nothing wrong with that. And the intention often helps guide the process and the success of that process.</p>
