@article{ergo 2231, author = {Andreas Elpidorou, John Gibson}, title = {Really Boring Art}, volume = {8}, year = {2022}, url = {https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/ergo/article/id/2231/}, issue = {0}, doi = {10.3998/ergo.2231}, abstract = {<p>There is little question as to whether there is good boring art, though its existence raises a number of questions for both the philosophy of art and the philosophy of emotions. How can boredom ever be a desideratum of art? How can our standing commitments concerning the nature of aesthetic experience and artistic value accommodate the existence of boring art? How can <i>being bored</i> constitute an appropriate mode of engagement with a work of art <i>as a work of art</i>? More broadly, how can there be works of art whose very success requires the experience of boredom? Our goal in this paper is threefold. After offering a brief survey of kinds of boring art, we: i) derive a set of questions that we argue constitutes the philosophical problem of boring art; ii) elaborate an empirically informed theory of boredom that furnishes the philosophical problem with a deeper sense of the affect at the heart of the phenomenon; and iii) conclude by offering and defending a solution to the problem that explains why and how artworks might wish to make the experience of boredom key to their aesthetic and artistic success.</p>}, month = {12}, issn = {2330-4014}, publisher={Michigan Publishing Services}, journal = {Ergo an Open Access Journal of Philosophy} }