What is art?

Is it a statue of a famous person? An arrangement of flowers? A revealing self-portrait?

Or is it an image of someone vomiting on a city sidewalk?

These days, some might say just about anything can be considered art - even this newspaper page.

"That's a very tough question," studio art graduate student Jeremy Forman says. "One man's garbage is another man's treasure. So I can't really give you a straight answer on that."

Each year, MSU art students take on the question for themselves, sculpting, painting, assembling and creating their own interpretations of life and the world around them. Their works are displayed in the Kresge Art Museum as part of the Department of Art & Art History's annual student exhibitions.

Forman is one of five studio art graduate students whose work is being featured in the Master of Fine Arts Exhibition, which runs through Sunday. The Undergraduate Exhibition begins April 12.

"It's sort of a joint venture between Kresge and the Art Department," explains Nitin Dutt, who also is showing his work in the free master's exhibit.

Dutt has two pieces on display. One is a large arrangement of split logs that are dyed with a blue pigment from his native India; the other is what he calls a "more political" work that includes photocopies of his passport.

"I consider myself a displaced artist," he says. "You need to know what you are and what you're all about."

Forman has five of his works in the museum. Among them is "Compromises of Motherhood," which is a cast of his mother's hand with a series of smaller replicas.

"Each reduction represents a sacrifice she's made for her family," Forman says.

Harry Williams, who is displaying 16 of his pieces, also says defining art is difficult.

"A lot of the time that's in the eye of the beholder," Williams says. "I'm of the belief that pretty much anything is art - a mailbox that looks like a cow, for example. They're personal statements.

"It's the fact that you have to consider whether it's art and whether it's meaningful to you is what makes it cool."

Williams says his works are about "what's interesting, different or even abnormal about society."

His collages, some of which include clippings from The State News, are sealed in acrylic and then painted on.

Williams elaborates on his theme, saying strange things become commonplace when they are constantly broadcast to large audiences.

"The media, especially with television and movies, you expect what's coming to be strange," he says. "And so the smaller things in life become weird."

Fellow artist April Liu says Williams' style is likely to attract a college audience. Her own work focuses on Asian culture, particularly her homeland of China, but it has "a pop-art edge to it."

"There's a lot of variety in the show," Liu says. "We've gotten a lot of good feedback from people of all ages."

As for what makes something a work of art, Liu has a bit more of a concrete answer.

"It's a visual language," she says. "We're expressing ideas, emotions. That's what makes it art because it's visual. We're using materials to say something."

Liu says she sees the show as a "connecting point between MSU and the international community."

Although Williams and Forman are both U.S. natives, they come from different regions of the country. Forman is from Arizona while Williams is from Philadelphia.

Williams recognizes the difference between his hometown and East Lansing. Someone who saw his work at Kresge labeled it as pornographic.

"I don't see it that way," he says. "On the East Coast, this stuff would be unusual, but not because it borders on pornography."

Kresge Director Susan Bandes estimates several thousand visitors have come to see the exhibit since it opened March 22. The students have been working since fall to help organize the event with museum staff.

Liu says she has heard a lot of positive reaction to the show, which she sees as a culmination to her three years of master's work at MSU.

And although the graduate students' show ends Sunday, the undergraduate students' works will fill the museum next week.

Unlike the current showcase, the undergraduates' artwork includes samples from more than just studio art. Photography, graphic design and electronic media also will be shown.

For the undergraduate show, Bandes says "there's a craft part to it too. You can learn the basic techniques of the basic mediums, and what's interesting about that is there's a huge variety."

Undergraduate students might have a harder time getting their artwork in this year; the judging is expected to be more selective.

"In previous years there's been so many pieces it's been hard to show everything," Bandes says.

Liu said it's good to see a variety of works. Eunji Koo, another of the graduate students, has paintings that show a contrast to the other pieces. The paintings - various colors on canvas - are described as an exploration of time and space.

"Eunji's abstract paintings are really beautiful, even if you don't know what they're about," Liu says.

"Everyone can take something different from it."