The boundaries of what is art and what is not art are very blurred in contemporary art whereas with traditional art it is very clear, most people can appreciate it's beauty. Traditional art serves a purpose; a painting or drawing of a landscape would be to describe the area for other people, portraits of Kings would be made to show the subjects what they look like, posters would be created to incite uprisings and paintings of narrative would be created to communicate stories to those who could not read (mainly religious narrative).
Universally art is a means of communication, and that is true of contemporary art, however what contemporary art communicates is a concept. Often people criticize contemporary art saying that they can do that, but the point is that they did not; they did not have the creativity or skill to think of that concept. The artist Damien Hirst is renowned for his use of assistants and is criticized for it, however as long as he still creates the concept of his work he is still an artist.
