Comment by herbertl

Oops, that wasn't entirely what I was intending to communicate! (art vs. Art is a big topic—who/what defines what is acceptable as art, etc.? Duchamp's Fountain comes to mind)

Perhaps I'd suggest it's your effort to make the work shine, not just in the actual creation of the work, but in the contextualization of it as well. (This is connected to your point on narrowness—if your vision is narrow, you can't contextualize.)

The most literal example that comes to mind is Virgil Abloh feeling the need to prove what he was making was art, and relying on his research and the work of his inspirations as evidence or "proofs." He discusses further here: https://youtu.be/zKYp1t0-xYw?t=1313