Frank Gehry? I would argue his buildings are the equivalent.

Oh, and Jeff Koons in painting and sculpture.

The totality of Andy Warhol's esthetic was as much about being Andy Warhol as it was about the actual physical artworks.

Mark Tansey.

...by which I mean, Tansey's work is about art being art.

The second image I linked is about the Surrealists signing over the control of Art to the New York School of Modernists, a la the treaty of Versailles.

PinkStainlessTail is also right; Warhol's work is about being Warhol's work.

So, a partial answer to your question is yes. Art--painting, at least--has addressed this.

I disagree about Warhol, although he provided the template for a generation of art about the "artist persona". Most of his work was about marketing and commodification.

Painting also has a history dating back to the Renaissance of "paintings of paintings", e.g. a painting of an easel, a bowl of fruit, and the painting of the bowl of fruit. This has been explored in depth in every era of the visual arts since then, although the language and context changed.

People think that impressionism was about creating pretty pictures, but they're so, so wrong. It was very much a commentary on what paintings are and what we see in them, which was all the more shocking because of how much it broke with what had gone before. It's almost impossible for the average person to see this today, of course, which is a shame.

Movies have frequently been about movies. Woody Allen, Truffaut, Welles, Coppola, Altman, Herzog, etc. have all made films about filmmaking, or pursuits recognizable as metaphors for filmmaking, or filmmaking as a metaphor for all creative pursuits, or for life. It's really been done to death, but all auteurs like to tackle it at some point.

In literature, the "bildungsroman" -- a traditional first novel, about the coming-of-age of the writer -- is generally "about" becoming the writer who will write the first novel you hold in your hands. It isn't often that obviously "meta", but it's a common form. Certain writers, such as Italo Calvino or Vladimir Nabokov, wrote entire books that are essentially puzzles about books.

Gehry's buildings aren't truly deconstructivist themselves, but he definitely borrows much from the deconstructivist movement, which was architecture about architecture.

And the numbers of sculptures that are postmodern commentaries on sculpture is legion.

So, yes, with a short course in modern art you'll see how devastatingly common this is. ;-)

I guess I am not clear on the question. I took it to mean art being about the artist while others take it as meaning art being about art.

Assuming you mean art being about the artist I stand by Frank Gehry and Jeff Koons. I think both of them long ago moved past critique of art (if they ever really did critique) and are about the cult of personality passing as art.

Their master predecessor from the critical arena would be Roland Barthes. (I could never read Roland Barthes without picturing this dude.)

If you meant art being about art then as Emily Litella said never mind...

well, I originally meant art about art, but who cares what my intention was? If it goes in an interesting direction, I say let it!

OK so I missed your original point but I do stand by my what I said about art about the artist and will add this: I find rap (in the broadest sense as I don't want to get into the many shades of hip-hop culture) reminds me a lot of blog culture. Very inward looking yet with little self examination. The hits seem to come from those with the most self absorbed lyrics/writing and the lest introspection.

The huge difference is that there are no 8 figure blogers nor, I think, will there ever be. spellcheck turns blogers to blowers. heh

You seem to be talking about meta-art. In that case, René Magritte is one good example of a meta-artist.

I always thought this painting was an good example of a case where the art was the art. Was the art.

Was the art.

A lot of Marcel Duchamp's work was about what made art, art. Particularly his ready-mades and that picture where he drew a mustache on the Mona Lisa.

To paint with exceptionally broad strokes here, one might say that (post)modernity can be more generally referred to as the reflexive turn. Of course, if you hang with the likes of Bruno Latour you might say we've never been modern. So, you know, woot to the jiggy and all that puff pap, 'scuse me while I fold in on myself.