"The art you and I now admire in the scrubbed stillness of the museum once dripped with blood, reeked of idolatry, or caused its makers suicidal depression and anguish.”
–Nicolas Wolterstorff

Free E-Course Lesson 8

Chapter 3: Art, Poetry, and Beauty
Part 1: Leftover Pizza Is Not Art

Join now! Find details about this free E-course at Lesson 1.

In philosophy, as in many other disciplines, good definitions are the product of lengthy debate.... Children talk, and know what they are talking about, although they cannot define even one of the terms they use. Using and understanding a language does not involve being able to define its terms.... Definition allows us to improve our use of language....  —Norman Swartz, “Definitions, Dictionaries, and Meaning”  Copyright © Norman Swartz 1997
This revision: September 27, 1997. Department of Philosophy, Simon Fraser University

Art: A Definite 'Maybe"

Now, let’s define and clarify our terms.

Art, poetry, beauty, and the self are huge ideas, not easily defined. The practice of defining is practically a science in itself, one that is rather neatly described by philosopher Norman Swartz (quoted above) in “Definitions, Dictionaries, and Meaning.” In that article, Swartz describes seven types of definitions. The type we will be using here is called “operational.” Briefly, an operational definition is one that we agree to agree on, whether or not it is strictly accurate.*

I have chosen and adapted the definitions that I believe will be most useful to us. Here are a few to get us started:

In short, art (including poetry) requires creativity, emotional honesty, originality, skill, imagination, and intention. In our current context, beauty and spirituality must also be present.

For there to be art, there must be an artist. Therefore, according to our operational definition...

Leftover pizza is not art

Just as you can call yourself Arnot-Jean-Jacques Feuillette [Seventh Sanctum French Male Name Generator ] or Belching Doom Kangaroo [Seventh Sanctum Humorous Monster Name Generator] if you want to, you can string a bunch of words together and call them a poem:

I.
The magneto lurches into fetid paste
spurning the crispy scythe
on a poaching ä safari in Kenya
shadowing the uncommon solicitor.  **

II.
U Ua-Uo U (uracil) (NLM) UA UAA UAG
UAL Ubidecarenone Ubiquinone
Ubiquitin Ubiquitination Ubiquitous
UBT UDP-glucuronosyltransferase UGA
UL Ulcer Ulcer aphthous Ulcer
Buruli Ulcer duodenal Ulcer esophageal  ***

At a poetry reading, you could breathe raggedly into the microphone for precisely seventeen seconds and then pronounce the word ruction — and call it a poem.

The following “poem” consists of randomly selected html code:

<TD WIDTH="50%">&nbsp;<A HREF="HistoricalDocuments.html"><IMG
SRC="BookFeatherPen.gif" WIDTH="70" HEIGHT="62" ALIGN="BOTTOM"
ATURALSIZEFLAG="3" BORDER="0"><FONT SIZE="-2" FACE="Verdana">Historical
ocuments</FONT></A></TD>
<TD WIDTH="50%">&nbsp;<A HREF="index.html"><FONT FACE="Verdana"><IMG
SRC="caplink.gif" WIDTH="50" ALIGN="BOTTOM" BORDER="0" HEIGHT="65"
ATURALSIZEFLAG="2"></FONT><FONT SIZE="-2" FACE="Verdana">National
enter Home Page</FONT></A></TD>

If art is merely “an expression of human creativity”—a widely held belief—then anyone can be an artist. You don’t have to take classes or anything. There’s no particular discipline involved. You thought of it, you created it; ergo, it’s art.

Let’s say you have created a painting that looks something like this  (the outside border is the frame):

It’s art, all right, no question about it — an “expression of your creativity.” But surely you have applied your creativity at other times in other ways that might not qualify as “art.” Like the time you told your dad you had been detained at a roadblock while law-enforcement officers searched hundreds of vehicles for an escaped homicidal maniac, and that’s why you got home past your curfew. “Creative,” your dad said, and then he grounded you “for your own protection” until the missing maniac had been returned to custody.

Notwithstanding, you take your painting, which you have titled Dash, to an art gallery for validation by a real professional art personage, but Monsieur is unavailable at present. Still, you are encouraged by the inscrutability of the other works of art on display, although, examining them closely, you wish you had thought to vomit on your work of art before framing it.

Depending on the year and the location, you might see the following examples of art in the world’s most respected museums:

• One of 90 copies of Merda d’artista, by Piero Manzoni, consisting of thirty grams of Manzoni’s feces sealed in a tin can. The Tate gallery in London reportedly paid more than $20,000 for one of these copies in 1961.
• Piss Christ, a crucifix immersed in the urine of the artist, Andres Serrano. This is one of Serrano’s more traditional works.
• Tom Friedman’s Untitled, a dead ladybug in a Styrofoam cup, which sold for almost $30,000.

Other works given the stamp of approval by critics and patrons of the arts include

• This poem (reproduced here in its entirety):

LIGHGHT

The poet, Aram Saroyan, explains that his intent was to change the word light “from a verb (the agency of illumination) to a noun that yet radiates as light does. The double ghgh seems to work in that way.” The poem was published in the 1969 American Literary Anthology [Source: Rapportage, the literary journal of the Lancaster Literary Guild, Fall 2005].

• A novel consisting of blank pages.
• A musical work by composer John Cage titled 4’33” (Four Minutes Thirty-Three Seconds), in which a pianist sits at a piano for four minutes and thirty-three seconds without playing a single note.

My opinion on the more mystifying or malodorous forms of art mentioned above is that they represent a variety of artists and motives:

• The genuine artist who has been formally trained, has exhibited talent, and has grown bored with pretty pictures and conventional media (water colors, for example, as opposed to the more exotic elephant dung à la The Holy Virgin by Chris Ofili).
• The person who may or may not have talent but whose principal motive is to shock.
• The artist who wants to make a social or political statement, illustrating the ugliness and depravity that surrounds us, as if we didn’t know.
• The con artist who has seen an easy way to make $20,000 and get invited to lecture at prestigious universities by creatively assembling the contents of a wastebasket using duct tape, which can be analyzed for its likeness to the ephemeral quality of substantial yet emergent flora that have been dispossessed of their progression toward ultimate decay and regeneration... which everybody swallows (figuratively) because they don’t want to admit that they think it’s stupid.
• The true artistic genius who is totally out of my league.

I repeat, art is not merely “an expression of human creativity.” If it were, then Auschwitz was art.

Art is disciplined

Few would argue that art is an external expression (a dance, a sculpture) of a spiritual or at least an intangible quality (such as love, beauty, anger, or despair). I believe, with Keats, that “beauty is truth, truth beauty.” I am unable to separate spirit from beauty, or to believe that whatever emanates from the life-force common to us all can lack either truth or beauty.

Again, beauty is essential in our operational definitions of art and poetry. In theory, however, I am willing to entertain other viewpoints.

Is found or readymade art — noted examples are Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel and Tracey Emin’s My Bed — intentional? Does it require skill? Can you just pick up any old thing and call it art?

Possibly, if the picker-upper is legitimately an artist. As my poetry professor at Stanford University explained when we wanted to let our free spirits loose on paper and he made us write sonnets instead: You must work from the inside out; examine the interior of your territory before you explore the nether reaches; know what the boundaries are before you stretch them; internalize the discipline until it is part of you; master the discipline in order to not be mastered by it.

I know a few people who have arranged every aspect of their lives so as to spend as much time as possible hang-gliding or soaring. “It is the ultimate experience in freedom,” they say. “It sounds wonderful,” I say. “I’d like to try it.”

Do they hand me their gear and say, “Great idea. Go for it”? No. They warn me about the expense and the hours of training and practice and the necessary physical conditioning and the skills, specific to the sport, they had to acquire. The cost of freedom was servitude to the goal. 

In these pages we are concerned with the discipline of poetry as a tool to realize your potential for joy.***** We are not “searching for joy” or “journeying toward joy.” The joy is right here, right now. It might be guilt-bound, fear-encrusted, or anger-suffused. It might be hiding in your gut, having run for cover from an abusive parent or an oppressive spouse. (Many people, not all of whom are modern-day snake-oil salesmen or delusional, believe that the site of a physical illness is related to the way in which you have tried to shield your core being from harm.)

NEXT: What is beauty, and is it optional?

____________________________

* “Many philosophers have chosen... to leave some terms undefined... [claiming that we] cannot define being, unity and similar concepts.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition, accessed January 12, 2008

** Assembled from numerous Random Sentence Generators on the Internet

*** MedicineNet.com medical dictionary

****  Duchamp’s urinal, which he exhibited as My Fountain (1917) created quite a fuss in the art world, as did Emin’s My Bed. According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Bed), “the artwork generated considerable media furor, particularly over the fact that the bedsheets were stained with body secretions and the floor had items from the artist's room (such as condoms [and] a pair of panties with menstrual period stains…. The bed was presented as it had been when Emin had not got up from it for several days due to suicidal depression…. [During the Tate exhibition] two performance artists, Yuan Chai and Jian Jun Xi, jumped on the bed with bare torsos in order to ‘improve’ the work, …[calling] their performance Two Naked Men Jump Into Tracey's Bed. The men also had a pillow fight on the bed for around fifteen minutes, to applause from the crowd, before being removed by security guards.”

***** We will explore the discipline of poetry in “The Therapeutic Value of Strict Poetic Forms” in a later chapter. Gosh, that sounds so pompous. A better title might be, "When You Focus on Form, Feeling Flows." It's alliterative, too.

"Piss Christ" by Andres Serrano

I never knew about "Piss Christ" until I read a stream from MUSECUBE. It was refreshing to hear words of support for my work and to read about other artists whos work is also misunderstood.

This is an interesting quote from Wikipedia in reference to "Piss Christ" by "Sister Wendy Beckett, an art critic and Catholic nun, [who] stated in a television interview with Bill Moyers that she regarded the work as not blasphemous but a statement on "what we have done to Christ" - that is, the way contemporary society has come to regard Christ and the values he represents.

I wonder what she might say about my work and the people attacking it?

A few weeks ago I received an oversize, 4 page flier requesting my presence for a seminar titled “Israel and the Countdown to Armageddon”. The presenter, a smarmy looking young man named H.S. Rester was giving a free conference about Bible Prophecy and if I acted quickly I could receive a free DVD about other “Unfolding Revelations“. Basically this was to be another end times sermon designed to pick and choose fuzzy bits of the Bible to scare suburban soccer moms into religious submission. All in all, the advertising was exciting with F-18 fighter jets flying over Israel, troops carrying guns, a very D&D dragon, a lion with wings and a 666. On the back cover was something I did not expect, this:

What? Who is this guy? Is that Jesus? Sure enough the Christian savior actually looks like he’s from the Middle East. Shocking! Needless to say I was surprised since most images of Jesus are far more, how should I put this, ethnically biased.

I live in the very suburban Front Range community of Fort Collins, Colorado and most everything I see is white-watered down to keep me feeling safe. Though we have a large Hispanic community, there is very little in the way of any real ethnic diversity so seeing a Middle-Eastern Jesus on my glossy, end of the world flier really sticks out.

Since 9/11 I would have imagined that portraying Jesus as being from the Middle East (which the Bible clearly says he is from) would be a bad PR move. Anything even remotely resembling the Middle East is considered scary these days in America. Terrorists are supposed to be from that part of the world, but not the Christian savior, right? But actually I was kind of glad that the people promoting the end of the world seminars were actually getting at least one bit of information right. For all their nonsense about the marks of beasts, four horseman and outrageous Biblical interpretation they at least moved a step closer to realizing their prophet was a Jew from Israel. Sure, the above image still leaves something to be desired in terms of accuracy but maybe the days of the Anglo-Saxon, Romanesque hippie are drawing to an end.

The white Jesus has always bothered me because I think Christians need to face facts and stop watering down their faith with friendly, nice guy pictures of Jesus holding lambs and smiling with his 12 buddies as happy children run behind him tossing palm leaves. How is anyone going to take a guy who looks like he travels with Phish supposed to be the same guy that’s going to judge all souls come time for the apocalypse? I thought religion was supposed to be serious business and not a feel good romp through the meadow.

In my opinion white Christians like to avoid the nasty side of their religion. They like to make it easy on themselves to continue believing. They want to feel righteous and to do so they strip away all the stuff that clearly states they are poor sinners who could quite easily go to hell for all eternity. White Christians want to feel good all the time without any of the guilt.

Here is a very early image of Jesus. This fresco was painted in Daphni, Greece around 1100 and it can be found in the Church of the Dormition of the Virgin. The title is “Christ Pantocrator” which in Greek means Christ the Almighty. Some familiar features are visible such as the beard, long hair and thin face. His expression, though, is far more foreign that when we are used to seeing. Here is a man to be reckoned with, his large eyes look away from the viewer as if he has more important things to worry about than just you. The hand he keeps on the bible is interesting in that it is twisted and seems ready to drop that bible to punch someone if need be. Jesus is not smiling either because he is serious business and he means it. Overall he looks kind of mean and frightening but I bet you would not want to piss him off either. He certainly lives up to the name of this work.

This next image was done by Orcagna around 1354-57 and is titled “The Redeemer”. Here Jesus has been given a bit of a face lift to make him look somewhat more Italian since the artist was working in Florence, Italy. We still have the long hair and beard but now he is staring right at us and with his glowing crown he seems to be passing judgment on the viewer. He is still not smiling and his insensitive eyes make the viewer fear him somewhat like the above image but he at least looks like he could be related to any good Catholic Italian and thus he seems like an accessible savior who can be reasoned with. The title “The Redeemer” suggests as much anyway.

These two images (left & right) were both painted in the late 1400’s. The painting on the left is by Schongauer and is titled “Noli Me Tangere” (Christ With Mary Magdalen). The image on the right is by Geertgen Tot Sint Jans and is titled “Christ As The Man Of Sorrows”. Here both artists are appealing to our empathy. Gone are the angry, judgmental figures from 400 years earlier. The Jesus we are now seeing is frail and almost feminine and seems somewhat weak in the face of evil. Both paintings feature women who are reaching out towards him and instead of Jesus being an imposing, king like figure he is more of a friend who we can feel sorry for. Here is someone willing to die for all of human sin so that we don’t have to. He will take the pain away unselfishly so that you can go about your day without having to worry about all that yourself.

In this detail of “The Last Supper” by Leonardo da Vinci (which was painted in the late 1400’s as well) we get more of the same. Recently much has been made about this painting and it’s supposed hidden meaning. True, the symbolism of the number three is used all through the painting (3 windows, triangles, apostles in groups of three all represent the trinity) but these meanings are usually lost on the casual viewer. Sure most people can “feel” this is an important work of art and may marvel at it’s beauty but the image of Jesus is surrounded by cryptic meanings that only scholars can ever really appreciate. Leonardo give us a Jesus that is all math and symbolism, his meaning is shrouded in mystery and code. Jesus moves further away from having any real, down to earth meaning for the common man and becomes just another Christian symbol.

As the ages pass the images of Jesus become less and less what he probably would have hoped to portray himself. Forgotten is any message he may have had because it has been replaced by artists who wanted to make him less threatening in hopes to bring in more converts to the churches commissioning their work. Jesus the friend of man, Jesus the nice guy, the good looking white man who will forgive you no matter what you do is what we have left all in the name of Public Relations.

The above image is what remains of the guy. A portrait and profile of a white guy with a nice Romanesque nose and golden, flowing hair. He may be looking to heaven but I don’t think it’s because he is praying but rather because he is bored. In short, it’s a silly image.

There have been attempts to put the meaning back in the art though. The image on the left paints Jesus as a sort of pissed off black man and that’s not too surprising since it was made in the 1960’s. The right image is from the Caribbean and both images are trying to engage the viewer. They both have an iconic quality similar to the famous icons you see in Russia in that they are both looking right at you, ready to take you on and judge you. Jesus may not have been a black man but the point is you can’t hide from this guy because he will find you.

So why am I so concerned about how Jesus is portrayed in art? Basically it’s because I’m sick of Christians who believe in Jesus as the savior yet have absolutely no idea how to deal with him. I find it hypocritical that Jesus is just watered down faith with no substance. White Christian Americans love to proclaim that Jesus will send you to hell for not believing in him as your personal savior when at the same time they strip away all meaning Jesus has just to make their lives more comfortable. Christians may say they believe in Jesus, but which one? What Jesus are they worshiping every Sunday (when the game isn’t on)?

And you know what? They're absolutely right.

Example: Chop Suey by System of a Down:

"Father into your hands, I commend my spirit
Father into your hands
Why have you forsaken me
In your eyes forsaken me
In your thoughts forsaken me
In your heart forsaken, me oh
Trust in my self righteous suicide
I, cry, when angels deserve to die."

This is a very obvious and open attempt to make light of Christ's choice to surrender his life. But that's just rock and roll. How about television?

I am, I confess, a fan of the animated series Family Guy, which fails to show any reverence for anything, but in particular seems to single out Christ as a focal point of ridicule. Here's a clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkvI4jdciho

If you don't feel like linking or would be too offended to watch, the clip shows Stewie traveling through time to watch Christ perform in front of a crowd. He sings and dances and makes hand puppets while a stunned audience looks on.

This is one of the less extreme examples of Family Guy's potshots at Jesus. You might also remember the clip of his return when people snicker at his height "people were shorter back then..." or the Chris Tucker/Christ movie trailer when the show returned to the air.

But television and mainstream music are notorious for their irreverence for religious figures of any kind. What about the fine arts?

Photographer Andres Serrano caused quite a stir when he created a piece entitled "Piss Christ," that shows a crucifix submerged in urine.

I could keep giving examples, but that would make this a very long, very discouraging post. Take a look for yourselves. If you pay close attention, you will find that Christianity is dragged through the mud in pop culture on almost a daily basis. You will probably find a few angry people denouncing Islam as a violent and perverted religion, but you probably won't see any Saturday Night Live sketches about it.

At some point in our recent history mocking Christ became no longer politically incorrect. I can imagine that some of this has been caused by an image of bigoted Christianity that is perpetuated by hateful televangelist ministers and people who grossly misinterpret the message of the Bible. (Like the people who picketed Heath Ledger's funeral with God Hates Fags signs.) But the level at which Jesus is openly mocked in our media has become, in my opinion, unacceptable, and I think I would feel that way even if I was not a believer.

There is a great deal of animosity between parts of the secular community and Christians. But if any progress is going to be made on this front, then we have to remember that tolerance is not a one-way street.

I'm not asking for anyone to get on their knees and convert, I'm just saying that there needs to be more respect shown for Christians in our popular culture.

Mike Myers' upcoming film The Love Guru has mobilized religious groups who, from watching the trailer, feel that its content might be inappropriate and insulting.

This raises an important question for free, democratic societies, one that sociologists have been talking about for decades:

At what point does freedom of expression conflict with the right to not be harmed by others?

Put differently, can individuals be entirely free while belonging to a society which by definition requires some kind of functional inter-dependence and mutual respect?

This has been a thorny issue at times. One only has to remember artists like Andres Serrano who depicted Jesus Christ through extremely unsavory imagery in his photograph, Piss Christ.

To complicate matters, interest group 'A' might claim that interest group 'B' never really respected 'A' in the first place. Does not 'A' have a right to talk back, as it were?

Moral guidelines and respectful discretion seem to be an ever-changing scenario. What was utterly scandalous in the early 1960s, for instance, is usually regarded as humorous today.

And sometimes we see a complete moral reversal, as with the rock group The Rolling Stones. Initially regarded as the bad boys of Rock and Roll, a sort of dark flipside to the much beloved Beatles, The Stones' frontman Mick Jagger is now a bona fide 'Sir,' knighted by the Queen.

The Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman once wrote in Socialism: The Active Utopia that

There is nothing in the nature of freedom as such, or in the nature of equality as such, to safeguard their consonance and prevent their conflict.†

But Bauman's view seems to be missing something and, perhaps, a bit pessimistic. Liberal democracies aren't just cold machines to wind up and watch unfold like clockwork. Nor are they like freakish, random chemistry experiments made by children. Rather, they're organic processes informed by the dialogue that arises from concerned, qualified and well-meaning individuals.

At least, they should be.

The answer to The Love Guru controversy will hopefully work out as it should. It will take respectful dialogue and, perhaps, even prayer for the right choices to be made by all concerned parties.

The Love Guru Trailer

Notes:

†Bauman, Zygmunt, Socialism: The Active Utopia, London: Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1976, p. 52.

Top right image credit:

• Promotional Poster by Paramount Pictures (2008). Fair Use rationale.

"Religion and censorship - An ever-changing line?" © Michael Clark.
All rights reserved.

A famous example of such faux-art is "Piss Christ" by Catholic and photographer Andres Serrano. Serrano, who was the recipient of a grant by the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities (also known as "the American taxpayer"), depicted a small plastic crucifix submerged in a glass of his urine. As planned, the "Piss Christ" image stirred much controversy.

Piss Christ

Serrano's work confirmed one of the most reliable rules in the art world: if you lack talent and are desperate for immediate publicity, insult Catholicism.

Another artist utilizing shock sans substance is Karen Finley. The "performance artist" has "smeared herself with chocolate, painted with her own breast milk, [and] put Winnie the Pooh in S&M gear..."

(Which must have thrilled the suits at Disney.)

Karen Finley

In contrast to Serrano's success at the public trough, Finley's application for the National Endowment for the Arts was rejected. As is common among liberals who feel entitled to government funds, Finley threw a hissy fit and sued the government. Due to the free speech/1st Amendment ramifications involved, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley, in 1998. By a razor-thin margin, Finley lost 8-1. Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, in a concurring opinion, interpreted the relevant law plainly by declaring that "decency and respect are to be taken into account in evaluating applications."

Little surprise that Finley sued considering that liberals accept no objective standard for decency (except that there is no objective standard).

Which brings us to the latest court jester in the art world: Aliza Shvarts. A Yale art student, Ms. Shvarts, whose last name could only have led to years of therapy, has stirred controversy with her most recent work.

A Yale University student's senior art project, which she said documented her bleeding during repeated self-induced abortions, sparked a protest on campus, an outcry on the Internet and debates over morality, medicine, art and academia.

And — it was all faked. Senior Aliza Shvarts told Yale officials Thursday that she didn't get pregnant and didn't have abortions. [...]

Shvarts told classmates that she had herself artificially inseminated as often as possible for much of this past year, then took legal, herbal abortifacient drugs and filmed herself in her bathtub cramping and bleeding from the miscarriages. She said her work will include video, a sculpture incorporating her blood mixed with Vaseline wrapped in plastic, and a spoken piece describing what she had done.

[She] told the Yale Daily News that she wanted to provoke debate about the relationship between art and the human body but that the intention of the piece was not to scandalize anyone.

Indeed, who could possibly be scandalized by filming do-it-yourself abortions?

Aliza Shvarts

"Provoking debate" is the convenient shibboleth of those who are caught committing acts of gross idiocy. Apparently as long as society is forced to jabber about something, the underlying controversy, filming your faked abortions and expecting people to believe that it's art, is somehow justified.

Shvarts's art ("Shv_art"?) has created an outcry (and rightly so), but the project shouldn't surprise anyone. Faked or not, Shvarts's hideous brain child is the logical and natural result of decades of policies and laws which debase abortion to a common surgery with little or no moral ramification. In such an environment, a faked abortion is a mundane enough act to be worthy of filming and exposition. If you are offended, well, Shvarts merely intended to provoke debate.

As one of the premier and selective universities on the planet (charging around $45,000 a year), it would be reasonable to expect the art from any Yale student should reflect some maturity and talent. Apart from the her shameless dishonesty, Shvarts lacked taste, talent and judgment.

So she'd certainly fit in the art world.

Petitions και Petitions, εδω μπορείτε να υπογράψετε κατά του καλλιτέχνη άμα θέλετε.

Εγώ από την άλλη πάντα υποστήριζα τις προοδευτικές και ακραίες μορφές τέχνης. Όταν είδα αυτο πραγματικά κόλλησα λίγο. Λίγο από φρίκη, λίγο απο περιέργεια. Πιστεύω ότι και αυτό θα κάνατε στην αρχή και εσείς. Αλλα επειδή δεν κρίνω έτσι απλά, έριξα ένα μικρό search στο θέμα.

ΣΗΜΕΙΩΣΗ : ΤO POST ΣΥΝΕΧΙΖΕΙ ΜΕ ΤΗΝ ΛΟΓΙΚΗ ΟΤΙ Ο ΣΚΥΛΟΣ ΠΕΘΑΝΕ, ΠΡΑΓΜΑ ΠΟΥ ΔΕΝ ΕΙΝΑΙ ΣΙΓΟΥΡΟ.

Ο Vargas είναι Κοσταρικανός. Με μία σύντομη επίσκεψη στο Wikipedia, μαθαίνουμε ότι η Κοστα Ρίκα έχει αυξανόμενη οικονομία, δημοκρατικό πολίτευμα, δηλαδή δεν είναι κλασικη λατινοαμερικάνικη χώρα (Ακόμα είναι χαμηλά αλλα ανεβαίνει). Η πρώτη υπεράσπιση του Vargas ήταν ότι ήταν ένας συμβολισμός για την χώρα που την έχουν αφήσει σαν τον σκύλο. ΔΕΚΤΟ. Ωραίος συμβολισμός. Προσωπική Άποψη, ο σκύλος έτσι κ αλλιώς λογικά θα πέθαινε, αδέσποτο ήταν.

Δεύτερη δικαιολογία ήταν ότι ο σκοπός ήταν να ευαισθητοποιηθεί ο κόσμος για τα αδέσποτα. Μη δεκτό.
Εκεί φαίνεται ο καλλιτέχνης που κάνει κάτι ακραίο για να δειχτεί. Από την στιγμή που το έργο του ευαισθητοποιεί για τα ζώα, δεν αφήνει ένα ζώο να πεθάνει. Εκτός αμα πάσχει από κυκλοθυμία ή διχασμένη προσωπικότητα, εγώ όμως βλέπω ότι πάσχει από το σύνδρομο Britney Spears, τα πάντα για να με θυμηθεί το Mtv.

Η δικαιολογία άλλαξε αρκετές φορές, αυτο με κάνει να νομίζω ότι πραγματικά έγινε λόγω του Συνδρόμου Britney Spears, και εντάξει του τύπου του αξίζει μια καλή μούντζα, και ένα κλύσμα με θειικό οξύ (Η μήπως ένα μπράβο για τα λεφτά που έβγαλε?). Από την άλλη επειδή ο καθένας τα προβάλλει όπως θέλει στο ίντερνετς ίσως η πρώτη δικαιολογία ήταν αυτή που δόθηκε, και εγω σαν πολίτης χώρας με δημοκρατικό πολίτευμα (λέμε τώρα..) λέω ότι τον υποστηρίζω, άξιζε να χαθεί ο σκύλος για τον συμβολισμό αυτό. Γιατί οι ίδιοι που υπογράφουν το petition ξεχνάνε ότι υπάρχουν άνθρωποι που πεθαίνουν από την πείνα, και ασχολούνται με τον σκύλο που έτσι και αλλιώς αδέσποτο ήταν.

Στο κάτω κάτω της γραφής ό σκύλος λογικά δεν πέθανε. Και ναί μην μου βάζετε όλοι την τέχνη σε εισαγωγικά, ξαφνικά ευαισθητοποιηθήκατε όλοι για τον σκύλο αυτό, αλλά χεστήκατε για την πατημένη γάτα στον δρόμο, για τα αμέτρητα αδέσποτα της πόλης.

It's like some smart politician guy said, "If I can do it, it ain't art."

That's why White Trash People love airbrush art. Art is wizards and tigers and your name surrounded by stars and angel wings or flames.

You ever seen a Picasso? That guy put chicks' noses and boobs on the side of their bodies. Wtf? Unlike that weird cubist crap, you can definitely tell that the airbrushed mermaid on the hood of your cousin's Fiero has tits. Big ones. Yep, boobs belong where God intended: large and in my face. Ha!

What about Monet? Let me do some math for you: "French + Water Lilies = Fag!" You can't argue with that because it's fucking math!

Point being: in airbrush art, you can figure out what the fuck the picture is of. And that's what makes it so cool.

That's why White Trash People put airbrush art everywhere: t-shirts, the fancy dinnerware, the hood of a car, the trunk of a car, the side of a car, the roof of a car, license plate frames. Literally everywhere.

Shit, if Da Vinci had access to an airbrush, he could have finished the Sistine Chapel in about 8 hours. And it would've had unicorns in it, like it should've. You're telling me Jesus wouldn't have ridden a unicorn? That's just crazy talk. He would have ridden one all the way to the rings of Saturn.

With a panther running alongside him.

And Conan riding the panther.

Yeah, that is art.

First I'm going to talk about Andres Serrano. I was introduced to his work by a friend who had unexpectedly come across his stuff online. He is most famous for his work Piss Christ, which is a photograph of a plastic crucifix submerged in a jar of Serrano's urine.

Controversial indeed.

This was done in 1987, and caused a huge scandal in its time. To this day, it is still used as a basis for the argument of freedom of speech.

Serrano has done many other works of art aside from the above, including photographs of morgues, burn victims, the homeless, and the Klu Klux Klan. Gallery of Serrano's Work.

The next work of art is a personal favorite of mine. Actually, it's a series of photographs by a woman named Elizabeth Ohlson Wallin. It's titled Ecce Homo and is essentially a series of photographs depicting Jesus as a homosexual, or in the company of others of the GLBTQ community.

The above is probably my favorite of the set, and you can view the rest of them right here.

The third and final artist of the night is going to be a photographer whom I greatly admire. Robert Mapplethorpe, probably best known for his homoerotic imagery and photos of S&M practices. My favorite photograph of his, however, is definitely the one of the incomparable Patti Smith, used on the cover of her album "Horses". It's beautiful, however it is not controverial, and thus we must move on. The below photograph is a self portrait of Mapplethorpe. More here.

So, after taking a look at these three artists, and hopefully glancing over the provided links to their galleries, we must take a step back and think about what we've just seen. What is it that makes this art so shocking? What is it that makes this art so interesting? And above all, what makes this art?

These are not answers that I, or anyone else (no matter how much they may tell you otherwise), can give you. This is for you to decide. You might look at those three photos and be disgusted. You may look at them with indifference or intrigue. There is no right or wrong answer here.

Personally, I think all three of these examples are wonderful. I think by exploring these "shocking" or "different" sides of life, we can find the true face of humanity. All three of these artists have been persecuted for their work. What these works do, most of all, is show that slightly darker side of life that is so often obscured. We need to become more accepting of the world around us. Assume that everything and anything is happening in it, no matter how crazy, perverted, blasphemous or even mundane.

Art is made to provoke us into thought, and if any of these works have done that for you, then I believe they have done their job.

Shortly after publishing his fourth book, The Satanic Verses, novelist Sir Salman Rushdie was victimized by an Islamic "judgement" or fatwa issued by the late Ayatollah Khomeini that found him guilty of blasphemy and suggested that Sir Salman's sins be atoned through death.

In 1998 the fatwa was "lifted" as the Iranian government decided it would no longer uphold their previous death sentence. "Coincidentally," the Iranian President at the time was moderate Mohammad Khatami. Given a new lease on life without threat of death from primeval idiots, Rushdie crawled out of the effective "spiderhole" he'd resigned himself to and got a taste of free will again.

Last month saw the novelist formerly known as Salman Rushdie become, as Queen Elizabeth waved a sword shoulder to shoulder and bode him "stand," Sir Salman Rushdie. Knighted for his contribution to literature Rushdie should be looking forward to enjoying his new status and publishing his next book. Instead the audacity of the British government to knight such a scourge as Rushdie whose "Satanic Versus" dared paint the prophet Muhammad in a negative fashion has resulted in the "renewal" of the previous fatwa. What's the literary offense that begot Sir Salman's troubles? From Wikipedia:

"The title refers to a Muslim tradition that is related in the book. According to it, Muhammad (Mahound in the book) added verses (sura) to the Qur'an accepting three goddesses that used to be worshipped in Mecca as divine beings. According to the legend, Muhammad later revoked the verses, saying the devil tempted him to utter these lines to appease the Meccans (hence the Satanic verses). However, the narrator reveals to the reader that these disputed verses were actually from the mouth of the Archangel Gibreel. The book was banned in many countries with large Muslim communities."

Not exactly Piss Christ, but never the less enough to invite both mass banning within the Muslim world and invite the Ayatollah Khomeini to issue the fatwa demanding Rushdie's death that was "let go" in 1998 and recently re-endorsed by Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Ahmad Khatami shortly after Rushdie received his honor.

Not to be outdone by their eastern counter-parts a handful of protester's gathered in London to rant, rave, threaten and generally look and sound like a troop of lost time travelers from the 8th century as they chanted such niceties as "Death to Rushdie" and "Death to the Queen." No word yet on any organized parties to rage against the Taliban's use of Afghan civilians as human shields. Apparently the old saying "the pen is mightier than the sword" is taken very seriously by this bunch.