Yeah It's Europe, Yeah It's a Blog, Yeah It's About Terrorism

Annie

Annie

Not So Junior Member
Oh yeah, it's also about 'the arts.'

http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2007/11/art_pussies.html

Art Pussies
Ben Hoyle writes in the Times/UK of British artists and their willingness to shock -- except when the subject is anything beyond what offend Granny:

Britain’s contemporary artists are fêted around the world for their willingness to shock but fear is preventing them from tackling Islamic fundamentalism. Grayson Perry, the cross-dressing potter, Turner Prize winner and former Times columnist, said that he had consciously avoided commenting on radical Islam in his otherwise highly provocative body of work because of the threat of reprisals.

Perry also believes that many of his fellow visual artists have also ducked the issue, and one leading British gallery director told The Times that few major venues would be prepared to show potentially inflammatory works.

“I’ve censored myself,” Perry said at a discussion on art and politics organised by the Art Fund. “The reason I haven’t gone all out attacking Islamism in my art is because I feel real fear that someone will slit my throat.”

Perry’s highly decorated pots can sell for more than £50,000 and often feature sex, violence and childhood motifs. One work depicted a teddy bear being born from a penis as the Virgin Mary. “I’m interested in religion and I’ve made a lot of pieces about it,” he said. “With other targets you’ve got a better idea of who they are but Islamism is very amorphous. You don’t know what the threshold is. Even what seems an innocuous image might trigger off a really violent reaction so I just play safe all the time.”
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Got it. So, the rest of us will speak out against terrorism, and you can speak out against...cheap gallery opening wine?
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A teddy bear being birthed from a penis as the virgin mary? That's not art, that's just idiotic sensationalism. I'm really tired of the modern trend of replacing art with sensationalism. I'm not a prude and I'll feature sex in my art if I want to, but to simply replace any semblance of a desire to make beautiful art and instead just do things you think will get you attention is offensive to me.
 
Watermark said:
A teddy bear being birthed from a penis as the virgin mary? That's not art, that's just idiotic sensationalism. I'm really tired of the modern trend of replacing art with sensationalism. I'm not a prude and I'll feature sex in my art if I want to, but to simply replace any semblance of a desire to make beautiful art and instead just do things you think will get you attention is offensive to me.
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What is it you are responding to?
 
Watermark said:
A teddy bear being birthed from a penis as the virgin mary? That's not art, that's just idiotic sensationalism. I'm really tired of the modern trend of replacing art with sensationalism. I'm not a prude and I'll feature sex in my art if I want to, but to simply replace any semblance of a desire to make beautiful art and instead just do things you think will get you attention is offensive to me.
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Sensationalism? Perhaps it is and perhaps it isn't. You can't say, though, unless you see it for yourself.

You can't experience art secondhand. No one can. The experience is always too personal and individual for that. What may strike you as crass sensationalism might "work" for someone else. Andy Warhol comes to mind right off, as does Judy Chicago. The work of the former doesn't tend to speak to me while the work of the latter does. Who can say why?
 
OrnotBitwise said:
Sensationalism? Perhaps it is and perhaps it isn't. You can't say, though, unless you see it for yourself.

You can't experience art secondhand. No one can. The experience is always too personal and individual for that. What may strike you as crass sensationalism might "work" for someone else. Andy Warhol comes to mind right off, as does Judy Chicago. The work of the former doesn't tend to speak to me while the work of the latter does. Who can say why?
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You mean this?

chicago-dinnerparty.jpg


I never really liked postmodernist excesses. It does have it's good points though. I generally liked stuf in the modernist period the best, although, really, impressionism was more beautiful in itself.

I can't get Cubism no matter what.

Picasso-The_Guitar_Player-Analytic%20Cubism.jpg
 
What I really don't like is the way modern art has completely abandoned any semblance of respect for aesthetic beauty and just paints things like, well, teddy bears being birthed from penis's as the virgin Mary.

The same trend holds for any kind of art, be it music, painting, or books.
 
I mean, I've looked at Andy Warhol's work. I get it. It's about consumerism. Wow. You have painted Marylin Monroe in different colors. It shows generic consumerism. Thankyou Andy. Now lets move on.
 
You have to see her work firsthand, WM. A photo, no matter how good, doesn't convey it. Even then there's no guarantee: there's something ineffable about art.

I used to think I hated Picasso. Never saw the point. Then, one day, I was dragged to an exhibition at the S.F. Fine Arts Museum in Golden Gate Park. A woman I was dating, naturally. That day, for whatever reason, seeing the originals with the brushwork and as they were intended, it all clicked. Okay, I don't really hate Picasso. Not all of his stuff anyway.
 
OrnotBitwise said:
You have to see her work firsthand, WM. A photo, no matter how good, doesn't convey it. Even then there's no guarantee: there's something ineffable about art.

I used to think I hated Picasso. Never saw the point. Then, one day, I was dragged to an exhibition at the S.F. Fine Arts Museum in Golden Gate Park. A woman I was dating, naturally. That day, for whatever reason, seeing the originals with the brushwork and as they were intended, it all clicked. Okay, I don't really hate Picasso. Not all of his stuff anyway.
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Ornot, you can never be truly considered avante-garde until you've listed to all three parts of The Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray" and enjoyed it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyhCG6GT2jY&feature=related

That's the first part. In the middle of recording, the sound engineer walked out of the studio, and yelled "I don't have to listen to this!"
 
Watermark said:
What I really don't like is the way modern art has completely abandoned any semblance of respect for aesthetic beauty and just paints things like, well, teddy bears being birthed from penis's as the virgin Mary.

The same trend holds for any kind of art, be it music, painting, or books.
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Yes. Very perspicacious of you. This trend toward shock art and empty 'deconstructive' formalism, is an attack on narrative structure itself, which is an attack on humanity and individuality.
 
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