I know that isn’t news, but here are the latest examples of grotesqueness for its own sake masquerading as art:
The ant covered Jesus on display at the Smithsonian:
and the 7/7 London bombing with four angels, one for each of the bombers:
Both works are intended to shock. Sadly, that seems to be all Western art has left to offer: no meaning, no beauty no transcendence, just shock – each shock more shocking than the last.
Bankrupt art for a bankrupt civilisation
” … all Western art has left to offer: no meaning, no beauty, no transcendence, just shock – each shock more shocking than the last. Bankrupt art for a bankrupt civilisation” – absolutely right (though I fancy you mean ‘former-civilisation’), and, really, LESS shocking – just what will they do when nothing whatsoever shocks any longer?
The David W peice is not meant to shock, it is meant to mourn, and to anger about the plague that took him and his commrades. On this day of all days, Christian compassion and understanding might be useful.
I am at a loss as to why you think ants crawling on Jesus isn’t meant to shock.
David Ward admitted as much when he said:
And how is it relevant to anything? Why not have a picture – and I don’t mean to shock when I say this – of mosquitoes crawling over Peter Tatchell to illustrate the devastation caused by malaria, instead? It would make as much sense.
I remember not too long ago when the Conservative government of Stephan Harper presented one of its first budgets. Government subsidise for “art” was being reduced. The left wing cried fowl, and I recall some people even saying things like great civilizations have always produced great art because the government of those great civilizations have always greatly supported the arts. So what does this “art” say about us?
Although I have always thought that so called “great” governments subsidized art as a means of propoganda.
Screen captures and clips of the work show it to be a short, relatively tame scene. Dark, splotchy insects crawl over a plastic figurine, profane in the way that any physically disturbing painting of Jesus is profane. Wojnarowicz doesn’t blaspheme; his commentary is on loss of faith and doubt, a despairing image rather than one meant to shock.
Blake Gopnik, Washington Post.
The body of Christ depicted as returning to the earth, in the eternal good friday that marks the corperal suffering of us all, is holy. Has your body never failed you, David? Have you never felt lonely, ever had a loss of faith or doubt? How would you depict the holiness of that desert moment?
As for funding, lets make a deal, Harper can quit funding the arts if at the same time he avoids funding new imperial adventures