Thursday - January 20, 2011
The Death of Art
Or conversely, the art of death? Something like that. “performance art” reaches new lows in the UK, sensationalizing physical and moral putrescence. Peiper has noted this several times before. We have it here in the USA as well. Deranged members of the unwashed far left bring out pieces of “shock art” in attempts to hammer their way past the shield of inurement so many of us have developed in response to the overstimulation of the modern world. But it doesn’t seem to be done to remind us of our humanity. No, it is not done to refresh our awareness of pain, hurt, depravity, or the more rancid aspects of the natural world. Were that the reason, perhaps I could be more accepting. From everything that I can see, this crap is done just to glorify horror and evil, and to add darkness to our lives. Then they look down their noses at us plebes when we call a spade a spade and label their trash as the trash it is: no, it’s art, they say. You’re just so uncool and simple you can’t realize it. Balderdash!
Here are two examples. I am NOT running the pictures, they are at the links. Consider this an open thread and have your say: maybe Peiper and I are old sticks in the mud, and we can’t see past the poop to see the wonder within. Illuminate us with your erudite elucidations if that is how you see it; change us for the better if you can. But I promise that task won’t be easy. My definition of art is that which adds beauty/glory/perfection to the world; that which enhances the human experience and brings us one small step closer to the angels. You’ve got your work cut out for you if you feel you can argue me into accepting that toasting a loose bowel movement on a pink painted waffle iron is art enough of any kind to enhance anything other than my disgust. But have at it if you will.
PS - in both our countries a very large part of things like these are publicly funded. So it’s your tax money at work; art for our own good I guess, brought to us plebes by our betters.
Instance One:
New Production of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni features gang rapes done by actors wearing Christ T-shirts
A new version of Don Giovanni which includes a gang rape by a group of masked men wearing Jesus Christ t-shirts was today causing a storm in the West End. Critics accused producers of going ‘too far’ - and have been accused of trying to be sensationalist to attract a younger audience. The English National Opera (ENO) production which contains two rape scenes has been described by a reviewer as ‘brutal, ugly and crawl’. [typo for cruel?]
Lothario, played by Iain Paterson, is charactarised as a ‘seedy rapist’ in the production - rather than a selfish seducer of woman. But producers of the 18th century opera by Mozart said today they were ‘pushing the barriers of what opera can be’. The show which is courting controversy at London’s Coliseum is the first by Rufus Norris - a producer who has previously worked as a theatre director.
Oliver Condy, editor of BBC Music, today accused the ENO of using the rape scenes to boost audiences. ‘Don Giovanni is a shocking opera about a man who treats woman in a disgusting fashion. There is no point shying away from it and giving the audience a sanitised version,’ he told The Sunday Telegraph.
Comments by two normal patrons of the arts:
“Filth, sensationalism and being offensive is what these ‘sophisticated artistic’ types resort to to disguise their lack of talent and creativity.”
Instance Two:
The Damien Hirst exhibit where thousands of maggots mature into flies… and then feast on abandoned barbecue
His controversial art has included a pickled shark, a rotting cow and a human skull encrusted with 8,601 diamonds
But Damien Hirst’s latest installation, on display at London’s Royal Academy of Arts, may be his most skin-crawling to date.
Let’s Eat Outdoors Today features a perspex box in which thousands of flies plague an abandoned barbecue. ["perspex" is English for “plastic” or “Lucite™"] The piece is divided in two with one side featuring maggots lying in trays on a barbecue while they slowly develop in to flies. In the other side, linked to the first by a small hole, four perspex chairs sit around a table laid for a roast chicken meal complete with beer and wine.
Ominously for the thousands of inhabitants of the sculpture, there is also a large fly-zapping machine that electrocutes them if they make contact.
It is the controversial 45-year-old’s contribution to the Academy’s Modern British Sculpture Exhibition which opens this weekend. In an email exchange with the sculptor Keith Wilson, who has co-curated the Royal Academy exhibition, Hirst explained the thinking behind the exhibit, which he originally devised in 1990.
He said: ‘I was thinking about how we all avoid dirt, but we all ultimately go back into dirt. I was very interested in how we were trying to isolate the horror from our lives and remove it.”
Let’s Eat Outdoors Today follows on from Hirst’s previous work A Thousand Years. This featured maggots hatching into flies that feed on a severed cow’s head. The insects are then fried by another fly-killer.
Follow the link for other examples of Hirst’s bizarre fixation with death, including a whole zebra floating in formaldehyde, and a dead lamb encased in plexiglass.
Comments one True Believer:
To which I respond, “Crack is whack!”, as does this other fuddy-duddy:
Posted by Drew458 on 01/20/2011 at 08:28 PM
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