I want to pick up on thread that was brought up by K. Hamilton in her post about Damien Hirst..."ART IS WHAT YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH". Maybe for Hirst it should be "ART IS WHAT YOU CAN MARKET AND SELL". The essential images are not that shocking when taken into context. What he has been doing has been done for years. His ideas have never been that great but his ability to make commodities, push them into the market place and have them go at super high prices sets him apart.
Let's talk about shock and subject matter. Take a look at Joel Peter Witkin(and it particular the two corpse heads kissing). In all of art, not much offends me but this crosses a line. He went to Mexico, where the laws are loose, got these corpses(these two are elderly twin brothers) from a morgue and photographed them. The problem here is consent. If an amputee, transgender adult dwarf consents to have their picture taken, fine. But the dead are not around to give their consent so leave them alone. You can be as gross or offensive as you want to be in your art, but being exploitive is wrong.
For my money Witkin and his corpses are more disturbing than Hirst and his animals. The difference is, Hirst's animals are real and automatically make better commodities and will command a higher price than a just photo.
And for you guys, this is all very interesting because images (can) have power. That's something nobody can deny. Subject matter is a very important choice to make. What do you want to say? It goes far beyond "personal expression".
So I finally looked up some of Witkin's work's and I really enjoyed alot of what's he's done, especially 'woman who was once a bird'. I saw the photograph of the two brothers and mixed in with his other works it doesn't seem any more shocking or out of place than the rest. It makes sense in the case of the artist. Moral issue, is something different. I personally think morals are very conceptual unset standards, they are strictly personal, and I think human life should be respected and honored, so for me, with the process of obtaining the photograph "theline" was crossed. But I'm glad these topics are debatable, I would be interested in hearing any aroused opinions.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, it depends on how much you value the body and how you view life. If a body is just an object and life goes on in some form after death (meaning there must be a soul or spirit or afterlife of some sort), then it doesn't matter, do whatever you want with it. But it might possibly be considered property in that case, in which the family most likely owns the rights to say what should be done with it. Even then, it's still just an object to be dealt with as others see fit. It's not a person so it doesn't automatically have to be treated with the respect you would accord someone living. If you really believe that the body isn't the thing that makes a person a person, if the physical existence isn't the important thing, then it shouldn't matter what happens to the body.
ReplyDeleteThen again, if you don't believe in the soul, maybe the body is still the person. In which case you are manipulating and messing with another person who deserves to be respected and treated well.
If you believe that both the soul and the body are important, then you have to find a middle ground. Corpses can't be as important as the living, but neither can they be considered objects.
These aren't the only two views, just my personal beliefs. I'm still figuring out whether or not I believe in a soul or spirit or afterlife or what have you. I'm just winging it for now and I'll sort it all out later.