Conflict inevitably exists between what the creative artist needs to say and what an audience wants to hear. Artistically and culturally, many people are conservative and easily offended by what is different or new. Moral judgements may simply disguise lack of artistic taste and poor judgement. Artists, by definition creative, look for new things to say and new ways in which to say them. However, not all innovations are great art or improve society. Do demands for artistic freedom simply seek to justify inferior work and disguise lack of talent?
Those making ethical rather than cultural judgements about artistic freedom should consider: -
How will society benefit?
What are the artist’s underlying motives? Does he/she seek to challenge, offend or explore?
What are the motives of the audience? Does it seek to appreciate, judge or find fault?
Would restrictions remove an artist’s right to choose?
“In New York at the Brooklyn Museum an exhibition called the Sensations erupted a mushroom cloud of criticism and controversy that made Serranno look like a staff photographer for Boys' Life. The tabloid press whipped the knee-jerk, ignorant Catholic populace into a Jihad-like frenzy with reports of a shit-smeared Madonna, and for the first opening weeks the museum surrounded with thousands of protesters fighting in defence of the Virgin Mother over an inanimate image that they had never bothered to see. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals stepped over the homeless population, the drug addicts, the welfare mothers, and passed by dozens and dozens of McDonalds and Burger Kings to let their voice sing out on behalf of the animal carcasses in the show. Concern over this particular right-wing segment of society, who contribute to the abortion debate with firearms and bombs and express their opinion of homosexuals by beating them to death and hanging them on fences, caused the museum to station armed guards and airport metal detectors at the entrance, the detectors so sensitive that they found metal on me that security at JFK airport let slide just the week before. People, New Yorkers even more scared of being jarred out of their little comfort zone, more scared of a piece of canvas, than they are of a dictatorial government making sweeping decisions over what they can and cannot see.”
Below is some of the work at the Sensation’s exhibition. You may decide it is art, you may decide it is not. The important thing, the vital thing, is that you were given the choice to decide. Please do not forsake that. The day you do is the day you officially become a slave.
Is this Art?
You are greeted by the towering presence of Marcus Harvey's first piece in the exhibition, a black and white portrait of a 60's era bouffant-ed woman. At first, the work isn't terribly impressive or shocking; ... until you start inquiring about the name, ... "Myra" is a portrait of Myra Hindley, an infamous British serial killer who preyed upon children. The further you stand away, the clearer the image becomes, but if you get close, you realize that those are not brush-strokes or even ink splatters, they’re handprints. Small handprints. You gaze up at the piece as it towers above you and realize the artist created the piece using plaster casts, made from the hands of little children. In its homeland, this piece incited such rancour in people that they would physically attack the canvas
Another part of the works of Marcus Harvey are a series of rich, textural paintings based on the photography of amateur photos of reader's wives and mistresses sent to cheap porno magazines. In addition to exacting textile patterns for the backgrounds, the women are illustrated with lavish brush-strokes, rich colours, and frantic movements that always imply motion. In this series of painting, Harvey combines abstract impressionism and porn, mating high and low art in a single piece, highlighting simultaneously both the objectifying of women and also the power and sway they hold over men via the most base emotions.
Is Marcus Harvey pushing the barrier? Is his freedom to express gone too far?
Great Deeds Against the Dead, by Jake and Dinos Chapman
This collaborative team present this piece, a life-sized tribute to the piece from 19th Century master Goya's etching of the same name. But just as Goya strove to portray the horrors of war and man's inhumanity towards man, the brothers Chapman take it a step further, working with mannequins as a medium; the victims of the piece, although posed perfectly to mimic the original work, are plastic and fake and their hair and moustaches are bad nylon wigs. Even as it makes a comment on the way we cheapen the life of our fellow man, it's still a haunting piece.
Do these artists have the right to express their ideas and thoughts in this way? Do these pieces of work offend and challenge society? Is the judgement we make ‘it is morally wrong’ just a disguised version of the expression ‘I don’t like it?’