“Controvertial artworks can be very attractive and very famous, it can be made using different techniques.”
Controvertial artists make artwork that turns the meaning of the artwork around opposite to the original meaning.They are often artworks that shows an anti- authority meaning and often got to do with culture and religions. Most controvertial artworks are always defined as vandlism artworks, and most of the published controvertial artworks are being complained and wanted to be put down by lots of people. Banksy and Andres Serrano are one of the best controvertial artists in the world, there are different characteristics to their artwork. Most of the controvertial artists has been fed up with the society, and their controvertial artworks shows what they want.
“Controvertial artworks can be very attractive and very famous, it can be made using different techniques.” Wiki
I will use Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ’s as an example to discuss. It is a photograph taken by the artist of a small plastic crucifix with jesus on it, and jesus and the crucifix is in a glass full of the artist’s urine. There is a rumour saying that the glass also contains the artist’s blood. This artwork became the winner of the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art's "Awards in the Visual Arts" competition.
This artwork show the ideas of freedom of speech. Why is this artwork controversial? Jesus is god, he represents holy,loyalty, faith, trust, but he was put on a cross, he was suffering, but it was because of the people who has a big power which made him been put on a cross because he said things that some people disagrees, and in these days, people who has power are the ones who controls us. In this picture, the power people represents the Governments, politicians, Bosses, etc, all the people who controls us. They are the ones who made all the rules and makes us do what they wanted us to do, we are not allowed to say alot of things, we have to obey them. Urine represents disgust, look down, lower class, ignorance, dirty, waste. The artist put urine on it is because he want to tell those people with power to “piss off” “we want to have what we want, we want to be free”. This is how it became controversial, with the complementary of Jesusand urine.
“The piece caused a scandal when it was exhibited in 1989, with detractors accusing Serrano of blasphemy and others raising this as a major issue of artistic freedom.”
The art and cultural difference of this artwork is that for the artistic people, because art for them is to create any work out of their imagination, what ever they think of nomatter it offends people or not, they just make it. Nevertheless, for some cultures, like Christians, the artist put urine on the person they believe in the most (Jesus), they would be very offended and insulted by the artist’s artwork.
It is very unethical for artists to make artwork that offend other people, especially works that insults the culture. The intension of making it is just to express themselves, but the consequence of expressing themselves ends up being hated by certain people or culture. The origin of beauty of controversial artwork is the original meaning of the work, the meaning that shows anti- authority. The better the artwork gives a message (nomatter if it is offended to people or not) to the people in soviety, that is called a good piece of art.
I chose this topic is mainly because I am an art student, and art is one of my favourite subject. My theme in art is Street art, street art are for artists to communicate to the big society through artworks which has been made on different surfaces around the street, and in street art, controvertial art is a very important technique in it. My personal opinion is that controversial artworks that offends people are still artwork, and is a type of art, I think that it is acceptable to have work like this sometimes, and for the people who feel offended, BAD LUCK, such as life, because we have the freedom of speech.
