little_tippler

I have posted a similar thread to this before but I found these two pieces of news compelling and had to post to see what you think.

In the first case, we have an artist who will be taking the body of an American convict (who was sentenced to death), freezing it and turning into fish food, that will be fed to fish by exhibition goers in an upcoming art exhibition, as a form of social commentary on the death penalty.

In the 2nd, we have an artist who says she has the supposedly stolen ashes of Kurt Cobain and has made them into a spliff which she will smoke (well, has smoked, by now) as part of her art show.

Is this art? Well if the social group that validates art conventions it to be, then it won't matter much what I think individually. Is it art to me? What is my personal opinion of these art works/ art projects?

Though I am against the death penalty, I don't see that the first work will have a great effect on changing the opinion of the majority of people who believe there should be a death penalty. It's too direct, gratuitous, and not particularly interesting to me, both visually or psychologically. It will be remembered solely as a provocation piece, something that crossed the line between art and life, so to speak. I also find the artist's thoughts on this incredibly naive and simplistic.

As for the 2nd piece, the only thing that has made it worth mentioning is the fact that they are Kurt Cobain's ashes, and not those of the lady from the corner shop or whatever. It is merely symbolic.

One things is clear: art and life seem to become ever more permeable as time goes on. As artists run out of novel ideas to put into action, they resort to further sensationalist and provocative extremes to get media attention and gain a place in the memory of art. Ironically, the artist who will smoke the joint says that she will, in this way, be releasing Kurt Cobain's soul away from the media circus.

I think art permeating life is a good thing. But to me these appear as perversions of that and I don't see how they bring anything positive or even earth-shattering to the fore that is worth the effort. Art that takes from experience and adds to it I will admire; to me this kind of art is less of a subversion of the norm or the mundane and more of an opportunistic way of playing with that new sense of what art can be today.

I also resent the way artists are portrayed as nutcases who just do what they do because they are "artists". It makes me mad. Give me intelligent, thoughtful art please!

__________________
Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.

Fernando Pessoa, 1918

little_tippler

thoughts? anyone? don't be shy!

__________________
Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.

Fernando Pessoa, 1918