Help?

[x_cloud]

I'm having trouble with the art project. I'm supposed to do something controversial, but I don't really understand what is controversial. I read about other art that is considered controversial, but I don't understand WHY. It all just sounded like art to me. Does anyone have any ideas?

Comments

[x_cloud]

From: x_crowdofone
2004-04-07 08:52 am (local)

Maybe you could pick something controversial to do art about, instead of trying to make the art controversial all by itself?

[x_cloud]

From: x_rogue
2004-04-07 09:02 am (local)

That's so cute, Jane. :) I think the point is that it /is/ all art, it's just on topics that people already like to get upset about. Controversy is really anything that people have strong, differing opinions about. The art is to draw attention to the argument - or to an aspect of it or an idea - by forcing people to think outside of what makes them comfortable.

There was a man up in Canada who dressed women up in couture-wear made of meat, for example, or another who said he was going to make art by smashing a rat onto a canvas with a huge weight (he never did, by the way). In the latter case, the artist was making the point of how people can get so upset over the publicized death of one rat, because the media makes a deal about it, and yet have so little compassion anywhere else in their everyday lives. In the former case, the artist was making a point about vanity and beauty and the inevitability of decay, as well as the waste caused by the emphasis on beauty in society.

It seems to be that controversial art means crossing the boundaries that make people comfortable in order to make them think. Their reaction is as much part of the work of art as anything else. You're at a disadvantage (or not) because you don't know a lot about social boundaries, because you don't remember them. On the other hand, you could go ahead and play on that and create anything you want without prejudice, even about something you know other people have a problem with but you don't understand yourself, and use that as the basis for your artwork.


From: x_rogue
2004-04-07 09:08 am (local)

(Mind, I am just going off of what I have in my notes from /last/ year's art class about this time... the teacher for that was much more, um, traditional than the one you have now. Why don't you go ask him? He doesn't bite without permission.)


From: x_crowdofone
2004-04-07 09:12 am (local)

Or you could just do like Marie says, because wow. :)

From: x_rogue
2004-04-07 09:21 am (local)

I liked Art class.

(Is it terribly evil of me that I thought that the dress made of meat was just /so/ cool? How can anyone get upset over something that's such a /blatant/ commentary on consumerism and fashion... like somehow it's less humane to have the dead flesh of a cow hanging off you than it is to wear clothing and shoes pieced together by other human beings for pennies a day in horrendous, harmful conditions... at least the dress is honest.)


From: x_crowdofone
2004-04-07 09:31 am (local)

Well, maybe they were getting upset because the meat was starting to go? :)

And there's the part about how, this is just apparently the wrong kind of dead cow bits, because (as we've seen all kinds of times here, even) people don't have nearly as much of a problem with leather. I mean, that's kind of arbitrary (except for the going off part, and even there you could sew together, I dunno, beef jerky.) People get mad about the weirdest stuff.


From: x_rogue
2004-04-07 09:39 am (local)

But that was the idea, Jamie, that's why it was so cool... it was rotting and was hung in a special chamber on display and when it was totally rotted away, a new one was made. Everything decays and yet art/fashion is so invested in this perfect state where entropy can't touch it and people spend billions pursuing that state... I could write pages on the whole symbolism of it. It was a work of genius.

And, yes, people are wildly hypocritical, aren't they? It makes me laugh... because it's really hard to punch someone /too/ hard when you're laughing at them.


From: x_crowdofone
2004-04-07 09:50 am (local)

And everybody who saw it was pretty much guaranteed to see something different, because it was always changing. That is pretty cool.

I still hope the special chamber was airtight, though, because I've been around rotting beef before, and there's transgressing boundaries and then there's just plain icky. :)


From: x_cloud
2004-04-08 05:59 am (local)

Crossing boundaries that make people comfortable? Like, making them uncomfortable? I know how to do that, and I think I know what statement it makes, too. You've given me an idea! Thank you!

And wow, Jamie is right, just wow. You're totally into this. That's great! I know, you should be a guest-lecturer in our class some time! Or, well, I know that you're a teacher, but that doesn't mean that you can't be a student, too. You really love art, I can tell, why don't you come to class? And doing it not for a grade but for yourself would probably be relaxing. I don't know you very well, but from that post you made, I think a bit of relaxing would be good for you. Sorry if I'm overstepping.

[x_cloud]

From: x_wytchbrat
2004-04-07 02:24 pm (local)

The way I'm doing it is I thought of issues that were bound to get up people's noses (the usual - religion, politics, sex, vegetarianism *grins*) and then tried to think of an artistic way to make a statement about it. Not sure if it's gunna work, but I'm giving it a try.

And preparing a bolt hole if it works too well