Is this a misuse of tax money?

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Chevand
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01 Dec 2010, 7:28 pm

Inuyasha wrote:

@ Chevand

I was making the point that there is a line when something is no longer art.

If you're talking about child pornography, I'll concede the point. I have always acknowledged that there is a line, insofar as legality is concerned.

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Additionally, if you do live in Canada you do not have a freedom of speech and in fact can be prosecuted for "hate speech" if you say comments about a particular religion (specifically Islam).

In the United States, laws like that won't stand.

I'll admit, I'm not Canadian by birth, so I'm probably not the best person to ask on this point. However, freedom of speech is enumerated among the rights guaranteed to Canadians in Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Admittedly, it has some exceptions-- but then, so does freedom of speech in the United States (like your example above, of child pornography).

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Again though, the issue is tax payer money being used in a manner that could violate Federal Law, you're not supposed to promote or shun a particular religion on the taxpayer's dime.

This is starting to sound like a broken record. We could go back and forth, you saying "The government shouldn't fund art for the purpose of offending Christians," and me saying "It wasn't the artist's intent to offend Christians", but that ultimately gets us nowhere, because neither of us is going to budge. Shall we agree to disagree? If I got absorbed in my argument before, you have to understand how passionate I feel about this, being an artist myself. This is my livelihood, after all. My right to express myself artistically is every bit as important to me as your faith is to you. This is my religion.

Inuyasha
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01 Dec 2010, 7:31 pm

Chevand wrote:

I don't want to take the time to find the primary sources, but the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is no longer worth the paper it is printed on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_H ... ontroversy

I realize it is wikipedia and the neutrality is disputed, but I'm busy with something else at the moment.

Philologos
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01 Dec 2010, 8:06 pm

"Everybody excretes and it stinks and that should not be hidden or denied. "

Sand, remind me not to visit you.

I do not deny that I excrete, but I have not felt a need to frame or bronze the result.

number5
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01 Dec 2010, 8:17 pm

Inuyasha wrote:

The fact is he did it to infuriate Christians and denigrate a religion.

No, this is far from fact. This is merely your own misguided interpretation driven by a self-centered mindset. The piece is about AIDS, not about you and your religion. It was created in memoriam of a former lover of the artist who died from AIDS.

Again, I must ask, how do you even know he was not a Christian himself? Is it not possible for one to experience internal conflict within their own religion?

And what about holy works displayed, shouldn't they be removed as they directly offend non-believers? For someones who cries an awful lot about intolerance towards others and undesired limitations on free speech, I simply must point out - wtf?

Sand
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01 Dec 2010, 9:24 pm

Inuyasha wrote:

Sand wrote:

Inuyasha wrote:

@ Chevand

I was making the point that there is a line when something is no longer art.

Additionally, if you do live in Canada you do not have a freedom of speech and in fact can be prosecuted for "hate speech" if you say comments about a particular religion (specifically Islam).

In the United States, laws like that won't stand.

Again though, the issue is tax payer money being used in a manner that could violate Federal Law, you're not supposed to promote or shun a particular religion on the taxpayer's dime.

Like a good many conservatives (the cleaned up name for reactionaries) the concept of spending money on something that might offend but forcibly educate the public about terrible things is more horrifying than anything else. Conservative people are basically money worshipers and public money spent for the public good horrifies them.

Seriously, you can claim all you want that it isn't something and the artist can rationalize all he wants. The fact is he did it to infuriate Christians and denigrate a religion. Christians aren't 2nd class citizens as much as you would like them to be. I have the right to complain about trash like that, and furthermore from a legal standpoint I would have the stronger case if it ended up in a lawsuit simply because tax money is involved. I could argue his piece violates free speech because of the tax money.

What is highly ironic and somewhat funny is your exposure as someone who has not comprehended in the least the basic thrust of all art. It is not about beauty or being inoffensive. It is about arousing emotions and the stronger the emotions aroused the better the art. When somebody looks at a piece of art and is bored, that art has failed totally. The extraordinary emotional reaction you derive from this effort indicates it must be a very good piece of art indeed. What is fascinating is that the message has totally missed you. That a few innocent ants crawling over an unliving representation of Jesus is more offensive to you than the unfortunate and frequently unnecessary terrible suffering of living humans says a great deal about your values. And that a few of your pennies may have contributed to this visual scream at the insensitivity of Christians as well as a great many others at this awful suffering gives me some ground to feel contempt for your shallow and unfeeling and ignorant judgment of this artist's effort to open the eyes of the public.

Philologos
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01 Dec 2010, 9:46 pm

"the basic thrust of all art. It is not about beauty or being inoffensive. It is about arousing emotions and the stronger the emotions aroused the better the art."

It took me a very long time to get understanding in this area. The mainstream doorkeepers do a very efficient job of brainwashing. THIS is art. THIS is poetry. THIS is music. And even though a mind - my mind - is instinctively dissatified by what is thrown at it, with no community of like minds - took me 30 plus years to find my first nearly matching mind.- it is very hard to come up with a satisfactory formulation ex nihilo.

Being on the scientist side of the seesaw, I took the doorkeepers' word for it that that WAS art, and that I could not GET art, and if I DID get art - someone;s poetry once in a rare while, for example - it could not possibly be good art.

Teaching enoughy, began to see - NOT there are different KINDS of MINDS - and Anrzejewski's science is not something I can do, amd my science Andrzejewski cannot fold himself around, and Bonnie's Art is not even close to Jim's and the poetry that speaks to me misses them both.

The art that fits my type of brain is not beauty based [nor Bonnie's nor Jim's, though Jim's comes close. Bonnie's relies on emotion, but a different style or range from your art, twould seem. Art that works on me is NOT emotion based - abstract pattern first and foremost.

Even if - perhaps especially if? - the art that matches you is close to that pushed by the doorkeepers, it is immensely important to remember that art is NOT one size fits all.

Universals are necessarily trivial.

marshall
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01 Dec 2010, 9:54 pm

Inuyasha wrote:

@ Chevand

I fail to see how ticking off a major demographic portion of the population at the artist, is a goal for an artist.

As for speaking for a larger segment of the population, actually I can in this case. First it is known in psychology that ants or other insects crawling over what is the equivalent to a corpse causes revulsion in humans. It can cause people to feel ill and even vomit. The fact the corpse is 'Jesus' indicates that the piece was intended to be derogatory towards Christians in some way shape or form.

Your logic is absurd. Have you seen "Passion of the Christ"? In that movie there was an uncut scene showing Jesus being disemboweled by a roman soldier while he was bleeding to death on the cross. Was that blasphemy? Was Mel Gibson, a devout Catholic, trying to offend Christians? It was certainly a grizzly and gruesome film, 100 times over this tame 4 minute segment.

Or is it just the fact that a homosexual created a film depicting Jesus that you find offensive? If that's the case, it says more about you than it says about the actual work of art.

Quote:

Would this same work have been made if it was derogatory towards Islam? Seriously, can the moral high ground arguement cause it isn't going to fly.

Well, thank God Christians are slightly more mature and have a slightly thicker skin than Muslims. The reason people tiptoe around Muslims is the fact that Muslim extremists have a known track record of reacting to perceptions of blasphemy by starting riots and issuing vigilante death warrants. Of course Christians used to act the exact same way going back a few centuries.

Last edited by marshall on 02 Dec 2010, 1:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Sand
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01 Dec 2010, 10:01 pm

Philologos wrote:

I more or less agree with you. Good art for me probably is not necessarily good for everyone because we are constituted emotionally differently. But there is some art that reached a majority of people and has a high emotional impact. And some art that I greatly appreciate required a basic education into means and methods and aims and social context. Shakespeare and e.e. cummings and Jackson Pollock and Malevitch and the painter Bacon are not for everyone. Superman and Mickey Mouse are undoubtedly art and find a rather wide appreciative audience.

Inuyasha
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02 Dec 2010, 1:09 am

number5 wrote:

Inuyasha wrote:

The fact is he did it to infuriate Christians and denigrate a religion.

Hence he wanted to insult and infuriate Christians. Seriously, you are really gullible if you actually believe the artist's explanation.

number5 wrote:

Again, I must ask, how do you even know he was not a Christian himself? Is it not possible for one to experience internal conflict within their own religion?

Generally a Christian wouldn't express their internal conflict in that manner.

number5 wrote:

And what about holy works displayed, shouldn't they be removed as they directly offend non-believers? For someones who cries an awful lot about intolerance towards others and undesired limitations on free speech, I simply must point out - wtf?

A lot of those 'holy works' that are displayed are also historical artifacts. You suggesting we ought to destroy historical texts, artifacts, etc. just cause you don't like the fact it isn't politically correct. This artist's 'work' is only a few years old at most, artifacts like the shroud of turin are at least a few hundred years old if not over 1900 years old (depends on the sample taken as far as what the age is).

marshall
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02 Dec 2010, 3:28 am

Inuyasha wrote:

number5 wrote:

Inuyasha wrote:

The fact is he did it to infuriate Christians and denigrate a religion.

Hence he wanted to insult and infuriate Christians. Seriously, you are really gullible if you actually believe the artist's explanation.

So because the creator of the film was gay, he obviously hates Jesus? That's what this is really about, right? Just because your mind is projecting something doesn't mean it's real.

I just watched the film on youtube, and my reaction was kind of meh. I didn't care for it personally, but the artists intent obviously wasn't blasphemy. Christ on the cross is symbol of suffering and betrayal.

auntblabby
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02 Dec 2010, 5:34 am

Inuyasha wrote:

As for speaking for a larger segment of the population, actually I can in this case. First it is known in psychology that ants or other insects crawling over what is the equivalent to a corpse causes revulsion in humans. It can cause people to feel ill and even vomit. The fact the corpse is 'Jesus' indicates that the piece was intended to be derogatory towards Christians in some way shape or form.

why do you believe it is impossible, that the artist is NOT dissing christ but is instead dissing the small-minded "piss-ant" [visual pun] literalists who have taken over the american church [christianity] and left it fodder for irrelevance and obsolescence?

Vexcalibur
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02 Dec 2010, 7:54 am

Quote:

UPDATE: In a statement released on Tuesday, Martin Sullivan, director of The Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery, said a video depicting Jesus on a crucifix covered in ants will be removed from an exhibit at the museum.

"I regret that some reports about the exhibit have created an impression that the video is intentionally sacrilegious," the statement read. "In fact, the artists's intention was to depict the suffering of an AIDS victim. It was not the museum's intention to offend. We are removing the video today. The museum's statement at the exhibition's entrance, 'This exhibition contains mature themes,' will remain in place."

Thank you religious biggots, you have succeeded at censoring a perfectly good art piece that had a message with it.

And you guys think you are less fundamentalistic than the muslims. Yet you keep yelling "If you did this to muhammed they wouldn't forgive you".

_________________
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Philologos
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02 Dec 2010, 8:42 am

"But there is some art that reached a majority of people and has a high emotional impact. And some art that I greatly appreciate required a basic education into means and methods and aims and social context. Shakespeare and e.e. cummings and Jackson Pollock and Malevitch and the painter Bacon are not for everyone. Superman and Mickey Mouse are undoubtedly art and find a rather wide appreciative audience."

Well, let me basically agree with you back - though I have never been made aware of the painter Bacon and e.e.cummings perturbs me - too great an angle to my mental axis.

In fact, the type of art certified by the doorkeepers is geared for a majority mindset - though they do set the wavelength high enough to keep the naive guessing.

And of course there is the phenomenon of mind A and mind B, neither without sophistication, observing the same art and perceiving different elephants.

How do you see Esscher?

Sand
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02 Dec 2010, 8:47 am

Philologos wrote:

Escher is a wonderful draftsman and great with optical puzzles. You'd probably like Bridget Riley and Vasarely.

number5
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02 Dec 2010, 9:33 am

Inuyasha wrote:

number5 wrote:

Inuyasha wrote:

The fact is he did it to infuriate Christians and denigrate a religion.

Hence he wanted to insult and infuriate Christians. Seriously, you are really gullible if you actually believe the artist's explanation.

number5 wrote:

Again, I must ask, how do you even know he was not a Christian himself? Is it not possible for one to experience internal conflict within their own religion?

Generally a Christian wouldn't express their internal conflict in that manner.

Eyes wide shut.

Philologos
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02 Dec 2010, 9:49 am

Sand - Looked up Bacon ['satiable curtiosity at work]. I can see why Margaret Thatcher [met her once] was put off. Looking at his stuff I can see he is saying something [I can NOT see that for all of them]. Not in my language, nor to my address, but the fact remains, and counts for something. I will have to ask my wife for an opinion. She parses emotive art.

Heard of Vasarely - him, yes, I can read.

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