Renowned Indian painter M.F.Hussain’s death has put the debate on artistic freedom and religious tolerance back in to news. Attempts to attack art is something which has been going on for quite some time and we can find endless examples of it. In 1999, a man who escaped a psychiatric clinic, took to Picasso's Femme nue devant le jardin (Woman Nude Before A Garden) with a blunt knife. The same man had earlier acid attacked on Rembrandt's The Night Watch. His Self Portrait was attacked with yellow paint by Vincent Bethell, Britain's notorious nudist activist at the National Gallery in London. In 1993, Jubal Brown, vomited Blue paint over Piet Mondrian's Composition (1933) also known as Composition in Red, White and Blue at the Museum Of Modern Art; New York. In 21 May, 2000 at the Tate Modern, London, two men were arrested for peeing on Marcel Duchamp's Fountain one of the urinals he signed "R.Mutt in 1917.
Many of these attacks involve either an artist who is acting on behalf of their own artistic ideals or a person who attacks an icon of the culture we live in such as a Rembrandt or Picasso, that themselves were worshiped in a manner otherwise reserved for religious worship. (Some of these attacks itself could be seen as a belief system comparable to a religion though.) But at the same time some attempts are art in itself. Like this Bansky work
Then there is a second type of attack mainly Iconoclasm, which can be defined as the act of breaking or destroying images, especially religious ones. That is more dangerous than the above examples. Here art is simply being damaged, just because it is against someone’s religious faith.
It could be argued that this same religious fervor that drove Moses to break the statue is similar to the drive behind most art crimes today. Discounting attacks on art that are directly related to religious iconography. Controversial artworks have been produced by artists throughout history that really test the tolerance level of the society. Some parts of society lay scorn and criticism on these works, unable or unwilling to appreciate the artist's vision. In a free society, artists should be able to create any type work that their talent, means and imagination they can come up with, whether it offends certain people or not.
Many critiques(?) of Hussain were wondering how people would have reacted if Jesus or Allah were expressed in art in a way which is not familiar to the popular assumption of the same. The prophet cartoon example is so notorious that it doesn’t need to be reminded again. Here are a few other works of art, caused quite a bit of controversy in recent times for religious reasons in Christianity which many think is a more tolerant religion.
1.Piss Christ is a controversial photograph by U.S. artist Andres Serrano. It shows a small plastic crucifix supporting the body of Jesus Christ submerged in a glass of the artist's urine. The piece was a winner of the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art's "Awards in the Visual Arts" competition.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. However, art critic and Catholic Nun Sister Wendy Beckett actually approved of "Piss Christ".Piss Christ is often used as a test-case for the idea of freedom of speech, and was described in the journal Arts & Opinion as "a clash between the interests of artists in freedom of expression on the one hand, and the hurt such artworks may cause to a section of the community on the other."
2.Renée Cox's Yo Mama’s Last Supper is a 15-foot-tall photograph of a nude African-American woman portraying Jesus, surrounded by 12 black men portraying the disciples.
3.Chris Ofili's "Holy Virgin Mary"
In 1999, the city-funded Brooklyn Museum of Art came under fire when it exhibited a Chris Ofili painting of the Virgin Mary that featured sexually explicit cutouts covered with elephant dung. The Catholic Church, as well as New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, were outraged. Giuliani denounced the exhibit as morally offensive and threatened to cut off funding to the museum and terminate its lease if it did not cancel the exhibit that included Ofili’s painting. The city followed through and withheld the museum’s rent payment for October and filed a state lawsuit to get the lease revoked. As a countermeasure, the museum filed a suit in federal court against the city claiming violations of the first ammendment, and seeking a permanent injunction against the city to keep it from withholding funds. U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon, sided with the museum, and granted them a preliminary injunction. The city was also ordered to resume the museum's funding, and to stop any eviction proceedings.
the list goes on..
Related post: Art attack 1
1 comments:
great attempt. nice..
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