Art (though subjective): "the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance."
According to www.dictionary.com
Quite simply, controversial art is a piece of work that has the potential to evoke both a negative or positive reaction from the audience thus causing a dispute.
Before I begin this structured critical response, I will show an example of one piece of controversial art I decided to cover:
Gregor Schneider - 'The Beauty of Death', 2008A German exhibition artist named Gregor Schneider, born 5th April 1969, decided to set up an exhibit which showed a woman dying in a public art gallery.
"I want to show a person, which dies a natural death or just died a natural death. My target is to show the beauty of death." He said to The Art Newspaper in April 2008.
Sure enough, the exhibition received negative criticism and was subject to ridicule by the public and critics, resulting in skewed conception from tabloid journalists and death threats to Schneider via phone and E-mail. Yet Schneider insisted his intention had been misconceived and that he wasn't abusing his artistic freedom. He stated that he wanted to lead death away from taboo and to turn it into a positive experience such as birth.
"There is nothing perverse about a dying person in an art gallery." He said to The Guardian in April 2008. To gather primary feedback to this statement from the general public, I composed my own survey to be informed, first-hand, on the majority's response.
I began with the question, "What do you consider to be 'art'?" as I feel the meaning is subjective.
I was interested in the response from the people who actually appreciated Schenider's 'The Beauty of Death'.
Most agreed with the option, "Art is something that has no function but evokes a reaction/emotion to it", which suggests they may also consider Schneider's exhibition to be art too as it falls into that category.
I then asked whether Schneider's exhibition should be banned or not.
Roughly 60% of the public who voted seemed unsure on their view of the exhibition.
They could see that it was potentially controversial but they appreciated the freedom of expression.
The word 'ethical' plays an important part in this particularly piece of controversial art.
Ethical: "pertaining to or dealing with morals or the principles of morality; pertaining to right and wrong in conduct."
Because the art revolves around the witnessing of a public death of a human-being, it would immediately seem immoral and fundamentally wrong, especially as the human-being is to die in a public art gallery - a place where visually interesting artwork is displayed and admired every day. The fact the death would take place in an art gallery, which isn't a particularly customary place to die and never has been, would undoubtedly cause people to believe the entire situation is as similar to a tourist attraction or a circus act and therefore would be somewhat derogatory to the person who agreed to die in such circumstances.
This doesn't seem to be the intention of the artist, Gregor Schneider. By reading his quotes and statements on this exhibition, he seemed adament to state that he didn't condone any disrespect or exploitation of any human-being.
Then why do it? What are Schneider's intentions?
Schneider's 'Beauty of Death' does evoke both negative and positive reactions which caused dispute.
Maybe Schneider's intention was to create discord on such a sensitive subject so that people could develop their views. The fact some people would strongly disagree with it helps install the art into the entire exhibit (assuming the art lies in the controversy).
The exhibit has created a mood and an opinion as opposed to a conventional eye-pleasing visual that we are traditionally used to considering as 'art'.
This is reason why most people voted their opinion of 'art' as being 'the message and meaning behind a piece of work'.
Gregor Schneider claimed his intention for this project was, "to liberate death from its taboo, to make it a positive experience, like the birth of a child" (The Art Newspaper, 2008), by placing the dying or dead lady in a room that had been specifically designed for her. Generally, death has never been considered a positive experience and it seems like too much to ask of everyone to find any strong visual merit in this exhibition.
His other aim, as quoted, was to depict the 'beauty of death', suggesting the beauty isn't actually visible to the eye; that the beauty is actually the death itself when the dying person is in total comfort.
The third question didn't seem to gain a strong, definite answer from the majority, with 63% of the public agreeing that they felt "indifferent" about Schneider's exhibition.
In all honesty, judging by the reception it immediately received when the exhibition was first announced, this isn't what I was expecting.
Yet the reponses to the forth question, in my estimation, appeared to have been given by the same people who agreed that art was something that caused an emotion or reaction. This is determined by the majority agreeing that Schneider's 'Beauty of Death 'exhibit was, in their opinion, art!
Usually, when a piece of work isn't appreciated in such a way, the definition of art itself seems to be subtracted or dismissed.
However, with this particular exhibition, this doesn't seem to be the case.
The option 'No - there is nothing artistic about death' seems a little short-sighted and closed-minded about art, suggesting that death can't possibly be artistic in any form. Yet death is in fact mysterious and a subject we, as a race, haven't fully been able to understand or conceive. The questions, "Where do we go after we die?" or "Is there life after death?" heavily circulate around the world continuously. The mere fact death is so incomprehensible could indeed mean 'art' can respond to these unanswered questions, helping the viewer draw his/her own conclusion about it. It surprised me that the majority of the public agree with me in their own ways by voting 'Yes'.
For my final question, I closed with 'Should controversial art be banned?'.
Approximately 70% of the public agreed with the statement that artistic freedom shouldn't be banned. This can be debatable - as some would say that Schneider's actually abusing his artistic freedom by touching on a sensitive nerve.
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