Digital BW, The Print

I sometimes respect opinions (Only sometimes?  I am only human after all.)  Sometimes I share them.  Sometimes I don't.  

I think the exhibit in question (of eviscerated bodies in Germany) is not only repulsive in an esthetic sense, but also repulsive in a humanitarian sense.  

I see no art in the display of mutilated bodies. Period.  (tattooed or pierced folks may of course disagree).  

I see no art in the display of a corpse (plastic coated/injected) holding in one "hand' a brain of a man and in the other hand the brain of a horse, while displayed like a manequin.  

I see no art in the display of a preserved foetus in the exposed womb of a dead woman.  No art at all. 

The art of DaVinci?  I see his anatomical drawings as art...as drawings.  

Does the art of the corpse exhibitor compare?  Not even close.  

DaVinci used his drawings to study form for his works which included the flesh, namely sculptures (some of art's most beautiful) and paintings. 

The exhibitor has real corpses playing chess, riding a horse, and positioned in faux tableau that mimic paintings.  

How is this different from thousands of years of drawings or paintings depicting skeletons or bodies or ghosts or anatomy?  I think the difference is that the exhibit in question presents the bodies for entertainment purposes, for "art."  Yet these are not wax manequins at Madame Toussads.

I wish I could articulate this with the language that would seem sophisticated to those that need that sort of language to argue a position.  Instead, I am left with simple "disgust" and the disbelief that anyone would consider it "art."

I suppose it boils down to my revulsion at the thought that anyone could take real human bodies, cut them up ("in a drawer fashion like a Picasso") and display them for entertainment.  

Steadman
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: SKID Photography 
  To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2001 11:48 PM
  Subject: Re: [Digital BW] ART-what is it?


  Tyler Boley wrote:

  > --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., SKID Photography <skid@b...>
  > wrote:
  > snip...
  > The exhibit is not that
  > > different from the famous DaVinci drawings in his sketch books.  He
  > broke into morgues and made detailed
  > > drawings of essentially filleted people parts and how the human body
  > was put together.
  >
  > Harvey, I agree with everything you said in general. But somehow,
  > personally, I feel this particular show is different than the
  > DaVincis, I can't articulate why.
  > Aren't you the one who said I don't know what art is, but I know it
  > when I see it?

  Oh yes...I used that quote.  But it's not the art aspect that I was addressing, it was the revulsive rejection
  of the 'imagery' (if you will).

  Harvey Ferdschneider
  partner, SKID Photography, NYC





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