Learn From It

I think what drove me crazy about the dung/Mary fiasco is it was completely devoid of cultural context. Wasn't the dung supposed to symbolize fertility?

What drove me craszy about both works of "art" was that it took no creativity or artistic expression to create either--just a sick, demented mind and a lust for controversy. Anyone who accepts this shit as art has shit for brains.

Yeah, jeff, keep feeding your lemmings--the two or three who post here--the fear of losing their freedom of expression. What a crock.

*YOU* didn't think it took any creativity. YOU decide what's art and what's not? That's quite telling.

I don't have lemmings following me. Those types are boring. Any lemmings are boring.

Don't you ever worry about losing YOUR freedom of expression, even insofar as you seem to use it only to ape the extremism of the right wing?

Maybe you should go back to the Dutch Realism period where you belong.

I don't have lemmings following me.

Funny, the two or three comments I've found here reek of lemmingism.

So, jeffie, I ape the extremism of the right wing, and you ape the extreme atheism of the left wing. What's the difference, little buddy?

What do you have against Dutch Realism?

I said *seem*, Keefer. Or don't you pay attention to anything besides the "hot" words?

I come to my own conclusions based on a longer-term and bigger-picture view of things than anything I have seen from the Right.

You, on the other hand, go right for the diminuitives, make broad categorizations after reading "two or three comments" and take a literal tack on my comment about Dutch Realism. I have nothing against Dutch Realism. Do you even know what it is, art expert?

When's the last time you saw someone on the Right appreciate any art besides hateful reproachments to Liberals? when's the last time you heard a Liberal "giving dittos"?

Ah, keefer. In real life he's a frustrated failure. His lack of friends sends him to the internet, where ironically he does nothing but drive people away. It's sad, but he's best ignored.

Thanks for posting these images. Ofili's Mary has been on my mind lately, as I got so pissed off reading a recent local (SoCal) letter to the editor. The jackass was responding to articles/letters related to the anti-Muslim cartoons controversy, in which writers had posited: "What if Christianity were attacked in such a manner." The letter writer said [paraphrase]: "What do you mean, 'if'? How about that so-called artwork from a few years back of the Virgin Mary with dung thrown at her? [emphasis added] We were forced to tolerate that and didn't riot in the streets, etc."

It was obvious the idiot had never really seen the work in question -- elephant dung was basically one of the media used to render the image (and yes, as someone mentioned, it was supposed to have Nigerian cultural significance, and also related to the fact that dung is used in some traditional Nigerian artworks). It's not as if one can tell that "dung" is even part of the picture -- it's similar to saying that a painting done in tempera is one in which "eggs were thrown at" or "smeared on" the subject. [Probably more objectionable in this case is the fact that the "butterflies" flitting around Mary are actually composed of cut out photos of women's nude buttocks from porn magazines.] "Art critics" of this type basically reveal their own stupidity, especially when what they're commenting on is the hype surrounding something (or their memory of the hype, as in the above case), rather than the work itself.



And also, for all we know, Serrano could have submerged that crucifix in yellow-tinted water, photographed it, told everyone it was piss, and it would have generated just as much controversy -- proving the fact that it's what one BELIEVES about something, rather than any so-called "objective" truth that makes it inflammatory, threatened with censorship, etc.



Save us from all this bullshit, someone, please!