eek.

{Consciously not using the name of the artist to avoid contributing to any media exposure that may be gained from the discussed show}

So, I am a little more than unexcited to see tonight's lecture. Judging by the accompanying show that's opening tonight at the school's gallery, it will be horrifying, enraging, and frustrating. Why?

Well, because the artist seems to be using the façade of "art" and its supporting critical language to commit violent acts and justify their value. Specifically, in the show that's opening here, there are six looped videos of a sheep, horse, ox, pig, goat, and a doe tied up to a wall, being hit over the head with a sledgehammer and falling to the ground dead. The videos are obviously not documentaries of these everyday acts -- the environment is controlled, and the brief loop of the few seconds before and after impact were consciously chosen. It's not about who is killing or why, simply that a living thing is being killed.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't understand why these moments constitute art, or even to be considered as a valid project. Besides these acts being pretty horrifying for me to watch, animals are killed every day all around the world for various reasons (food, sacrifice, illness, etc.). Other people don't seem to mind seeing them, so if the artist is aiming for shock value, this is a very narrow method that has limited value because of where, and by whom, the work is being seen. Yes, we're pansies in the city compared with all of those people "out there" who have to deal with Mother Nature and her stark realities. Is that the subject of the show? Not as far as I can tell. Even if it was the subject of the show, is this the best way to confront the matter? I don't think so. Is this the best way to confront whatever is the subject of this show? I can't tell what the subject of this show is, but I can tell that murdering things is never the best way to go about ANYTHING.

Let me take a moment here to address the choice of animals. I haven't heard or read anything that alludes to why these particular animals were chosen, why they were killed in this way, why the videos were edited as they are, or why violence is such a necessity in the expression of the artist's views in this show. So let's just look at what's plainly before us. We've got some typical domesticated, hoofed animals that are commonly found on farms around the world being raised for food and/or used for work. And a baby deer. In general, Western people are familiar with these animals -- perhaps not their corporeality, but probably their images and definitely their representations. Western people don't like to see the faces of the things we eat or employ to do hard labor to produce the things we eat, but we do enjoy charming cartoons of them encouraging us to eat them. And who ever got over the childhood scar-fest and eternal emotional red button that is Bambi? What kind of a gutless sucker-punch is that?

Anyway, the least I can gather from taking this choice of animals at face-value is that the artist is pointing toward.. well, maybe Eurasian domestication of those animals and their contribution to eventual Western cultural and political domination? Maybe Western people's removal from the reality of their food sources? (Although I did just hear a little American girl on a radio show proclaim that she eats the chickens she raises for showing and doesn't feel bad about it.. we're not all pansies.) Maybe Western people's romantic attachment to Animals and Things in Nature? Maybe pointing out that we feel angry and have a definite reaction to watching some of the most populous and most commonly abused animals being killed, when skyrocketing numbers of non-domesticated animals that we don't often see cartoons of are being killed by man-made environmental disasters? Maybe he's just poking fun at the "polar-bear huggers" again? It would be nice to know for sure. Then perhaps we could have a meaningful discussion about the relative merits of his project.

Regardless, though, of the underlying motivation(s), it is simply unnecessary to kill a living thing in order to participate in artistic practice. There are other ways to accomplish art-making and to join the ongoing conversation that is "art". And frankly, I think that it's admirable and necessary to work toward expressing our ideas without violence in everyday life, in politics, and yes, in art. Whatever kind of shelter people perceive "art" to be, it is also part of reality, and subject to scrutiny and moral imperatives, in my view. Is killing something or someone not murder if it's done in the name of "art" and if there are accompanying texts and personalities? What if the meat packing plant Westland/Hallmark employee recently sentenced to six months in jail and deportation said that his abuse of cows was part of his performance art? Would he be seen as a criminal or a provocateur?

In the pamphlet for the show, the curator claims that, "At once intimate and spectacular, [the artist's] work aims to convert the banal into the dramatic." Actually, I think that the opposite is true -- that here the dramatic is converted into the banal. What happens when a person is exposed to violence over and over again? When the same violent act in different iterations is occurring all around them constantly? When the person has no chance or hope of changing or stopping the violence? Well, one becomes desensitized. It's a coping method, and it is not a useful state for people to be in if "revolution" is the goal, as is also stated in the show's pamphlet: "[The artist's] belief in revolution, both social and individual, is manifest throughout his work..." (it goes on to brief the artist's personal background of moving from Algeria to Paris, from a violent situation to an oppressed one).

What bullshit! Seriously?! I mean, sure -- shocking people out of the everyday is useful to help them reconsider their context. But in order to decide that change is necessary, as in a revolution (social OR individual), all kinds of different people require all kinds of different things within a huge range of experiences to shock them out of their normal view. And considering that the people of the United States generally need a top-tier categorical meltdown to enact even the slightest meaningful change (and sometimes even then it's all talk and no action -- ahem, Katrina, Iraq, etc.), I don't understand how the artist could make the argument that seeing these animals being killed repeatedly is going to enact revolution.

So what he's accomplished is the unnecessary death of at least six animals (perhaps there were others edited out), and people will watch them die in a gallery on some televisions, over and over again. Not so useful. And I think that if you're going to go there, you'd better make it effing useful.

Has he not learned anything from media studies, political studies, or even history? We see death on televisions all the time. Now we see death on computers, too. Some of us in the US see death at our jobs, some of us witness violent acts or accidents resulting in death, some of us watch our friends' and relatives', and sometimes strangers', deaths. But that's not within our "cultural experience" -- most of us see muted or censored images of dead strangers in our communities, in our country, and in different parts of the world in the media. Remember how there's a ban on publishing war casualties, and a softer self-censorship on publishing gory scenes? We could debate on the relative impact of seeing images related to death according to region, but mostly I'd have to say that viewing those images don't change our lives.

In fact, the more we see them, the less we are affected by them. We've seen images and read articles, watched and heard news reports about tragic natural and man-made events in which dozens, hundreds, even thousands and millions of people die. And what has it resulted in? Not greater sensitivity and meaning, but the inability to comprehend such abstraction.

So, if I'm so inured to seeing violence removed from my own experience, why does seeing the artist's videos fire me up so much? Because of the context. He's trying to justify his violence and the deaths he caused with "art". How is that different from justifying violence and death with any political, racial, ethical or moral cause? He's doing it for his own effed-up reasons, which don't make any sense outside of his method of logic. I'm not equating his art project with terrorism, per se, but I am implicating that its justification is similarly tenuous. There are so many ways other than violence to spur change. Why do humans continue to believe that violence is the most effective way? Aren't we supposed to be working toward evolving? Is it not a common motivation for artists to question entrenched modes of being that don't work?

What the eff, "artist"?

In my opinion, there's already enough senseless violence.. Why create more just because you can? Why call it art? And to top it off, why use its shock value to benefit your art career? This project isn't even about violence or how we perceive it, or what it does to us, or what we think about it. According to the gallery pamphlet, it's about wondering whether my reaction is "now verging on irrelevance". Yeah. Pretty irrelevant to be offended by senseless violence.

It is certainly the responsibility and prerogative of art practitioners to push the boundaries of what "art" is and how "art" relates to "reality" or "life" or "the everyday" or whatever -- pretty much anything.. that's what it's always been about. That's what makes art exciting, annoying, revealing, confusing, frustrating, confounding, and so on. But it's also certainly the responsibility of, actually, anyone else to question where those boundaries lay, and to call artists out when they've gone too far. That's what societies do -- we regulate our boundaries of tolerance when it comes to violence and crime. Looking at this case and thinking of other examples where we don't regulate violence and crime (uh, can anyone think of a crime against humanity that's gone unpunished?), I'm not so sure that societies are doing a very good job at creating a just world.

This whole issue giving me that same frustrated feeling that comes with politicians... all the shoddy justifications, all the questioning whether you really belong if you're questioning what they're doing... and that makes me SO sad because now I can't even trust my own community. Maybe that's why he titled this show, "Don't Trust Me".... I guess that if it's a fight he's asking for, a fight he should expect.

And now I'm going to go home and pick up my abandoned copy of William T. Vollman's "Rising Up and Rising Down": "Vollman assumes political violence to be a human constant and thus addresses his attention to finding out when people use violence for political ends, how they justify it and on what scales they undertake it. Following 100 or so pages of expansive definitions, a nearly 300-page section titled "Justifications" culls an enormous number of texts and commentary, from nearly all recorded eras and locales, with all manner of excuses for killing. These Vollman brilliantly distills into "The Moral Calculus," a set of questions such as "When is violent military retribution justified?"—followed by concrete answers." (From an Amazon.com review by Publisher's Weekly)

Maybe then I'll be able to more clearly argue about "artistic" violence. *sighs* Way to be a Debbie Downer, dude. Really, I was really hoping for someone else to frustrate me.

Edit: The lecture was a joke. Dude was drunk and didn't utter a meaningful phrase for 90 minutes. Organizers cut it short because of "technical complications of the space", a.k.a. "dinner reservations". I hope they had more totally awesome drinks and exchanged a few more totally awesome pats on the back. I heard that "individuals and groups" are getting vocal about the show.. because they are apparently poorly informed and "take themselves to be concerned with the welfare of animals." I. Am. Frustrated. I did ask what they're offering as information to enlighten the individuals and groups, seeing as how the show's accompanying text and lecture failed to do so.

*sigh* I just feel sorry for the students who have to sit in the gallery for hours on end, listening to six animals being whacked over the head and falling on the ground, over and over and over and over and over again, all day, every day, until May. WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURRWHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR...