art with the sole purpose of offending people

[holy king]

what do you think of it?


some examples:

fountain, by dadaist marcel duchamps:

Spoiler :

austrian performance artist hermann nitsch:

Spoiler :

Moderator Action: I have put the images in spoilers, since they are (a) large, and (b) not particularly pleasant in the case of the second.

 

[Quackers]

attention whoring/trolling

just ignore it.

 

[holy king]

attention whoring/trolling

just ignore it.

no matter the feeling that is being tried to cause in the audience, it's legitimate art. being offended is just as interesting as being stunned by beauty.


are mohammed caricatures art, quackers?

 

[Virote_Considon]

If it's art, it's art, whether its aim is to offend, stun, inspire or unnerve. Anyone who gets bothered by it deserves to get bothered by it, to put it bluntly. If it's aesthetically stimulating, then it's art. 'nuff said.

 

[holy king]

i would go so far to say if it's stimulating it's art.

 

[Virote_Considon]

I agree. I mean, take for example, this image:

It is offensive to reds, yet it is stimulating. No matter how much you look at it, no matter how much you dislike it's message, its raison d'etre, it itself, it is still art, and you can't forget this.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

i would go so far to say if it's stimulating it's art.

You getting stimulated doesn't always qualify as art, I'm sure.

 

[holy king]

You getting stimulated doesn't always qualify as art, I'm sure.

why not?

 

[Loppan Torkel]

why not?

You're free to try it, but I'm guessing you'll be fined for indecent exposure and some unlawful public behavior. You could still claim it to be art though...

 

[holy king]

of course i could.

who said art is by definition within the law of the jurisdiction it is done in?

 

[Loppan Torkel]

of course i could.

who said art is by definition within the law of the jurisdiction it is done in?

But you getting stimulated defines what art is?!

 

[holy king]

someone getting stimulated does. in what way whatsoever.

 

[Virote_Considon]

Loppan Torkel, do you consider pornography art?

 

[Loppan Torkel]

Loppan Torkel, do you consider pornography art?

No, not generally, but it might become art perhaps. Do you?!

 

[Virote_Considon]

For the most part, yeah.

 

[Lillefix]

Call it art if you want. It doesn't meant it's worth paying attention to.

 

[Plotinus]

The examples in the OP are not examples of art whose sole purpose is to offend. Those works do offend, but that is not their sole purpose. They are, at the very least, intended to make people think by offending them. So offence is not the end goal.

Caricatures - whoever they are of - invariably have some purpose beyond mere offence. The purpose may be satirical political commentary or just to get a laugh, but there's still a purpose behind the offence.

If you can find any example of something which is solely intended to offend and nothing more - which is not intended, for example, to be funny, or to change people's opinions, or be beautiful, or challenge preconceptions, or anything else, but merely to offend - then I doubt very much that there would be any grounds for calling it "art" in the first place.

Moderator Action: And while the discussion of the artistic value of offensive material is not, in itself, problematic here, please think before you post offensive material. I'll close the thread if it gets out of hand.

 

[holy king]

but everything those works actually do is offend.
being offended then is the impetus to further think about it; a line of thought, which is completely out of the hands of the artist.

 

[warpus]

The beauty of art is that we all experience each piece differently and some of us might not even agree that a particular thing is art. There is no universal definition of what art is - it is a something that each one of us defines personally.

As for offensive art, I find it interesting, but not too interesting.

 

[Plotinus]

but everything those works actually do is offend.
being offended then is the impetus to further think about it; a line of thought, which is completely out of the hands of the artist.

Nonsense. When I look at "Fountain" I'm not offended at all, and I doubt that you are either. And I think that even people who are offended by it have other reactions as well. To suggest that its sole purpose is merely to offend, and nothing else whatsoever, is to diminish it.

Also, it's striking that you've moved from this strong claim:

(1) The sole purpose of these works is to offend.

- to this even stronger claim:

(2) The sole effect of these works is to offend.

As I said, I don't think (1) is true at all, and I seriously doubt whether any work that satisfies (1) would count as art at all. But (2) is clearly false, to an absurd degree, in the case of the works cited, and I seriously doubt whether any work satisfies (2) at all. Can there really be anything which absolutely everyone without exception finds offensive, and to which absolutely everyone without exception has no other reaction at all? Sounds pretty implausible to me - and if there is such a work, then it would certainly be breaking forum rules to post it here. Not that you'd want to, of course, because you'd find it offensive and without merit yourself.