. A. T a k e. o n. P i s s. C h r i s t .

 

 

THE RECENT EVENTS surrounding the Serrano exhibition in Melbourne (October 1997) were deplorable. With a physical attack on a contentious work and the closure of the show, it will unleash another wave of regret, protest and vilification (this time from the 'other side') that will now and in the future appear to serve the interests of both sides, with less reconciliation or mutual trust possible than was the case before these events.

The National Gallery of Victoria's security reputation has been damaged, as has the reputation of Melbourne as an art capital. And the reputation of the church as the earthly nurturer of heavenly gifts distributed for the benefit of culture has once again been seriously discredited.

There has been much written and said already about freedom of expression and the rights of the art audience. I would like to stress what I haven't yet read or heard.

 


We should remember that in dealing with censorship and art we are dealing with a particular and significant sub-culture (The Arts) that sees its role as supporting certain peripheral or marginalised groups on the lower economic end (such as artists and art students) and serving other far more privileged or elitist groups on the higher economic end (such as art collectors and dealers). Thirdly, there are all those connected institutionally; including curators, writers and various media forms. These are all situated somewhere in the middle. This is what is loosely called the "art world".

It is this mandate of support that encourages the art world to secure its confidence in by-passing public taste/morality and established religious conventions. It is this duty to support and thus cater to the needs of its own constituents that brings about the problem of public-funded institutions exhibiting 'offensive' work.

Art even by past masters is and was offensive, in that it was always created with the intention of breaking new ground, and it is naïve to think that any such work is ever fully incorporated. For example, even Rembrandt's unswerving identification with the poor and downtrodden remains to this day a challenge to all forms of power, even that of corporate giants invited as sponsors to speak at the launch of his blockbuster Victorian exhibition.

The difficulty is whether the current debate is due to some new phenomena or if it is a manifestation of the old 'fear of art'. I suspect in Serrano's case it is both.

Serrano's work is fundamentally conservative and indeed as boring in its spectacle as any 19th Century salon piece. Apart from the obsessive recording of deviant behaviour, or the clinical approach to morbid subject matter, there is beyond that nothing of which to speak. The works are lifeless, tedious, over-inflated and depressing in their complete negation of themselves as gifts to the world. It is certain the reviews and responses would have been savage if it weren't for the expected and current negativity from certain quarters of the public.

 

THE CRUCIFIX SUSPENDED in urine was one of the least seductive works, but not the least lifeless. It may have been included purely because of the notoriety of its mocking title and its provocative recorded act, nothing more. Other repressed objects are suspended in fluid but are not attributed to urination, only the cross is specified in this way. Divest the work of these clues and it, like many others, are merely enlarged postcards. Throughout the whole show a viewer senses only privilege given, access provided, money made available and active support uncritically received.

An interesting aspect of this debate is the exclusion of the artist. The artist is of no consequence. It is neither here nor there whether a particular artist produced it or meant anything by it. The debate centres on some perceived loss of control in society, in fact it has little to do with art and serves to conceal the radical challenge of art to every strata of society (without the divisiveness of fashionable perversity). It is interesting to note that the artist, though always present through the debate, gave little away as long as the work was visible, and only after the privilege was withdrawn did he speak passionately and pathetiquely.

What we have then is a unique and modern problem. On one hand you have many moral minorities making a fuss over something where the media triggered the alarm, whilst the art world (like government) remained immune to the public concern. Recent developments in Australian politics have already informed us of the long term effects of ignoring the fears of the people.

The explanation for the implacable position adopted by the art custodians is simple paternalism. Secondly, the very power that 'offense' gives to a rejected art object, and also the 'in house', invitational privilege bestowed on art lovers (though to the art world, nudity and sacrilege are all 'old hat' and 'Ho Hum')

The church having failed to broadcast its own cultural mandate and having lost trust in its own artistic voices has allowed private, corporate and public-funded institutions to take complete control of support for the arts and provision for exposure of all art forms. The church's time, money and energy - wasted on drawing unparalleled attention to possibly the most spiritless secular product - has never been spent with the same conviction for the purpose of bringing attention to its own artistic protagonists.

The result is an art world today that thinks it is the sole supporter of the arts; the one true champion of the lone artistic voice; the dedicated libertarian condemning prejudice and iconoclasm; the city of refuge for the fleeing visionary ( the visionary mercilessly hunted by the righteously vengeful) and finally the bold promoter of those cast out by a Philistine public. Oh, if this were true, that the art world were the veritable bosom of Abraham.

 

THE REALITY OF the art world's corruption lies hidden during its own 'festivals of the favoured' and in its own articles of faith. It describes itself and its artists as ones who are issue-based and tough-minded; as makers and displayers of serious works of art, as challenging all assumptions, and finally and so patronisingly, encouraging the viewer to think. This self-congratulation climaxes with the claim that only the art world accepts challenge and can with confidence confront the new and welcome the indispensable threat of art.

The fact is, that this is not true. The threat of art is only embraced when the target of blame is external to itself. The contradiction lies in the claim that "What no one has the right to do, is to stop Meburnians from seeing serious art" (T. Potts, The Age 9/10/97). Here the peaceful opposers are seen as cultural police (though they have little power), while the art world describes itself as the upholder and preserver of artistic and public rights. In the light of the gallery director closing the show after the second act of vandalism, thereby denying Victorian citizens that very right to be offended or stimulated, one wonders what internal or external forces would cause such retreat. It was certainly done against principle and in the face of the artist's own ire. Yet, ironically, while moral corruption imported form the Big Apple had been down played, the artist's own anger was quick to cite New York bouncers as the security style we are in need of down here.

It is at these intense moments of conflicting interests that the darker reality in the illusion of honoured career and real disgrace; of opening accolades and hasty closure; of exclusion and inclusion, as continually carried out by every art establishment, are clearly seen. It is indeed just as often the art institution that denies the public the right to see serious art - the kind of art that the institution itself and its curators cannot abide or handle, what they cannot come at writing about, or in good conscience display or collect.

This is most clearly seen in the practice of taking off the walls contemporary works of which the public approves. In selectively taking out of circulation, keeping things unseen in storage, blocking acquisition or exhibition proposals, deacquistioning, failing to contextualize or promote through visibility, patrons and consultants are manipulated. Acquisition committees never get to approve or let alone see the works that send a shudder through curatorial departments, whose artists keep alive such a fear of art that it confronts even the very lovers of art with experiencing in themselves, the same desire to persecute and exclude.

The moral outrage in regard to Serrano's work in this case may be justified, but this also highlights once again both the tiny impact post modernism has had on society and the remoteness of contemporary artistic concerns from the general publics' understanding. The furore itself though should be questioned because it too attempts to claim the moral high ground. For there is no guarantee that such protestations and physical attacks would not be made on religious works, or the works of Christian artists, who challenged through unorthodox means and images the spiritual leanness at the very heart of the established church. A leanness that seems energized only in protecting its own traditions and not its risen Lord.

 

WHAT WE SHOULD keep in mind, in all the artistic platitudes brought out in this debate, is that an attack by the church may not be an assault on art, and the defense by the art institution may not be a defense of art at all, but in both cases a mere closing of ranks. The Church reinforcing its own undeveloped theology of the body, and the art establishment reinforcing its own non-prescriptive and pluralistic notions that on this occasion are about a single view of sexuality and the body, that is protected and supported because it is perceived as representing the 'spirit of the age'. The art, in this case Serrano's, is merely the vessel, the platter and the pool of blood in which the severed, bleeding reputations and values of past prophets and priests are horrifically and deliciously displayed.

The real tragedy in all the media hype and fuss, is that it gives the impression the 'Art' is responsible for the uproar. It isn't so, it is merely one artist's privileged and puerile glee in the fall of a few of our remaining bodily taboos. I suspect it is truly the lack of challenge in these works and the absence of any credible critique of them which now continues to provide the room whereby the radical nature of art and its contribution in our society have been sidelined. Other contemporary work that would make both the public, the Church and the art world groan, tremble, seethe with anger, or even remove their hats or shoes in respect, is now all the more removed and relegated, whilst this vacuous and powerless art work, picturing an all too familiar object, has been taken to with claw hammers by those who claim to venerate the object represented.

WB


 
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