Shock/Art
The assemblage of a crucifix, rosaries, and other religious items – punctuated by the presence of a movable, erect, wooden penis – caused a storm of discussions a few days ago at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
It’s a good thing that art is taking center stage this time. At a time where heated and polarizing opinions (and Tweets and Facebook pages) would revolve around a guy who drives his car into a flooded street and makes it to national TV, the discussion around Mideo Cruz’s Poleteismo is refreshing.
Merde d’Artista by Piero Manzoni (pictured above) is a collection of 90 cans autographed by the artist himself. The cans contain (purportedly) Manzoni’s own feces, sealed and sold to art patrons. If I were to do the same thing, I would have simply been dismissed as a loon, or those cans would have been thrown back at me. Which is quite true for other situations of “shock art.” I couldn’t soak a crucifix in a container full of urine, photograph it, and call it art. I would probably be derided by everyone in the country if I made a collage of what I purport to be the Virgin Mary using pornographic images and elephant feces. I could not get away with an installation made with a bed, used condoms, and panties stained with menstrual blood.
In many ways, art is institutional. It is guild-like; that’s why we have “artists’ circles” and “writers’ circles.” In the wake of Caparas’ National Artist award, we cannot deny that part of the protests of Caparas’ works come from some preconceived notion of what art is, what should be artistic, and what body of work qualifies for the “National Artist” distinction. Beyond beauty, aesthetics, and theory, part of what makes art “up there” are the notions and the conventional wisdom of those within these groups, inside looking out.
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