Transcript Jake & Dino Chapman - NCLC 398: Art Transgressions

“Zygote Acceleration”
?s to consider:
• What were some of the concerns about this
work? (Why was it controversial?)
• “Is it feasible to aesthetically defend this
work in a way that vindicates its ethical
status?” Why or why not?
• What’s problematic about using aesthetics
to defend transgressive work, in general?
• Is this transgressive art? Why or why not?
Arguments
• Those who defend transgressive art in
aesthetic terms tend to have the effect of
endorsing its ethical attitude.
• Disinterested perspective has been
disabled – how?
• Thus adopting a disinterested aesthetic
perspective represses its moral message /
troubling content.
Julius – “Canonic Defence”
• Relating transgressive work to canonical
‘safe’ older work (i.e. Goya)
• Art thus “vindicated” by this traditional
lineage
“Great
Deeds
Against
the
Dead”
1994
“Great Deeds
Against the
Dead”
1994
1863
?s to consider:
• How does the Chapman’s piece result in a
kind of de-sublimation?
• What are some of the other criticisms of
Chapmans’ work?
• How is Goya’s work (in comparison) made
irrelevant?
• What’s the most transgressive element of
Chapmans’ work?
Transgressive Defence
• What’s problematic about using the
transgressive defense?
• What’s perhaps most telling about the
transgressive defense? (what kind of anxiety
does it reveal?)
• “Compulsively cramming as many references as
possible … hope is that some relevant
theoretical link will eventually be uncovered that
contributes meaning to this work that they fear
may be meaningless.”
Bellmer “The Doll”
“when the Nazi party assumed control of Germany
in 1933, Bellmer's life changed drastically.
In fact, his first and best-known work, the life-size
pubescent female dolls he produced, was made
as a protest to the Nazi Party. Because Bellmer
vowed he would not do any work to support the
German state, his dolls served as a reaction
against the Nazi's obsession with the perfect
body. He posed them in unconventional ways
and in mutated forms.”
AUTOMATONS and mannequins:
Hans Bellmer (Polish, 1902-75), La Poupée (Doll), 193549, hand colored gelatin silver print
(right) Bellmer, La Poupée, 1935-36: (center) La Poupée),
1934; gelatin silver prints
“Dolls” are made of wood, metal, papier-mâché and
dressed with wigs, clothing, etc. or not
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OmW3
fUAzo8
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d89MH
GzISnE&feature=related