Your favourite shock art photographers

Dear fellow photogs,<br><br>

 

There doesn't seem to be much interest in shock art photography here on photo.net, am I wrong ?<br><br>

 

For me personally, I find that good creative shockart can be more intruiging and arouse much more curiosity than

 

some nicelooking landscapes, for instance.<br>

 

So people, who are your favourite shock art photographers ? Perhaps posting a photo with your comment is

 

interesting :).<br><br>

 

My little kickoff:<br>

 

- Andres Serrano<br>

 

- Terry Richardson<br><bR>

 

<a href="http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/photography/photographer.php?photographerid=ph001&row=19">Nick

Knight: Please do not click if you don't like to see a monkey without a skin (that died a natural cause in a zoo)</a>

Paul McCarthy (everything)

 

Kurt Kren (Viennese Actionist films -- disgusting stuff)

 

Charles Ray ("Charley, Oh Charley" -- sculpture of multiple figures of the artist having an orgy)

 

Damien Hirst ("For the Love of God" -- shocking materialism, shocking cynicism)

I think it would be more interesting to understand <i>into</i> what state of mind the photographer is intending to shock his or her audience. What shocks one viewer is utterly boring to another. I find that I am bored by attempts to shock which don't seem to be rooted in any purpoose beyond notariety. True shock is a shock to the conscience. A skinned monkey? That's not shocking. While I'm typing this, many monkeys on many continents are being skinned by vultures, jungle eagles, predatory cats, scientists, and even each other. That's a simple fact, sort of like gravity. To be shocking, such would need to be portrayed in a context that suggests it's being done for no real purpose, and expressly in the service of cruelty. And even then, the cruelty itself would need to be a surprise, in terms of who is doing it, or where, or when. Because the fact of cruelty, itself, is also no shock. It's alive and well, and that isn't shocking news.

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So, what is the anatomy of a shocking image? What is the appeal? I can only surmise that the people who like that work aren't into it because it shocks <i>them</i>, but because of the gratification they get when they imagine it shocking someone <i>else</i>. It's sort of like a Goth bar. All of that effort to be shocking, but nobody there is shocked because they're all in on the game... and nobody they actually <i>want</i> to disturb is there to be shocked.

Helmut Newton.

Matt said it all I think. Also I think that the work from someone like Andres Serrano deserves a lot better than being called shock art.

Not much has changed since Luis Buñuel. I see a lot of stuff that's trying too hard to be shocking. Most of it comes across as Matt's description of the insular Goth culture.<p>

 

<a href="http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/i_dont_have_time_for">I Don't Have Time For Noncontroversial Art Exhibits</a><p>

 

It's becoming increasingly difficult for visual or performance art to create any real shock in an era where blatant dissembling is the norm. Take the FDA, please. Their scrambling efforts to protect international trade by lying about the source of the recent salmonella-infested produce scare is sublime. "Shock" culture in the arts pales in comparison.

Hello Matt,<br><br>

 

That's an intersting perspective on shockphotography, though I think photography, and especially shockphotography, is too subjective to simply say that it does or doesn't do something to the conscience. You might not be shocked by a skinned monkey, but the fact remains that many people are. I for one, am not disturbed at all while looking at this picture of a skinned monkey, but more am I fascinated and intruiged by the the creative thinking, <b>the brainchild</b>, which in this case is also rather a bit shocking... I find the esthetics of abnormal things very interesting. Wheter it be in the universe, animal behaviour or photography.<br><br>

 

So Matt, you have any favourite "shockart" photographers ?

Amin: I have no favorite "shockart" photographers, because I find <i>no</i> art to be shocking. Annoying, perhaps, but never shocking.

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Photojournalists sometimes capture images of shocking <i>situations</i>, but that's not art per se. One might put such an image to work in an artistic way, thus giving the shocking scene depicted some additional spin or context... but again, I cannot find the artistic portion of that project to be shocking. I can't think of a single piece of art that I would ever find shocking (though I'll happily feign shock at the prices that some such works can fetch - there seems to sometimes be something wrong the water in New York and London which disables the left side of the brain during some art auctions).

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You mention that some people might find an image (say, of a skinned monkey) to be shocking. That's not a case of a fragile conscience being pricked by a pointy piece of art. It's just the fleeting pain of having one's blissful (and possible willful) ignorance of mortality being aligned with reality. Shock - if we can even use that word in that context - is entirely relative to one's worldliness. As a life-long cynic that has no patience for mysticism or any of the other usual buffers against cruel reality, I'm happily immune to information about reality as a form of shock. It is what it is. The only thing that shocks me, at this point, is the willingness of some people to hold a world view based on magical thinking and to derive from that perspective a code of behavior that permits them to do shockingly awful things to other people.

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But depictions of awful things aren't shocking, only the hearty embrace of a world view that drives such behavior. I am shocked by the rampant resurgence of medieval culture in some places around the world, but cannot be shocked by any art - in and of itself - that celebrates or condems it, either way.

Despite all the drivel I hear and read about people becoming desensitized by the deliberate shock value of current media, entertainment and art, I still find most people are easily shocked. There seems to be some amount of confusion in some circles between something being in poor taste and being shocking, with the two ending up being treated as interchangeable. The world is rife with bad taste, which is not at all shocking.

 

Lex; thanks for the link-- funny read.

Good point about mysticism and magical thinking, Matt. It's often used to manipulate. I doubt that everyone who creates art or cultural influences based in mysticism even believes in it themselves. They simply recognize the power and are willing to exploit people's sensitivities.

Ilia Farniev. Check it out yo.

That cuts both ways, Lex. Not only are many people who couch their messages and ethics in mysticism certainly

not True Believers, but many who proclaim Shock And Grave Umbrage at the work of "shock" artists/personalities

are absolutely faking it, as well. A recent episode involving Danish cartoonists comes to mind. There is much (phony)

political traction to be maintained by staying in a constant Fit Of Pique over someone else's utterances. It's literally a

profession. So, those who would like to shock others for a living are guaranteed a perpetually shockable audience,

since an audience mature enough not to be shocked would also have a lot of other things they complain about lose

value as Reasons To Hold A Fussy Press Conference.

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The whole thing is theater. The shock<i>ers</i> kinow they're not really shocking anyone with their art, and the

shock<i>ees</i> know they're not really shocked, but if either side confesses to actually being wiser about the

whole thing than they pretend to be, they'd both have to find something real to do for a living. This little bit of Kabuki

would be completely harmless if the folks in those camps weren't also tied to various politcal movements that,

ultimately, also impact real-life Stuff That Matters. All parties on the radar screen are equally guilty of this fluff, and

it's just sort of embarassing.

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As it relates to photography, shocking-ness comes in two forms. Gordon points out that people are genuinely

shockable, still. I believe that's true for some sorts of images - but more of the documentary variety. If we spent all

day wallowing in all of the ways that life can be awful, or gruesome, or painful, or genuinely at the mercy of actually

evil people, we'd be paralyzed. We are wired, through untold thousands of generations of genetic and cultural

evolution, to compartmentalize enough to carry on despite the fact that the universe doesn't really care about our

existence and that we're just fragile sacks of salt water walking around and hoping not to get eaten. Images or

experiences that jar one into <i>remembering</i> what we already know (that life is fragile, and that there are scary

things out there that can hurt you or mess with your tribal equalibrium) disrupt our handy, practical daily state of

denial about our own foibles and inevitable demise. The darker, and more ominous the message that reminds one of

that, the more low-level the gut reaction to it. We're hard wired to react swiftly and with passion to perceived threats,

and that programming is sometimes called upon in handling one's first take on an image or other message - just as it

is the sudden appearance of a large predator's sillhouette at the cave door. There's nothing wrong with having that

programming intact, and a skilled artist can really tap into it.

<br><br>

But shock? Actual shock? That speaks more to how one processes a dose of information or a concept as it relates

to a long-held world view. Anything that challenges that view in a profound way is and should feel disturbing, at least

for a spell. The issue here is that many people think they have a vested interest in <i>acting</i> more challenged

than they really are, and there are provocateurs who are happy to play their part in giving them something over which

to become dramatically distraught.

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On the other hand, it's no doubt with genuine discomfort that some people confront certain images that viscerally

remind them of the things they genuinely fear or have painfully experienced. But that has more to do with how well

they've put those fears to bed, personally, than it does with a photograph that reminds them how unsettled they still

are.

Someone who wallows in the disgusting by what ever euphemism applied probably has lost the ability to see the beauty and excitement of a face, or flower, or a color, or a line, or a texture, or...too bad...so sad.

There can be great beauty in the grotesque, in that which wouldn't pass the test for conventional aesthetics. Some might even find such images shocking. There's often a gulf between intention and interpretation.

Doesn't make any sense to me. What if we say there were no intention?

 

Apparently there is no intention in art making. On the part of artist, anyway.

I've heard plenty of artists and creative people claim they work without intention. Usually they're trying to create an illusion by trying too hard to seem mysterious, or are unaware of their subconscious intentions.

I think you mistake intention for internal desire. The objects made with just clear intention may go as decoration

items of some value or another. In art making creating illusion is A1 thing. Some may try to seem mysterious but

there are also ones who try hard to clarify. There are degrees in art making business actually and how beginers or

accomplished artists act is another matter which has little to do with value of art they create.

"I think you mistake intention for internal desire."

 

Nope. I know exactly what I meant.

Let me learn from you, Lex. What you think is intention of shock art? Can you come up with an example?

You can't learn from me. I don't teach. I observe and write about what I see.

 

One of my favorite subjects is irony. Wanna see some in action? Google this, exactly as written below:

 

shock art intention

 

If you do it today, you'll see this very thread at the top of the list. Irony doesn't get any better.

 

And that's today's lesson in intention.

Well. I see so much irony every day that I do not want any more of it. The irony is not an easy thing to get rid off and,

true, it doesn't get better, actually get worser, specially if nobody take care.