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US Events Death and tragedy as art

birdup.snaildown

birdup.snaildown

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Xorkoth said:
I wouldn't want to be in Minneapolis if he's found innocent.
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I would be interested to hear opinions from Americans about whether or not you guys think the riots might influence juror's decision making. It seems to me to be one of those cases that is impossible to be unbiased. There is enough fodder for reasonable doubt to accommodate the racist jurors and vice-versa. There is a lot of pressure to convict.

It's a fascinating case... 9/11 was beautiful. I'm sorry if that upsets people. It was a historic event that I witnessed. It woke me up. It shocked me.

I feel the same way, here.

Sometimes horrible shit makes you feel alive.

I realize how that sounds.

I like sadness because I love people and sadness brings me closer to them.
 
@cduggles

It isn't the only word I'd use to describe it. I see the beauty in it. I have to hide my entire life because whenever I allow this part of my perspective to exist externally, I am shamed into a corner. It's so hard to explain that I have resigned myself to not bothering. Perhaps there is no beauty.

WITJP10667-72.jpg
 
birdup.snaildown said:
@cduggles

It isn't the only word I'd use to describe it. I see the beauty in it. I have to hide my entire life because whenever I allow this part of my perspective to exist externally, I am shamed into a corner. It's so hard to explain that I have resigned myself to not bothering. Perhaps there is no beauty.

WITJP10667-72.jpg
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I was actually just curious, because it was such a terrifying day for me (cell lines down, no one knew if there were going to be more attacks. and the city was locked down tight.)
I respect that we have different perspectives. I just didn’t know what you meant.
 
birdup.snaildown said:
I mean I see the beauty in dead birds.
Some people only allow themselves to see the beauty in the living.

I suspect that everybody is like me, they are just repressed.
This - I think - is why everybody is fascinated by Pompeii.
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Now that I think about it, the word when the second plane hit, which I saw - I didn’t see the first one- was surreal. My brain literally couldn’t process it. I just couldn’t fathom what was happening. I felt the first plane had to be a horrible accident.
I understand where you are coming from, it would just be interesting if we were both there at the same time.
 
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birdup.snaildown said:
I mean I see the beauty in dead birds.
Some people only allow themselves to see the beauty in the living.

I suspect that everybody is like me, they are just repressed.
This - I think - is why everybody is fascinated by Pompeii.
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I think the word you’ve been looking for in this string of posts is ‘sublime’ as originally used in the 18th century to separate art (beautiful) from the frightening but magnigicent or awesome aspects of nature (sublime) that resonate with people in a similar way to beauty.

Although sublime does have a religious connotation in its earliest usage.
 
@Atelier3

Yeah I don't know. It's not nature exactly... and I literally think 9/11 is art.

A painting of a dead body is considered art. We can see the beauty in it, because the distance allows us to. Horror is, and always has been, popular. Everybody is happy to be entertained by violence, as long as it is staged.

Joel Peter Witkin is a great artist. He goes to a factory in Mexico and is given access to bodies that he cuts up and re-arranges into art. His photography is breath-taking.

For some, it is unethical. They cannot allow themselves to see it as art.

I think, often, art is a way to escape the restrictions we place on ourselves and see the beauty in sadness and death. People watch drama because they want to cry. Because they are detached.

Pompeii is a curious example of detachment. It is art created by brutal forces of nature, but it is also shadows of the moment of death. People go and visit. They take selfies.

2.-1982-The-Kiss-min.jpeg


"The Kiss" Joel Peter Witkin - 1982
 
birdup.snaildown said:
@Atelier3

Yeah I don't know. It's not nature exactly... and I literally think 9/11 is art.
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The sublime was equated to nature originally because people could imagine nothing of ‘greater’ force or closer to umiversal truth / the Godhead.

However, as the Modern Age moved into the Contemporary Age, it became easy for people to confuse the sublime (which has a role in good art) with simple Spectacle (which is the mainstay of all bad contemporary art).

There are strong arguments that something like 9/11 can be seen as the natural endgame of contemporary art’s praxis-oriented nihilism. I’d quite like to be the one to get that article published in Art Monthly!
 
birdup.snaildown said:
The sublime was equated to nature originally because people could imagine nothing of ‘greater’ force or closer to umiversal truth / the Godhead.

However, as the Modern Age moved into the Contemporary Age, it became easy for people to confuse the sublime (which has a role in good art) with simple Spectacle (which is the mainstay of all bad contemporary art).

There are strong arguments that something like 9/11 can be seen as the natural endgame of contemporary art’s praxis-oriented nihilism. I’d quite like to be the one to get that article published in Art Monthly!
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Yeah. I've never been fond of looking at art as a field of science. I'm sure the labels make sense and can be justified as necessary, but it takes something away from the experience if I bog myself down in terms. Before Van Gogh came along, people had a more restricted perspective of art. As time goes on, we expand our horizons in terms of what qualifies. I believe the conclusion to that path is breaking down the barriers between art and life. There are no restrictions to what someone considers art other than the restrictions they impose upon themselves.

it became easy for people to confuse the sublime (which has a role in good art) with simple Spectacle (which is the mainstay of all bad contemporary art).
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I fundamentally believe all rules (including this one) place restrictive limitations on the art world. I'm not saying people should be allowed to blow up buildings if the result is beautiful enough.

If George Floyd wasn't a real man - if he was a fictional character in a film - and a screenwriter wrote about his interaction with (fictional) Officer Chauvin. Some might look at that film and call it art. You can make a filmy about Charles Manson and call it art. You can take a photo of a polar bear and call it art... but most of the art comes from the polar bear, not the photographer. There is art all around us.

Some people spend their lives obsessed with the beauty of art, with their faces buried in their phones, watching cinematic masterpieces about other people's lives while their own pass them by. Art should bring us closer. It should wake us up.

As long as something is art, we can see beauty in death and in sadness... but, unfortunately, sometimes we fail to see the beauty all around us.

PicassoGuernica.jpg
 
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birdup.snaildown said:
I mean I see the beauty in dead birds.
Some people only allow themselves to see the beauty in the living.

I suspect that everybody is like me, they are just repressed.
This - I think - is why everybody is fascinated by Pompeii.
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technically it's because lots of the town was preserved by the ash,
and you can see a lot of details still in place that you can't with regular roman structures.

I mean yeah, the volcano, bla bla, I'm sure that plays a role, but the town is just fascinating because it still looks so "young" for lack of a better word. Honestly, there's tools, vases, paintings, really amazing stuff there that got preserved. Like a window into time.

I'm also missing the beauty in 9/11, and the subsequent 600.000 civilians that the USA murdered as a retaliation.
 
December Flower said:
I'm also missing the beauty in 9/11, and the subsequent 600.000 civilians that the USA murdered as a retaliation.
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What if the terrorist attacks on 9/11 had instead resulted in the preservation of people as they died like in Pompeii?
 
birdup.snaildown said:
What if the terrorist attacks on 9/11 had instead resulted in the preservation of people as they died like in Pompeii?
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In 2000 years, sure. Right now it'd be kind of grotesque yknow.

But it would also have to be preserved for 1600 years before getting uncovered first.
I'm sure in the 17th century, Pompeii looked even younger than it does now.
I mean it's all in ruins and destroyed ofc, but especially the paint inside the houses is really bright.
I'd have doubted the Romans had access to colours that bright and deep before seeing Pompeii
 
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birdup.snaildown said:
The grotesqueness is similar.
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I don't think so. 9/11 is still emotionally connected to people.
Looking at preserved victims of that attack just seems wrong.

Pompeii was nature doing what nature does.
2000 years ago. There's 0 emotional connection to any of these events.

Say like Ötzi was preserved, it would be weird to preserve a dead body now and then look at it. I mean, where's the value gained, we're well aware of human anatomy.
Finding a 5000 year old corpse that still has skin on the other hand is fucking fascinating.

Mabe I'm making a difference where there is none
 
There’s a controversial exhibit that originated in China that reveals human anatomy preserved through plastination and then carefully dissected. The origins of the cadavers and the ethics of displaying the human body in this manner for popular consumption have been widely debated.

I missed this exhibit for some reason I don’t remember, but I was keen to see it for what I like to think are scientific reasons.

en.m.wikipedia.org

Bodies: The Exhibition - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org
 
@December Flower

I think most people would agree with you. Personally, I always thought it was creepy that people didn't find Pompeii creepy. Visiting the frozen figures as a tourist is worse in my mind than being able to see the beauty in the events of 9/11. I should've chosen something else. I didn't mean to start a thread about this. 9/11 is too close for a lot of people.

My grandparents lived during WW2. My parents generation had a man walking on the moon and the psychedelic revolution of the 1960's followed by the sexual revolution of the 1970's... We have COVID-19, AIDS, Trump, 9/11, Social Media, puberty blockers, BLM, Q-Anon - you name it, we've got it.

Does anybody have any thoughts about the American photographer Joel Peter Witkin chopping up dead bodies in Mexico?

en.wikipedia.org

Joel-Peter Witkin - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
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