and he that toucheth the flesh of the unclean becomes unclean.

[intertribal]

Re: The recent controversy over the Smithsonian Institute's installation "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture." 

I actually really, really like the "video in question:" "Fire In My Belly," created by David Wojnarowicz in 1987.  Brutal and sad and frightening for sure (it almost reminds me of Begotten, but better).  But powerful, I think, and evocative.  You can hardly accuse it of having nothing to say or being "merely competent."  And look, people: I have mummy-phobia, and I have it pretty bad.  I don't find it pleasant either.  But judging by the way people were talking about it, and the way it was described in news articles, you would have thought it was a 4-minute video of ants crawling on a crucifix (or as the Washington Post puts it "Ant-covered Jesus video").  That segment is 11 seconds.  11 seconds!  And not even a memorable part.  That's like calling Cormac McCarthy's The Crossing a "book about abandoning dogs."

But, the video was removed after people like the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights (hahaha), House Minority Leader John Boehner, and Republican Whip Eric Cantor complained about it.  Catholic League guy is just grossed out: "The material is vile... This is hate speech... It is designed to insult (Christians)."  Eric Cantor is pitching to the Putting the Christ Back in Xmas demographic: "an obvious attempt to offend Christians during the Christmas season."  Just want to remind: 11 seconds.  Also, not everything is about you.  Boehner threatened the Smithsonian with... something, when the Republicans take control of the House in January, if they didn't fix the problem.  But another Republican, Jack Kingston, wants to launch a Congressional investigation, because he is very angry about tax dollars - no, no, public space - being used to fund this "really perverted sick stuff" (he also thinks "Male nudity, Ellen DeGeneres grabbing her own breast" are sick and perverted and kinky and questionable; presumably female nudity can still qualify as art): "They claim that this is not paid for by tax dollars, yet this is a public building with a publicly paid staff, public heat and air-conditioning, if you will, public security. So there’s no question the taxpayers are subsidizing this."

Contrast this with this snippet from the Publishers Weekly review of a book about Wojnarowicz, David Wojnarowicz: A Definitive History of Five or Six Years on the Lower East Side: "informed by his outrage against America's treatment of outsiders, in particular those suffering with AIDS." 

So on the one hand, video informed by outrage against America's treatment of outsiders.  American politician condemns video as, essentially, not representative enough of the public experience to justify public dollars being spent on it.  Yes, you ARE an outsider, says Jack Kingston.  You are not one of the public.  Your pain and your experience are not ours.  Sit down and shut up. 

Which is fucking bullshit, in case I needed to add that.

See also, a great article by John Coulthart (he makes the same point I do - "Among other things Wojnarowicz’s film depicts the artist having his lips sewn together. By shutting out Wojnarowicz from their exhibition the gallery and the Smithsonian Institute re-affirm the point he was making in the 1980s about the voices of the afflicted being silenced" - and adds a ton more, including a bonus riff on The Passion of the Christ, re: who is "allowed" to depict violation of Christ's body): "Ecce homo redux."

Comments

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, the music is probably what most turned me off about it. I'm not sure I know how to handle art that isn't beautiful in some aspect, if it doesn't have a message I can grasp very well/deeply/whatever. I imagine if it got to you emotionally, it meant something to you, somehow.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Huh, interesting - because I loved the music, and listened to it over and over (probably also the reason I love Italian horror). But yeah, I guess it did mean something to me - from a very general perspective, societal condemnation and social/biological contagion are two things that I've been thinking about a lot, and are becoming stronger trends in what I write about. Yeah, now that I think about it, the story I'm writing right now is exactly about those things. There's probably a reason I'm interested in them that goes beyond the conceptual, but I don't know what, off-hand.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I think societal condemnation and social/biological contagion are pretty related, either directly or metaphorically. Our most basic instincts for beauty come from health and procreation; for ugliness, disease and waste. But societies pick and choose from that their own idea of the beautiful, etc., and then, in reverse, use ideas of cleanliness, or life, or fruitfulness, or whatever to stamp anything they approve of.

I'm not sure that's the kind of thing you mean, but that's what came to mind. I guess to me the whole thing just screams victim mentality and plea for attention, and it seems made ugly to get attention, to put the condemnation 'in your face' or whatever, and it has zero appeal to me. It's too...vengeful, too angry, too 'trapped in a cage'-like. As it's not 'beautiful', it seems to rely more on conceptual significance, and I don't like the significance I'm getting. I just feel repulsed by the entire mindset of the creator.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, for sure. And of course that does make basic biological sense - support what's going to let the species survive, and such. It's when these lines get drawn while ignoring ethics or decency - or, more relevant for me, when the lines get drawn without any biological basis (i.e., there's nothing actually wrong with the people being condemned except from a social engineering standpoint, or that the people who are doing the condemning don't see that they themselves are not very "healthy" and they're not actually supporting a "healthy" system) - that I like to parse stories/ideas out.

I wouldn't disagree with your descriptors, because I think it is vengeful and angry and trapped in a cage, and it probably was made ugly - or at least harsh, since I don't know if I'd go so far as to say ugly - to get attention. I guess that just doesn't bother me as much as it bothers you (which is very much, I understand).

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I think this encapsulates why I'm bored with anthro (sorry). It's like 'Yeah, we get it, ideas of beauty/cleanliness/etc. are socially constructed and support the social order. Great, can we discuss something else now?'

I just don't think it's a healthy state of mind. It's self-destructive, destructive of others, and intellectually uninteresting.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

...unless you want to study the psychology of the artist, I guess.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Why sorry? Because you're bored with what I'm interested in? Yeah, I'm sure it's old hat to you - I didn't study any of that. But it's not like that's all I care about in my writing either. Or at least, I don't think it is.

Well, no, probably not a healthy state of mind... and that's the point. Whether that's a worthwhile point or not is I'd guess where we disagree? But I will say that I was probably thinking more about the artist and what was going on for the artist than I was about the video. Which is probably why I felt emotionally affected.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

Yeah, to your first question. I think the people who can maintain an interest in it are more interested in the particularities, whereas to me it is just one set of ideas. Writing has a lot more going for it in general, though. It's not just 'data' + 'theoretical filter'.

I'm not sure it is the point. If vengefulness as self-destructive were self-consciously the point, I'd probably thing it was worthwhile in the same way The Genealogy of Morality is worthwhile. Hmm...perhaps I lack that kind of imagination.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

*think

Goddamn.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

I don't know if I can maintain an interest in contagion either, really, it's just what I'm interested in at the moment (because I started seeing it as a connective thread in various horror movies). But the social outsider/failure and social order and compromise stuff is probably going to be a constant for me, and for that I guess I am more interested in the particularities. And yes, writing involves other things/motions, although you still wouldn't want to tell the same basic story over and over.

No, I don't think vengefulness as self-destruction is the point - although you can infer that, I don't think the artist meant that - I meant that the "unhealth" of the artist (mentally and physically) is the point. I think the artist would probably say that was society-imposed, though, not self-imposed.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I mean it doesn't bother me, I just feel like I would upon seeing, I don't know, roadkill, or an animal eating its own young, or something--it's not attractive, and I don't really think it's good, but it's not going to upset me. Intellectually, I'm either confused or uninterested. The mind of the artist, on the other hand, seems to be a very sad, repressive, repulsive place.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Hmm, you probably shouldn't see Antichrist then, because that whole movie is like an animal eating its own young. I have a higher tolerance for that kind of thing, but I will concede that intellectually it's not always very riveting (ex. Antichrist). It can work as symbolism, sometimes. I think I'm just less likely to be repulsed by unappealing imagery (that doesn't really make sense), though, like not to find that kind of thing that unattractive, just like I don't find this video ugly. I don't know, I guess my aesthetics are a little strange.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

Actually, actual animals eating their own young are sort of fascinating in that awful car accident onlooker way. Maybe that's a bad example. Well, you also said harsh, and I might agree that that's a better descriptor. I don't find the images repulsive, is what I'm trying to get across. I just don't give a shit about them. They aren't pleasant, but they aren't upsetting either. They just are, and they're kind of weird. The music, on the other hand, really bugged me.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Yeah (to your first sentence). Okay - so imagery not repulsive, but artist's mindset repulsive, right? Out of general/self-interested curiosity, what would make you "give a shit" about images (any images)?

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I'd probably relate more to a work of art that reveled in outsider-ness, that poked fun, that displayed an overflowing confidence that mocked rather than a weakness that lashed out.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Yeah. That makes total sense for you, based off all the conversations we've had about weakness/victims. I don't think I'd relate to that just because I don't relate to upbeat things (or rather to satire). Not for any conceptual reason, I just don't tend to like it.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I don't really like upbeat things either, but if I have to stay on that theme...

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

If you have to stay on what theme?

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

being an outsider

Actually, if we're staying solely in the realm of art, I guess something like Notes From Underground or maybe even Orlando would be more up my alley.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

I don't know Notes From Underground (I think you quoted some of it to me at one point), but I do like Orlando (don't know if I'd characterize it as upbeat, but it's not a downer either). I find it hard to be upbeat about being an outsider, but maybe I'm just not in a good mood today.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

But I dunno, I'm working off my memory now, as I can't look at the video again. But it's like, I didn't really get much meaning from the video at all, except for what you said it meant, it was just a bunch of incoherent screaming images and oppressive music.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Fair enough.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

Fight back, man!

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Huh?

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I felt like I was making very blunt statements of exactly how I felt,, and you were being all judicious and polite and granting my points instead of speaking your mind. I was worried you would be upset by that in another thread, but you were not, so I am just paranoid.