Believe it or not, the authorities (sic) in Austria are prosecuting a man for online postings commenting on an act of anti-Christian vandalism--the end of free speech is here
The exclamation " should be something the Catholic Church should permit in its hallowed halls " can find complicated responces under the following simple facts :
1) Coup of the Council of Vatican II (1962)
2) The following abnormal successions - and questionable deaths - of the Popes till the establishment of today's Pope Francis
3) In mater to the above, there is a book -to my knowledge, "From Enemy to Brother" by John Connelly.
You know, the more I learn about Vatican II and in particular the current pope (as well as the massive descent into woke-fied nonsense by so many parts of the Church hierarchy and rank-and-field), the stranger this all becomes, doesn't it?
Thank you for the reading suggestion, I will check it out.
True... it becomes stranger, but explains -in the measure of- the political phenomena involved in Vatican and corresponding world-wide.
Further in "meta-art" i have located the Belgian Thierry de Cordier and his provocative theme "asperges me", exhibited in Greece and resulted in great public reactions.
here is a link, more than 21 years old (2003):
Guardian / World news / "Obscene' art offends orthodox Greek taste"
Christianity, with its corpus of holy texts from very different authors and written during very different times, is actually quite capable of dealing with ambiguity. What is heresy or blasphemy and what is not can be battled out over time in a Baudrillardian arena. The problem here is involvement of the state, and the fact that jail is not a simulacrum.
Thank you for your excellent report. This statue is outrageously blasphemous - as a free-speech enjoyer, I support the artist's right to create it and display the art in a non-religious setting like a private cafe or gallery, but NOT the Church to be involved in any way. I support the person who beheaded the statue. If I were a parishoner, I would have removed it from the church and smashed it.
Why is she sitting on a rock like that? Rubbish artist, don't know how women give birth even.
And yes, one litmus-test of artistic integrity is indeed to dare mock, depict or even desecrate that which is holy to someone else. But when it's one singular target, and not equal treatment, then it's just a sign of puerile "rebellion"; like a four-year old saying "Daddy bad!" and threatening to abscond, in full knowledge Daddy will come get the child as soon as needed.
Why not a statue of Mahomet consummating his marriage to Aisha outside a mosque? Or Abraham and Sara driving out Hagar and Ishmael into the wasteland, outside a synagogue?
'Rubbish artist, don't know how women give birth even.' Well put, that's also what I thought.
I'm with you (and many others commenting here) on the art must be permitted to be provocative part--but the main issue here, it seems, is that the woke-fied church hierarchy (part of it) wanted such a display, albeit for reasons that elude me. (I've since looked a bit into the people behind this charade, and I'm unsure what to make of it or if it's enough for a separate piece; I'll keep digging a bit more, though, then we'll see).
My main question seems to be: why was this staged in a church and not, you know, in a gallery (where perhaps 2-3 people would have gone)? This seems more like agit-prop than art, in addition to the relevant question: who pays for that artist's performances (which are unique and often not in public)?
As to the equal opportunity offences, well, I suppose there's little doubt why: one may be 'Islamophobic', one can not be 'Anti-Semitic', hence, there's but the 'acceptable™' Anti-Christian stance…
It was staged in a church to be provocative, and since the artist&pals know that they are in no danger pulling such a stunt against a Christian congregation - neither legal danger or other - it's the logical choice.
Weak kids who won't fight back gets bullied. Not because it's right or they deserve it, but because they are safe targets.
Now, I'd argue that for art to be provocative there must an element of danger involved for the artist. At least professional ostracisation over the scandal caused, maybe even the threat of prison for violating some censorship/public decency laws. That's what today's artists in the West dream of: to relive a time-period they missed, not being alive back then, when an artist could go to jail for pulling stunts challenging the "stodgy normie status quo" (Monthy Python f.e. would have gone to jail in Norway for 'Life of Brian' as the movie was deemed to violate Norwegian blasphemy-laws).
Since that time is gone (unless homos, pedos, moslems, jews, et c are the target) they are like eunuchs masturbating at the shadow of an image, in their perpetual attempt at provoking a response from a congregation (Christians) that only responds with a saddened look of disparaging concern, and feelings of being hurt.
They would /love/ if a mob of Christians stormed a Church or gallery and did a bit of iconoclasty - it would make their art carry the meaning and message they want it to (since the art itself doesn't and can't, without the intended response).
Or: it's the humiliation and demonstration of power they got off of. Many such artists have Christian backgrounds, having grown up being scolded or beaten or abused by clergy and having internalised it and made it the core of their artistic identity, they have been unable to move on from whatever it was (they claim) happened, and persist to replay the violation by acts of projection.
I fear you're correct on all counts, esp. the lack of response--and the way you describe this--'eunuchs masturbating at the shadow of an image'--is hilarious, thanks a lot.
As to the issue of whether it's provocation and/or power, I fear it's both. Enmity vs. Christianity is so deeply engrained in our education and social systems, it boggles the mind, to be frank.
My personal view of this malaise, though, is rather more bleak and simple: being a great fan of Occam's Razor, it suggests that the one thing that keeps artists™ going whose art is neither outstanding nor provoking any reaction beyond the most emotional from the 'fringes'--remember: this piece of art™ was commissioned by the very institution that it ostensibly 'attacks™'--might simply be: vanity.
These artists™ want and desperately need media attention to garner justification for their continued state subsidies (I surmise, I don't know if Ms. Strauß would pay her bills like that), but that's the material-only side of things, which is, in my opinion, underwritten by a pathetic desire to be seen as 'someone™': narcissism, hedonism, and vanity are combined (conflated) with massive bouts of resentment (as the current societal ethos is Socialist, i.e., a material-only cult originating in resentment of one's neighbour).
Works for me as an explanation--what do you think?
Subsidies, tax deductions and the like must play a part in this, and I'd wager there's an internal power struggle going on in the specific Church too, between actual Christians (the flock) and modern woke clergy (the Cult of the Individual).
I'm cheating a bit here, though: I've worked with and among artists. In my youth, I worked at a studio framing and printing various works, and being the handyman making sure showings and such went off as intended. Most artists cannot hammer a nail in, is my experience, and I'm not being hyperbolic here.
Three anecdotes that have stuck with me:
One artist, and elderly Swedish man, classically trained to work in oils, stated "There's no market for real paintings, portraits and landscapes and classical motifs so what I do is, I buy a sheet of copper 3*5 meters and have it delivered to the studio. Then I treat the surface so the paint sticks. Then I apply various colours with rollers and long-handled brushes. When it's dry, I cut the whole thing up into 33*45cm pieces, and after you frame them we sell them for 750:- a piece." Note that the cost of production per piece amounted to less than 50:- each.
A woman used to bring in her charcoal scribblings on brown packaging paper, of cats. Always cats, done the way you do in kindergarten. Large circle, smaller on top, triangles for ears, et c. We charged her 500:- for framing which she gladly paid (real cost to us, inc. my pay was about 100:-), since she sold them for over 5 000:- a piece. Buyers were 100% women with high-paid husbands who let the wife spend on stupid stuff to keep the peace.
But the piece de la resistance was the Norwegian man who came in with a "vision". Railroad spikes, treated with acids to rust faster (no, he didn't know chemistry, someone sold him a "bucket of shades of blue") in a 40*55*10cm wooden box. behind glass. He had the idea to have mini-dioramas at the bottom of each box (they were to be displayed vertically), with straws or cogs ad sand, pieces of wood, maybe a baby shoe, et c. And the spike rusting in the middle of that, to "symbolise the passage of time and how even the seemingly permanent things slowly wear away" (the spike). It was as groanworthy as it sounds. Guess who actually put the "work of art" together? Me. Not the artist, he was a "man of vision" you see. Since the bloody fool paid like he had holes in his pockets, and seemed to get off of showing himself richer than us Swedes, we humoured him. The boxes, all 25 or so of them, went for 35 000:-. This was before 1995.
After that experience, I have never questioned the alleged quote about hearing the word "kultur" and reading your gun...
I have had many experiences with artists, beyond this, and they are almost to a man or woman exactly as the stereotypical cliche portraits them as: mad, spoiled rotten, pampered fools lording it over others because having the title "artist" simply makes you special and better.
Remove all public funding and we'll soon see real art, when artists are returned to their proper station as a servant class creating on-demand works for private patrons: the greatest works of arts were indeed created long before the modern idea of state-funded art came about.
I thank you too.
The exclamation " should be something the Catholic Church should permit in its hallowed halls " can find complicated responces under the following simple facts :
1) Coup of the Council of Vatican II (1962)
2) The following abnormal successions - and questionable deaths - of the Popes till the establishment of today's Pope Francis
3) In mater to the above, there is a book -to my knowledge, "From Enemy to Brother" by John Connelly.
Respectfully... Keep healthy and strong,
You know, the more I learn about Vatican II and in particular the current pope (as well as the massive descent into woke-fied nonsense by so many parts of the Church hierarchy and rank-and-field), the stranger this all becomes, doesn't it?
Thank you for the reading suggestion, I will check it out.
Stay true and fine, too!
True... it becomes stranger, but explains -in the measure of- the political phenomena involved in Vatican and corresponding world-wide.
Further in "meta-art" i have located the Belgian Thierry de Cordier and his provocative theme "asperges me", exhibited in Greece and resulted in great public reactions.
here is a link, more than 21 years old (2003):
Guardian / World news / "Obscene' art offends orthodox Greek taste"
Sad individuals... art... psychism !!
Christianity, with its corpus of holy texts from very different authors and written during very different times, is actually quite capable of dealing with ambiguity. What is heresy or blasphemy and what is not can be battled out over time in a Baudrillardian arena. The problem here is involvement of the state, and the fact that jail is not a simulacrum.
You speak a great truth--which is why I was sitting on the story for months on end waiting for that 'other shoe' to drop.
The proximal origin is the woke insanity of part of the Church, the chief problem is the state involving itself into these matters.
Thank you for your excellent report. This statue is outrageously blasphemous - as a free-speech enjoyer, I support the artist's right to create it and display the art in a non-religious setting like a private cafe or gallery, but NOT the Church to be involved in any way. I support the person who beheaded the statue. If I were a parishoner, I would have removed it from the church and smashed it.
See, while I share your sentiments, we're now both in the cross-hairs of Austrian police and public (sic) prosecutors for saying so.
What a shit-show, eh?
I would be happy to go to prison for this.
Once more, I share your sentiments, and while I'd rather by unhappy doing so, I'd gladly face this kind of abuse.
It's all so insane, like so many things. Thanks for reporting.
Why is she sitting on a rock like that? Rubbish artist, don't know how women give birth even.
And yes, one litmus-test of artistic integrity is indeed to dare mock, depict or even desecrate that which is holy to someone else. But when it's one singular target, and not equal treatment, then it's just a sign of puerile "rebellion"; like a four-year old saying "Daddy bad!" and threatening to abscond, in full knowledge Daddy will come get the child as soon as needed.
Why not a statue of Mahomet consummating his marriage to Aisha outside a mosque? Or Abraham and Sara driving out Hagar and Ishmael into the wasteland, outside a synagogue?
'Rubbish artist, don't know how women give birth even.' Well put, that's also what I thought.
I'm with you (and many others commenting here) on the art must be permitted to be provocative part--but the main issue here, it seems, is that the woke-fied church hierarchy (part of it) wanted such a display, albeit for reasons that elude me. (I've since looked a bit into the people behind this charade, and I'm unsure what to make of it or if it's enough for a separate piece; I'll keep digging a bit more, though, then we'll see).
My main question seems to be: why was this staged in a church and not, you know, in a gallery (where perhaps 2-3 people would have gone)? This seems more like agit-prop than art, in addition to the relevant question: who pays for that artist's performances (which are unique and often not in public)?
As to the equal opportunity offences, well, I suppose there's little doubt why: one may be 'Islamophobic', one can not be 'Anti-Semitic', hence, there's but the 'acceptable™' Anti-Christian stance…
It was staged in a church to be provocative, and since the artist&pals know that they are in no danger pulling such a stunt against a Christian congregation - neither legal danger or other - it's the logical choice.
Weak kids who won't fight back gets bullied. Not because it's right or they deserve it, but because they are safe targets.
Now, I'd argue that for art to be provocative there must an element of danger involved for the artist. At least professional ostracisation over the scandal caused, maybe even the threat of prison for violating some censorship/public decency laws. That's what today's artists in the West dream of: to relive a time-period they missed, not being alive back then, when an artist could go to jail for pulling stunts challenging the "stodgy normie status quo" (Monthy Python f.e. would have gone to jail in Norway for 'Life of Brian' as the movie was deemed to violate Norwegian blasphemy-laws).
Since that time is gone (unless homos, pedos, moslems, jews, et c are the target) they are like eunuchs masturbating at the shadow of an image, in their perpetual attempt at provoking a response from a congregation (Christians) that only responds with a saddened look of disparaging concern, and feelings of being hurt.
They would /love/ if a mob of Christians stormed a Church or gallery and did a bit of iconoclasty - it would make their art carry the meaning and message they want it to (since the art itself doesn't and can't, without the intended response).
Or: it's the humiliation and demonstration of power they got off of. Many such artists have Christian backgrounds, having grown up being scolded or beaten or abused by clergy and having internalised it and made it the core of their artistic identity, they have been unable to move on from whatever it was (they claim) happened, and persist to replay the violation by acts of projection.
Or both.
I fear you're correct on all counts, esp. the lack of response--and the way you describe this--'eunuchs masturbating at the shadow of an image'--is hilarious, thanks a lot.
As to the issue of whether it's provocation and/or power, I fear it's both. Enmity vs. Christianity is so deeply engrained in our education and social systems, it boggles the mind, to be frank.
My personal view of this malaise, though, is rather more bleak and simple: being a great fan of Occam's Razor, it suggests that the one thing that keeps artists™ going whose art is neither outstanding nor provoking any reaction beyond the most emotional from the 'fringes'--remember: this piece of art™ was commissioned by the very institution that it ostensibly 'attacks™'--might simply be: vanity.
These artists™ want and desperately need media attention to garner justification for their continued state subsidies (I surmise, I don't know if Ms. Strauß would pay her bills like that), but that's the material-only side of things, which is, in my opinion, underwritten by a pathetic desire to be seen as 'someone™': narcissism, hedonism, and vanity are combined (conflated) with massive bouts of resentment (as the current societal ethos is Socialist, i.e., a material-only cult originating in resentment of one's neighbour).
Works for me as an explanation--what do you think?
Subsidies, tax deductions and the like must play a part in this, and I'd wager there's an internal power struggle going on in the specific Church too, between actual Christians (the flock) and modern woke clergy (the Cult of the Individual).
I'm cheating a bit here, though: I've worked with and among artists. In my youth, I worked at a studio framing and printing various works, and being the handyman making sure showings and such went off as intended. Most artists cannot hammer a nail in, is my experience, and I'm not being hyperbolic here.
Three anecdotes that have stuck with me:
One artist, and elderly Swedish man, classically trained to work in oils, stated "There's no market for real paintings, portraits and landscapes and classical motifs so what I do is, I buy a sheet of copper 3*5 meters and have it delivered to the studio. Then I treat the surface so the paint sticks. Then I apply various colours with rollers and long-handled brushes. When it's dry, I cut the whole thing up into 33*45cm pieces, and after you frame them we sell them for 750:- a piece." Note that the cost of production per piece amounted to less than 50:- each.
A woman used to bring in her charcoal scribblings on brown packaging paper, of cats. Always cats, done the way you do in kindergarten. Large circle, smaller on top, triangles for ears, et c. We charged her 500:- for framing which she gladly paid (real cost to us, inc. my pay was about 100:-), since she sold them for over 5 000:- a piece. Buyers were 100% women with high-paid husbands who let the wife spend on stupid stuff to keep the peace.
But the piece de la resistance was the Norwegian man who came in with a "vision". Railroad spikes, treated with acids to rust faster (no, he didn't know chemistry, someone sold him a "bucket of shades of blue") in a 40*55*10cm wooden box. behind glass. He had the idea to have mini-dioramas at the bottom of each box (they were to be displayed vertically), with straws or cogs ad sand, pieces of wood, maybe a baby shoe, et c. And the spike rusting in the middle of that, to "symbolise the passage of time and how even the seemingly permanent things slowly wear away" (the spike). It was as groanworthy as it sounds. Guess who actually put the "work of art" together? Me. Not the artist, he was a "man of vision" you see. Since the bloody fool paid like he had holes in his pockets, and seemed to get off of showing himself richer than us Swedes, we humoured him. The boxes, all 25 or so of them, went for 35 000:-. This was before 1995.
After that experience, I have never questioned the alleged quote about hearing the word "kultur" and reading your gun...
I have had many experiences with artists, beyond this, and they are almost to a man or woman exactly as the stereotypical cliche portraits them as: mad, spoiled rotten, pampered fools lording it over others because having the title "artist" simply makes you special and better.
Remove all public funding and we'll soon see real art, when artists are returned to their proper station as a servant class creating on-demand works for private patrons: the greatest works of arts were indeed created long before the modern idea of state-funded art came about.