Tori Amos did the whole 'pig statement' much better on 'Boys for Pele', where she suckled (as in breast fed a pig) on the album art.

For some reason, the middle classes think people should pay to see them indulge their own fantasies. When the poor or stupid create 'art' like this in their own homes, they are locked up.

Ms O'Reilly could fuel her "unexpected fantasies of mergence and interspecies metamorphoses" and enhance her "undercurrent of pigginess" by 'squealing like a pig' (Deliverance style), going to live in a pig sty for a year (naked, of course), or hanging upside and bleeding like one. Now that I would pay to see.

However, what she is doing is no worse than an average business does on a day-to-day basis. Why is it OK to eat and wear animal products where the animal has been treated much worse before and after death, but when some dumb young lady takes off her clothes and messes around with a dead pig, everyone gets upset? Anyone seen what goes on in an abbatoir (or a mortuary, come to think of it)? If I was the pig, I'd rather be despatched in the arms of a naked woman in the dubious name of 'art' than be sent to the grinder and end up in a McBreakfast.

You know, If I took a carboard jeep, turned it upside down, painted a purple streak diagnolly down the middle, and sat on it naked wearing only red socks, and took a picture of myself, it would sell for a million dollars as modern art!
:3eye:

it would probably just kill the jeep industry

The thing that bothers me about this kind of stuff is that it certainly - and rightly - gives the artistic community a bad name. Where is there a sane artist or professor who denounces this as non-art and fundamentally fradulent? Let's hear from the professors of art at the universities, and from some real artists. Any word from them? Or are they just as stupid and deranged as this woman and the Art Gallery. Are artists all so stupid that nobody will condemn this?

Really, she's a piker compared to some of the truly depraved and morally bankrupt members of the "art community" SWMBO is always railling on about Damien Hirst (sp?) Google some links as to what he calls art. The critics and collectors lap it up with a spoon.

I'm far from PETA, (friends *do* eat friends) but a particularly egregious example of his was to adhere live butterflies to wet paint on his canvas.

It serves no point, it doesn't illuminate or educate, it doesn't heal people, or uplift in any way.

I recall a story my friend told me about when he and his brothers were young: They were sitting around and my friend's brother was pulling the legs off an ant. His uncle came along and told him to stop. The brother began to launch into a whole quasi philosophical rationalization about how the ant doesn't feel pain like we do, and how it isn't hurting the ant, etc. And the uncle looked at the boy and said "I don't care what it's doing to the ant, I care about what it's doing to you."

That stopped him cold and gave him something to think about.

Leaving aside the matter of what is happening to the butterflies, what is the "artwork" doing to you, the viewer?

What, this wasn't close enough?

That's chilling. On an unrelated note, three days ago in my town, a kitten was found which had been beheaded and had a paw cut off. The head and paw are still missing. Wonder if whomever did that started first on ants and flies.

I didn't want to trot out Serrano since he's had his day in the sun. Among most of the art world Serrano is regarded as a one hit wonder whose fame relied solely on the fuss that was caused by a) Catholics and b) the ACLU.

He only became an important collectible artist when he generated a lot of press through non critical mention.

Then again, it was the 80's where there was a lot of coin and dealers were practically pulling merchandise from their hinders.

What's he been up to lately? Hardly a Michelangelo or a Ruebens is he?

Ants and flies are confirmed gateway creatures.

There's a pig in the picture? Where? I don't see one. :rolleyes:

But...I wasn't arguing his importance. Just pointing out the use of bodily excretions as art being fairly passe by now.

Oh I know that, Els. I was just underlining your point and adding a handful of these things !!!! to it.

Meh. The League of Gentlemen did it better:

It is often about the hype not the content as Han van Meegeren showed.

HA HA HA! I love it.