The People’s Show: Promoting Critical Response

2015

Disman, A. (Spring 2015) “Performance Art, Pornography, and the Mis-Spectator: The Ethics of Documenting Participatory Performance.” in Performing Products. Eds. T. Nikki Cesare Schotzko, Didier Morelli, & Isabel Stowell-Kaplan. Spec. issue of Canadian Theatre Review 162. Print. ABSTRACT: When it comes to documenting participatory performance, what ethical concerns do performance artists face? How can we consider consent in situations like this? In part one, I engage Nicolas Ridout’s figure of the mis-spectator, to examine the ethics of documentation using Marina Abramović’s The Artist is Present as a case study. Here, the participant-body is conscription as an object—a product—that performs as an extension of the artist’s body. The notion of ‘static consent’ that undergirds archival logic, upon which the art market rests, is unethical and I propose, instead, that an emphasis on a dialogical culture of care could allow for more ethical forms of consent. In Part Two, I examine an instance in which my own documentation of a naked performance art piece was appropriated unconsensually to pornography websites. Examining the complicated relations of power at play, I ask how we might do things differently.

The Oxford Handbook of Art and Ethics, 2023

This chapter offers a critical overview of recent philosophical literature on erotic art and pornography as well as some suggestions about new directions for inquiry, all with an eye toward ethical issues that arise in these areas. The first section surveys philosophical discussions of the purported distinction between art and pornography. The next section considers new areas of inquiry that arise once we shift focus to the connections and similarities between erotic art and pornography. Once we put the pornography literature and the aesthetics-and-ethics literature into conversation with one another, new areas of inquiry open up, including: the harms and benefits that come from engaging with libidinous representations, applications of speech act theory to libidinous representations, and philosophical and ethical issues pertaining to fiction, imagination, and fantasy. Finally, the chapter concludes with a discussion of sex positivity and social justice issues related to libidinous representations. Before we begin, I would like to make some remarks about terminology. Unless otherwise specified, "art" is here construed broadly to include popular culture, and "pornography" is treated not as a monolith, but rather as a diverse category of representation that includes queer porn and feminist porn, to name only a few. I also construe "ethics" and "ethical value" broadly to include social justice concerns such as (listed in alphabetical order) ableism, classicism, fatism, homo-negativity, racism, sexism, and trans-negativity. Finally, there is a trigger warning for this chapter. At various points I will be mentioning rape and other forms of sexual violence, pedophilia, racialized violence, and eroticizing representations of these things, although I do not discuss any of this in vivid detail.

2013

Thomas Goodnight's definition of controversy offers an initial examination of Reverend Donald Wildmon and Reverend Pat Robertson's attack of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), initiating the Culture Wars of 1989. Using their most reliable communication tactics, Wildmon and Robertson attempted to garner support for their values by manufacturing controversy related to government funding of the National Endowment for the Arts. Together, they manufacture social controversy around two interrelated themes, one of morality, in which they argued Christians were being persecuted by the art community, and the other against federal funding of objectionable art, using Andres Serrano and Robert Mapplethorpe as symbols of corruption. In addition to the initial attacks on Serrano and Mapplethorpe, my rhetorical analysis illustrates how Wildmon's and Robertson's rhetoric seemingly sanctioned the manufacturing of a social controversy regarding the Federal funding for objectionable art as a way to promote their pro-family and anti-homosexual agenda. v PREFACE I was fortunate enough to be the intern selected to work with the National Endowment for the Arts Music Program in Washington D.C. the summer of 1995. The experience was extraordinary on a number of levels, most specifically because I was at the Endowment-wide meeting in which major cutbacks were announced and many staff members were laid off. I knew these actions had something to do with objectionable art by Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano, but I did not realize until I began this research how monumental this moment was in the history of art in America. Historically the arts have been under fire from numerous objectors because at times the purpose of an artwork is to be a cultural mirror to what is happening in society. This can bring understanding and acceptance to some members of society, or better yet, it is an opportunity for some to change their ways. Other times people are highly offended when an artist's perception the truth is reflected back to them. This research began as a way for me to understand what led to the NEA cutbacks of 1995 and with this knowledge of manufacturing social controversy, I hope to be understanding of similar issues in the future. vi

Artleaks Gazette

In this article, I discuss the representation of people with disabilities as an ethical and political act, including the intimate demand of face-to-face encountering with another person and a picture in an artwork. The article explores the project, Good afternoon Mr. Holbein, by Pekka Elomaa, through two different image interpretations, which together offer an alternative understanding to the dominant discourse on image analysis. The politics of representation of people with disabilities is troubled together with Levinasian philosophy and disability studies in art education. Art on vulnerability and social just This article explores one art project through two different and perhaps alternative interpretations. It discusses representation of people with disabilities in artistic collaboration beyond dominant discourse on image analysis. The article tends to take part on art educational conversation on working with people with disabilities and on the issues of representing the people to work with. The two different interpretations on one art project are negotiated through two different theories. The first reading entails encountering an artwork as a vulnerable act, the second reading discusses the art works as political and public art making with people with disabilities. As an example, I present an art project " Good afternoon Mr. Holbein " by Pekka Elomaa. In this project Elomaa has worked for many years in collaboration with people with disabilities. The outcome has been exhibited in a gallery spaces and as a photography book (Elomaa & Jaatinen, 2014).

2007

What is art's function today, in the early 21 st century? It is argued here that, while art's function has changed dramatically throughout history, its formal features are usually regarded as being paramount in ascertaining whether something is art or not. It is further argued, with reference to specific works by contemporary artists (Serrano, Mapplethorpe and Reggio), that it is impossible, and inadvisable, to reduce the importance of art to its formal-aesthetic properties, as some people tend to do. Moreover, while the formal and the conceptual aspects of art are linked, there is reason to promote certain functions, such as the ethical, the critical and ecological, at the cost of reducing others (such as the commercial) in the contemporary world.

The Journal of Value Inquiry, 1995

When censorship in the visual arts is publicly discussed, the argument is often presented that certain works, although probably offensive, hurtful, or obscene, should be spared from censorship because they are works of art, or possess artistic value. Even in the recent U.S. Congress decision to ban government funding of"obscene and indecent" works, the exception of artistry was recognised in that only works which have no serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value can, according to the new law, be denied the support of public resources. 1 The argument that artistry excuses obscenity is, then, accepted both by many liberal defenders of art and by many of its conservative censors. There are, however, two premises underlying the defense that those employing it seldom specify, and which may be found objectionable. First is the assumption that obscenity really should, for some reason or another, be censored. This premise is in need of clarification before liberal defenders of free expression can accept the argument as a whole-why should freedom be legitimately restricted to protect the general public from such a minor evil as obscenity? Second is the further assumption that artistry, or artistic value, somehow justifies obscenity. This point, in turn, is problematic for the conservative proponent of censorship: given that indecent or obscene works and exhibitions usually ought to be banned, why should the situation be any different if the indecency in question happens to be artistic? Surely morality overrides artistry whenever these categories come into conflict with each other. In what follows, the two premises will be further clarified and examined in the framework of potentially censurable motion pictures. The examination will proceed in three stages. We begin by presenting a few examples of movies which are regarded by some as offensive, hurtful, or obscene (section 2). We then review the most important liberal justifications for restricting the freedom of expression of filmmakers (sections 3-4). Finally, we analyze and assess different theories about the value of artistry (sections 5-6).

MEDIANZ: Media Studies Journal of Aotearoa New Zealand, 2006

In his poem 'September 1 1939', WH Auden writes 'All I have is a voice/To undo the folded lie/…the lie of Authority' (Auden 203: 125-8). The poem is perhaps not his best, being loaded with adjectives and bordering on sentiment, but at its core is a howl against 'The windiest militant trash/Important Persons shout,' and the numbing of selves under the weight of everyday politics and geopolitics and economic politics and all the mess that constitutes contemporary life. New Zealand artist Lorraine Webb suggests, in a personal communication I had with her, that 'Today, Auden's "folded lie" is more like the moving half truth, the screen lie, and all we want is artists who use their work to talk about the lie of war; not to create a new propaganda, but to unearth the complexities of our common humanity.' In this paper I want to address the issue towards which she gestures: the relationship between art and the mass media, and the ethical dimensions available to artists. This is an old story, of course, one that has been debated at least since Plato's time, but in the current context, where the mass media is effectively the new agora, and where artists are increasingly feeling embattled, it is worth revisiting. For twentieth-century art theorists, the conversation between sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and artist Hans Haacke, recorded in their book Free Exchange (Bourdieu and Haacke 1995), pretty much sums up what is at stake for artists in this context. Art has an 'obligation,' according to dominant discourses in the field, to focus on the aesthetic and to present the individual artist's perspective; it is the work of art to communicate artistic values and eschew any other necessity; this demands 'a renunciation of certain functions, particularly political functions.' Such discourses generally insist that art is politically and socially neutral, and economically disinterested; though a glance at arts practice across history would tend to disabuse anyone of this notion. Like it or not, artists are involved in the social, political and economic spheres because art is a mechanism for representing and constituting social relations and social values. As Haacke points out, art is a form of symbolic power which 'can be put to the service of domination or emancipation' (1995: 2), and whether artists consciously identify themselves with either side of this divide, they and their work are available to be read, framed and coopted by interests beyond the field of cultural production. And although conservative governments tend to treat artists as the enemy, part of the 'chattering classes,' artists work, and are put to work, on both sides: both in radical protest and as supporters of the hegemony. In the recent past, however, art and artists have emerged more often as voices of resistance than as cheerleaders for the increasingly right wing polity. The numbers of US film actors involved in protests against the government of George W Bush; the numbers of Australian artists actively engaging in what can be termed 'human rights' art; the assaults made by governments in both those nations against the arts; all these signal that both sides are tooling up for the battle, though the obvious advantage rests with governments, and they are making use of their power. The US government, for instance, has for decades used financial weapons to control art, especially through the support provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, and this continues under the presidency of George W Bush, who is a supporter of American Western (Texan) art, but places limits on what counts as worthwhile. According to his deputy press campaign secretary, Ray Sullivan, 'He's made it clear that we should not spend public money to support obscene material or to denigrate religion' (Artnews 2000). In Australia the quarrel about what should and should not be offered to the arts, and what place art plays in society, continues to rumble. Most recently (November 2004) the

2005