An Oldie But A Goody... Can Art Still Shock?

I don't try to shock anyone but don't care about pleasing anyone either. Shock for the value of shocking seems meaningless to me. Intrigue, getting people to feel or think outside of their safe zone is closer to the truth but not just for the viewer but for me as well. Side question, can non-objective abstract painting shock anyone today?

Thanks Ronald. I think for our modern society in America, shock is darn near impossible. No, I do not think non-objective paint contains the shock value of the early-mid previous century. I have found personally that when some people found out HOW I make my art they are more shocked than in viewing the art itself. My process, to shoot people unawares in public, then paint them is an attempt to get honest faces and not be a creep. There are many who can not understand that.

While we find it difficult to be shocked, we are in an increasingly paranoid and suspicious world.

The closest I come to being shocked would be photo journalism when they document atrocities occurring today. Even there I think we are heavily jaded by the bombardment of movies and the media. If you truly let half the stuff you see sink in you would go insane.

Wonder if stupid can shock?

My Paintings are all "safe" and maybe a bit boring for others

And lovely, but how do you feel about shock? The need for it? The need to avoid it? You do not shock do you approve of it in others?

BTW my painting is titled: The Daughter of the Prophet. The name made a minor stir among some local Muslims.

Good question Kevin, know you were not asking me but I wonder if shock serves a function or useful purpose for artist?

Kevin, if you want to really find that out, just re post this image and ask that question. I have gotten every degree of comment about this, including, "I hope you go to HELL (if there is still room). So YES, Art, can still shock.

My local newspaper called me after I'd won a Kodak high school contest and asked if I'd like to be their staff photographer for the summer.

I said yes and the first assignment was to cover a car accident where two teenagers were killed when their car overturned.

The photo, published on the front page of the paper that night, showed the young boys laid out beside a creek with the overturned car behind them.

It's probably the most shocking picture I've taken, and today it would never be allowed to be shown, out of respect for the families.

I have never publicly displayed it as well.

There is all sorts of art.

What sort of art are we talking about?

Porn can be art, but many viewers of it are so desensitized that even this form of art is no longer shocking. What would be REALLY shocking would be meticulously crafted porn that attuned to the best of design principles, both visual and dramatic.

Motion pictures are art, but given the high body count blood baths in a number of these, again, the viewers are so desensitized that it is a sort of sick comedy now. Again, a little more depth in the creative process here would be shocking.

I will be shocked when we can get past all this superficial, lowest-common-denominator, adrenalin-rush, basal-appetite-pleasing output that passes as popular art today.

Chuck, good point but you were doing journalism, not art. S there are different rules there. Still you have a valid point.

Bill I don't want to venture into politics or religion. Having said that I am not sure your artwork is shocking as much as deliberately issue provoking. There is a difference.

Nice work Bill, guess I can see why it might upset some. Seems very dramatic and religious from a anti abortion, pro Christian standpoint. The "Go to hell" remark confuses me since I would think that would of come from the women rights groups. By the way I have heard there is always room for one more!

A photographer friend of mine took a picture following a car accident. The car had hit a bridge abutment and burst into flame. The dead driver was halfway through the windshield and completely charred. The photo was published in National Enquirer. This was over forty years ago, but I can still see the image in my mind's eye as clearly as if it were yesterday. Shocking yes, and memorable beyond belief. It would be just as shocking today, due to its gruesomeness.

It was a well-crafted photo, but was it art? I dunno.

Well certainly Robert you make a point. Olympia by Manet (discussed in the article) was considered at its worst, to be porn and at its best, to be poor painting. Ultimately it was a step in change the art world, and what was considered "art" and acceptable.

Things like painting with menstrual blood can only be shocking if one knows the back story. The idea, of course is to shock, but often such things not only shock but disgust. Similar but not the same. Guernica was shocking in its time, and affected a change in the world. At least as much as art can.

Even in early Christian works from Italy can be considered. Originally meant to make a living bible, principally for those who did not read, some of the images were shocking in nature to the common man.

Can we as artists, shock today without venturing into disgusting?

Well I consider myself an intellectual, so I expect my work to engage the viewers mind. But I was also a philosophy major so I tend to try and just report not moralize, because I don't believe you can prove a most moral or right doctrine. I can't think of the situation where I even play the shock angle. The thing that engages me in shocking is it's so overlooked.
-- mary ellen anderson

Mary Ellen, well said. Of course shocking can be universal or individual. Your nice work of Rusty makes me happy. I like hunting, bird dogs, and old shotguns. I have bumped into others who would be shocked that you celebrate any of those things. They even go to the trouble of expressing blanket hatred on the subjects.

Murray, I know you are correct.

Taking the time to look deeply at a work of art might be a lost art in itself!

Is the shock value from art obtained solely from the subject matter?

Good question, I believe not. Check out Chris Ofili's work. No controversy in his images.

There is so much hate,depression,discontent in this world that's in our faces daily without having to paint it. My art focuses on escaping the death and destruction that we see on the news and provides a place of peace to sooth ones soul and to recharge for another day of being bombarded with the evils of this world. If even I can take you to a magical place in one glance, a single moment of peace that was my arts whole intention. To some my art is 'pretty' but miss the intention of it or where it came from. There is a lot of thought and emotion that goes into my pieces. Where would "I' go to escape the realities of whats happening around us? The answer is in my work.

The most shocking thing in the art world is the prices being got for mediocre and banal 'art'. The recent photograph record being done to death, I'll just say "It's a photo - you could take it yourself for a helluva lot less!"

Roger,
How about if the shock value of art is to get viewers to look more deeply at the art? As I said, I'm intentionally subtle and would even say that my "following" seems to be around finding those meanings. So as have said, anything you paint, it's all a publicity stunt to get your skills seen. We're artists, how can we deny trying to manipulate our audiences?
-- mary ellen anderson

Ron, what is amazing is that "Amazing Grace" was a painting I did with the loss of a unborn. It was meant as a very positive work and viewed by many women as a real encouragement to their own LOSES. It's only seems dramatic in a negative way to those who have a problem with WHO is holding that infant, and reading abortion or whatever into it.

Sure hook up some live wires to a frame of a photo or art work and place a sign that says please touch me.

Ah Bill, hard not to read that into the piece without the background knowledge. My question to you is does the misreading of your painting bother you?

I did try for a sort of shock in one of my paintings here, Geb, but failed miserably. All of my work is so damn polite lol

Based on responses I have to conclude there is no appreciable shock value in art today.

With all that they show on prime time TV these days it is truly getting more difficult to shock anyone with an image.

But shock does still seem to be one of the fastest ways to notoriety.

How to do it? Haha - the best way may be the tried and tested "waste of taxpayers' money" shock and awe strategy.

Nothing gets your name out there faster than a public art "monstrosity" that flocks of journalists and politicians are declaring is a "piece of junk" "pile of garbage" "embarassing" "waste of taxpayers' money".

Case in point:

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/04/23/saskatoon-man-angrily-throws-tarp-over-public-art-that-consists-of-two-large-bundles-of-garbage/

The example linked is only of the $4,000 variety, but still garners national coverage in Canada. Even more effective when you get into six figures. :)

Tatiana, you make an excellent point. Quite often we are not outraged until we are told to be.

I am shocked every day by what art sells.

What sells might surprise me at times but I am much more shocked and amazed by how many "artist" seem to know very little about their field.

Where I live and have for over 25 years it's a bit of a cultural desert when it comes to acceptance and art, and tolerance in art.

It is not difficult to shock people around here I learned the hard way.

I painted a series of Hollywood Silent Movie legend many years back and wanted to show at a local gallery who then took the paintings to a local financial institution to display. The two they took were both returned to the gallery after a day. One was because an person of the black persuasion complained it was "black face" and offensive and demanded to know who this Callaway person was who had the audacity to paint black face. So offensive it was. Only it wasn't black face at all it was Buster Keaton, a depiction of The great Stone Face.

The offended person did not know the difference between stone face and black face. To NOT offend they refused to show the painting and the gallery had to come and pick it up.. The other was of of Clara Bow the first IT girl, holding a glass. A white old, southern lady complained about the alcohol glass in her hand, the bank refuse to show that one too. Did not want to offend anyone. LOL. That is pretty much the story. Depending where you live some people are very easily offended.

There was another case of me painting a black slave women holding a white baby, which was often the case during slavery. When black women were denied their own children but lovingly raised the white masters children. Well that one was, instead of displayed as promised in a local business, turned to the wall in a storage room because everyone complained about that one. Black, white no matter nobody wanted to see that one. A good friend of mine who is black own it now and all the other historical paintings I did. He loves them.

I also painted a few pieces of animal activist art and there was a whole new outrage group. In my opinion and based on having lived in France, In Germany and now in the US. The US it not nearly as tolerant and free in expression as many want to believe.

I hope to move some day to a place where people are a bit more sophisticated and tolerant as to art and creativity. Religion has a lot to do with intolerant attitudes toward art here in the bible belt anyways and I am saying this as an expert having lived here for over 25 years and having come from Frankfurt Germany where it was a totally different environment.

Melissa Herrin I get what you are saying I too paint beauty most of the time because of many reasons. But the issue is that I tolerate the expression of other people which may be 100% opposite of how I express myself. I even try to appreciate some of it. Therein lies the difference.

Freedom of expression means expression of everyone not just those that chose to paint pretty pictures or beauty but also those that want to rock the boat. Rocking the boat is very important. I admire artists that stick their neck out. Not everything we disagree with is shock for shock sake. If it shocks me I may have to ask myself why am I shocked. The truth can be shocking but it is still the truth!

Thanks Ginette, great stories and nice work. I too have run into such censorship. A number of years ago my wife (a pharmaceutical exec) had a number of my Blues paintings adorning her office. They were so popular they even conducted tours to show off the original paintings. One has a bare breasted African girl in it. I actually saw her in Africa and was only reporting, not editorializing. Someone complained and you know the rest. That painting came back to live in my gallery.

It is rare for me to paint nudes, or even anything controversial. My milieu has never been to shock or reach for the controversial. Yet we get there sometimes on our own, even by accident.

Maybe not shocking but I hope Al Qaeda finds it as terribly offensive.

I make use of symbolism, both personal and cultural in my works. Because of this interpretations of my work varies quite a bit, sometimes I find it educational and sometimes strange. Told this story before so I apologize to anyone who may have read it in the past. I was doing a solo show at a county government center and just happen to walk into the lobby where it was displayed as an heated argument broke out between two gentlemen. One thought that my painting was satanic and the other thought it was highly religious. The image was the exposed brain of a rather dorky dude. In the brain I had sectioned it off similar to phrenology. I had tiny areas for intelligence, kindness and so on. Most of the brain was labeled McBrain. I thought of the picture as humorous. FYI, I did not introduce myself to the gentlemen. Moral of the story is that the viewer brings their own baggage along with them and that baggage determines if they can and will be shocked or not.

I feel your pain Kevin. A women's natural breast painted in natural manner is a beautiful thing, like anything else a flower, a baby.
But people are verklemmt, it's really their problem! In the case of your painting the double whammy was race and I learned quickly how all sides are overboard about it and far from colorblind. Now I won't touch it with a ten foot pole!

~~~~~

Micheal... you go. Je Suis Charlie looks good.

Sad thing is. great humans have lost their lives for the principle of free expression especially offensive expression, and tolerating such expression, yet an artist in Paris, a female just had to remove her installation because of threads made by a Muslim organisation. What was her art installation? Women's high heel shoes on a "prayer rug"! The battle is lost the door to of politically and religiously correct censorship is wide open. Nothing should be save from critique. Nothing. Those easily offended should not go and see the installation but instead she had to remove it and it was replaced by a video installation of belly dancers dancing to the french national anthem while waiving ribbons of red, white and blue. Very ironic!

Bill, I think your painting is incredible powerful. Very good indeed. When people leave comments like "I hope you go to hell" it tells me more about them than anything. It's who they are that makes them see your painting and feel they have to make it personal. The painting is REAL. Raw, filled with emotion. To clarify, I am not a Christian or any other religion but I look at this painting from a totally different angle. It could bring one to tears to see the painting, delve in to it objectively without prejudice, and see fragile infant juxtaposed with the the strong hand to hold it, try to keep it safe, yet the hand shows suffering too. That is what I see. and I am not a religious person I am a philosophical person. I see suffering, fragility and helplessness all portrait in your painting. It strikes a chord with me as a human. To summarize, I see humanity as strong as we are suffering, while trying to protect innocence.

..

Being shocked is a personal choice. Some people use the argument it's too shocking, in order to try to oppress facts they are not capable of handling, or do not want to be brought to the light, or disagree so they say it's shocking so lets forbid it. Shocking to whom? The whole shocking worry and complains is silly to me. People are so intolerant to things they do not understand or don't agree with. "I'm shocked, I'm shocked I'm fainting, Oh my... darlings where is my Ammonia."

An interesting question. I think in our post-WWI, -WWII, -Vietnam, -punk, etc era, it is difficult to truly "shock". However it seems to be bloody easy to "offend" people these days, whatever that means... :-)

- Richard Reeve
ReevePhotos.com

Interesting point Richard, Shock vs. offend.

Here's a concept:

If so many people fall for shock art, ... to the point that they are no longer shocked, ... then expose them to highly skilled classical techniques, and challenge them to master these. Bet THAT would be a shock their systems.

Shock mediocrity with excellence, in other words.

I'm such an elitist.

Shock vs offend, exactly! Well said. Several years ago I was at the San Francisco Art Inst. where they have an open courtyard displaying student work. In true Tracy Emin style a student had used mentruall blood to do a painting on a bed sheet. Meant to mimic? Shock? offend? I am not sure. The thing is it was a pretty good painting, and absent the description one would never know the back story.

Robert you mean classical trained like say Caravaggio?



This is actually tame, the compare to Judith Beheading Holofernes and some others. What about Goya?




I am sure many people were and still are shocked or offended for whatever reasons. Can't please everyone!

Art can shock when you're surprised by something. If an artist shows the same thing that he/she shows everyday, there will be no "shock".

A major "bleh" like: "So you're showing another religious image again?..."

If some people can still be shocked by art today, wonder about tomorrow?

"Ripley's Believe it or Not" was often shock based sensationalized material. Art was made to try to reproduce the visuals of these erie things and events for people. Recently I saw a video I could not believe. A scientist had apparently transplanted monkey heads between bodies. Next step people. But it's hard to believe and is a shocking thing wouldn't you agree Kev? Magicians are always playing the shock game aren't they?

Poe was kind of a shock artist. His imagination was extreme at the time.

The film "Perfume" was a real shocker.

Why should it?

Why shouldn't it?

How about a grotesque and distorted world in a warm glow? Is that shocking or have
we formed this world over such a long time, a few generations, that it is common place?

Many things in this world can be shocking to the uninformed. And it is true once exposed, shocking things fail to shock. But I was really talking only about art. Can we, in today's America, shock with our art? As I said, disgust and shock are not really the same. Personally I feel we have little chance in shocking with art, at least not without reaching for the disgusting. Is our future only to be shocked at the price of certain artists?

Wonder if being amazed is the same as shock?

Ronald... my thoughts exactly! LOL Some pictures really amaze me, and not in a good way, but I laugh I'm so amazed.

I am sure Ronald would tell us we need to look back into art history for a glimpse at the answer. In the early days of religious art in Italy, for example, art was the visual depiction of the bible for a populace that was for the most part illiterate. Some of these images of torture, sacrifice, rape, and murder were truly both shocking and frightening to the populace. It has not been that many years in the history of man that when one went to bed, they could not be sure that they would not be awakened by the hordes coming over the hill to rape, burn and pillage. Such fears were hardly unfounded. Of course we live in a much safer world, particularly in America and Europe. Today we are more shocked that our government officials want to cover a naked statue during a speech, than we are of the nudity of the statue itself.

True, in many ways a nude sculpture becomes obscene when partially covered.

Kevin... Ok..

Do you know of any sophisticated shock style art work which is considered cutting edge and bizarre yet with supreme taste and effectiveness?

Or is it jut the usual pretentious side show circus acts people are used to since Man Ray shot himself in the arm. Have you seen the recent half dozen Brazilian women lying nude on the street in Sao Paulo wrapped up in cellophane protesting the butchering of animals for food?

Also there was have you seen the recent bizarre performance art with the lady artist nude and naked while standing up and then squirting out a chicken egg along with food coloring from her vagina (where she stuffed it in) in a way that the squirted egg splatters the street with bloody looking fluids on the city square in Berlin, Germany in front of hundreds of onlookers.

Nudity and bloody in the open in front of the public is not necessarily shocking but it sure gets people's attention.

Yes, Vincent to all those things. Simply bolstering the point that we are no longer shocked as much as disgusted, and in art today it seems to take a circus sideshow to get attention.

I guess, to me, the most shocking art (of recent art history) came out of the POP movement with art like Ballentine Beer Can and Brillo Box and others. Shocking not for their disgusting quotient, but for how those artists totally redefined what is seen as art. I have seen artists on FAA deride Andy Warhol's work, and when I went to that artist's site I saw work that could never have been done before Warhol.

Shocking does not need to be about violence, sexuality, or man's inhumanity to man. We see so much of that we are no longer even shocked. Shocking can (and is) a work of art that changes the idea of art. When one sees such a work it is often derided by by the uninitiated and critics, until accepted by some, and then applauded by the same ones who criticized. Finally, the formerly shocking will become banal.

Kevin,

Your examples are interesting. But as far as shock goes it seems it is all an "insider" thing among a broad and aggressive academic art world.

I like my sculptures to evoke emotions in the viewer, so sometimes shock is a valid emotion to evoke.

Vincent, have you been hang around my studio to see all my moldy art works?

Seriously, Christo is a great example, but I will not back away from Warhol and the POPs. It may have started as an insider thing as you say, but today virtually everyone know Warhol. He did shock the system and not just the insider art world but regular Joe Sixpacks. His influence, like him or hate him, lives on today, even in his proteges work. Warhol influence Modern Art, film, pop music, among other things. If that is not a shock, then I don't know what. AND he did it primarily without sex, nudity, or violence. Remember his "Electric Chair" images. No one in the chair but they still shocked, at the time.

I think you have the right idea but are a bit too cynical about the art world for me.

Yes Mario, you are correct. But remember the most shocking art about war (after Guernica) is the Vietnam Memorial Wall, which contains no images of violence, only the names of those Americans who perished. A far more illuminating and shocking thing than blood and guts.

I made a shocking drawing of an Electric Knife fish once. I made it look like it was neon lightning. It was cutting edge! Thought about harnessing it's energy to jumpstart my Land Rover as well. Hard to hook up the jumper cables though!

Hiya Kevin,

Can art still be shocking....Nah.

It depend's... Firstly anyone can be shocked by anything. People can be shocked by simple thing's because of past experiences and unintentional associations to something in there past that only they feel. However if we are talking more on a wider spectrum it depends. I myself so far have shocked a few people. I did a series on sideshow freak's Some of them where a bit shocking to some people who would get a glimpse of them however most people found them interesting or did not care. I have some work's in my head that may shock a lot of people but lack the ability to manifest them correctly right now but one day they will hopefully come into existence. People are shocked when they have to reflect on there own life and question there reality and beliefs. I hope to make people question however I don't try to make shocking art but rather art that question's although sometime's I just like to make thing's strange because I like oddity.

So thinking of this more it depends on why the person is shocked. Are they shocked because they must rethink and question there ideology. Are they shocked because of the image. It can be easy to shock people but it is vary hard to shock people the right way.What I mean by this is a picture can be shocking just because. But good shocking work will allow the person to question a ideology that should be questioned. Also can work be shockingly good. Or shock someone but then lead the person to like the shock.

Well put.

I do what I want...to hell with what people say... good or bad.

People that stay in safe zones have closed minds.

A free spirit has no limitations.

I think this one has burned itself out. Thank you all for keeping it civil with excellent replies.