ART330

In an age of digital everything, high speed information, and an unprecedented ability to move about the globe, it’s no wonder that cultural boundaries began to shift. How would art represent the age of globalization? How, too, would the age of multiple humanitarian crises, continued poverty, AIDS, genocide, religious intolerance, fanaticism, weapons of mass destruction, massive debt, and homelessness show up? In this module, we see that art always responds.

The advent of the Internet and subsequent birth of the Information Age accomplished a number of amazing things, only one of which was to bring people from varying lands and cultures somewhat closer. Our ability to communicate in real-time via the web provided access to places and customs from around the world we might not otherwise have without significant research. Now, at the touch of a few buttons, we can view the hustle and bustle of cities on the other side of the planet through Live Cam applications, watch a native celebration on YouTube, find out what the weather is in Singapore, or communicate with Eskimos in Juno. With this kind of access, it comes as no surprise that Culture began crossing lines.

Focus on Globalism in the Arts, continued

In some ways, this kind of “Globalization” has had negative repercussions, as evidenced by Masami Teraoka, who depicted the expansion of American consumer-driven culture via fast food in some of his early work, including this painting, one of a series called McDonalds Hamburgers Invading Japan (1980). In his work, Teraoka has also taken on the global issues of AIDS, censorship, pollution, religious discrimination, and terrorism, among others.

See Masami Teraoka: Recent Work in the Webliography.

In the Middle East, the photographs of Shirin Neshat compel viewers to recognize the dichotomies present in Islamic cultures…tensions between east and west, male and female, good and bad, oppression and submission, virtue and desire. Neshat has worked quite successfully in photography, video, and film to bring awareness to the religious and political issues that shape the experience of women in Islamic nations.

See Speechless in the Links tab under More Tools.

Judy Baca, professor at UC-Irvine and UCLA, artist, and activist, sees art as a way to stimulate social change and self-transformation. Her murals, rich with magical colors and rich depictions of the land of her childhood, also depict the lives of Mexicans and Americans living along the Southwest border and reflect the cultural pluralism that exists as Indian, Latin, and American cultures continue to merge there.

See Judy Baca in the Links tab under More Tools.

Chris Ofili, British born but with Nigerian heritage, draws from his African roots to express himself on canvas. He may perhaps be best known for his version of the Virgin Mary, which is featured in your textbook. In this painting, Ofili uses the dung of elephants to represent fertility, as well as magazine cut-outs of genitalia pasted on representing cherubs. Dried, painted, and varnished, elephant dung often shows up in Ofili’s work, both in the piece itself and as props on which to rest.

If Ofili wanted to shock the public, he succeeded. The Western world was largely in the dark about the significance of elephant dung in African rituals, and Olifi likely knew this. There was a public outcry of blasphemy, and the Catholic officials at the time appealed to the mayor of New York, who had threatened the museum with eviction. This kind of cultural collision, however, is exactly what artists with mixed heritage are drawing attention to with their work.

Shock art—sometimes called Transgressive Art—is what Olifi produced, but one could claim he was a minor offender compared to the “Young British Artists” (aka YBAs). Best known is Damien Hirst, whose obsession with death and decay is evidenced in his oeuvre. You saw in Chapter 47 one installation of Hirst’s work: Mother and Child Divided. Most of Hirst’s productions are far more gruesome, with materials including rotting cow heads, decomposing sharks, and insect electrocutions. Here, in The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, 1991, Hirst has suspended a 14-foot Tiger Shark in a box of formaldehyde. The shark had to be replaced in 2006 because of decomposition. A writer for the New York Times offered this insight:

“Mr. Hirst often aims to fry the mind (and misses more than he hits), but he does so by setting up direct, often visceral experiences, of which the shark remains the most outstanding. In keeping with the piece’s title, the shark is simultaneously life and death incarnate in a way you don’t quite grasp until you see it, suspended and silent, in its tank. It gives the innately demonic urge to live a demonic, deathlike form.”

To view an article about Damien Hirst, go to Damien Hirst: Swimming With Famous Dead Sharks in the Links tab under More Tools.

Shock Art has the unfortunate habit of putting off viewers before they can address the point of the piece: to consider the taboos we hold as sacred…to ask ourselves if they still apply…to engage in debate about what is off-limits and why…and to choose for ourselves consciously, rather than to continue to live in a world dominated by the rules of time long gone. If religion doesn’t allow us to address these taboos, if government and history and language and politics allow us to languish in yesteryear, when will we question? When will we identify that which is no longer relevant to our human experience? When will we decide—for ourselves—what the difference is between that which is sacred and that which is profane? What is beautiful? What is provocative? What do we long for? What do we fear?

Yes, art is a mirror. And, art helps us wake up to these questions.

Go to the Links tab under More Tools to visit the following information:

· Masami Teraoka: Recent Work. Work by Masami Teraoka.

· Speechless. Hear a short interview with the artist and view one of her photographs.

· Judy Baca. Learn about her artistic philosophy, view her paintings, and read her biography.

· Damien Hirst: Swimming With Famous Dead Sharks. An interesting article about Damien Hirst with a picture of his piece, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living.