PIG 05049 : Christien Meindertsma

[spirulinai]

I've stumbled across a startling art exhibition. This project, PIG 05049, takes one pig and illustrates in a very sterile and frank kind of manner where every bit and piece of the corpse goes. Here's the description from the artist's website

Comments

[spirulinai]

No worries! I can absolutely understand how involved you can get in a project that's really coming together. It's all-consuming!

I had a fair few debates of this kind in art school (I actually have the same alma mater as Jesse Power.. blegh). There was a time in first year when you couldn't get through a class of any kind without running up against the "What is art?" debate (or the similar but equally exasperating "What is Beauty" debate). I'm not a hard-liner by any means - I've been much more permissive than a lot of my peers, for example, in allowing room for community art and activist art in the sphere simply because they serve very important purposes, even if they look ridiculous or are kind of cheesy. I can totally understand the line of thinking that equates any thought-provoking project with art for a lot of reasons, but I just can't bring myself to let exploitation off the hook. IMHO - it can be thought provoking, elegant, well-exhibited, expertly-debated, painstakingly crafted art, but if it's exploitative, it's just exploitation to me. Thought provoking, elegant, well-exhibited, expertly-debated, painstakingly crafted exploitation. I don't see anything wrong with stripping something of the title, and it certainly doesn't make that something less thought-provoking, but.. I think I'm rambling! Y'know what I mean?

[jacques_strappe]

I know exactly what you mean. :) I've got my own beef with some art that doesn't even use animals... we're discussing postmodernism in one of my classes right now and the works of Sherrie Levine -- who basically photographs famous photographs and claims the art as her own. Thought-provoking, infuriating, and (imho) stupid -- but there ya go!