How far is "too far" in the creation of art?

[megan]

Ken - thanks for your response, and thanks for not taking it offensively, but more as the sort of observation that it was!

How far would I go with my art? As a side note, I have tried the whole bondage theme thing with my work, and - well - to gank a word from one of the other threads here, it was "pretentious." It's not me, not what I'm about, but it was a good experiment, and I learned from it.

In my own personal approach to art, hm - Okay. There are the artists out there whose purpose is to blatantly provoke, shock, offend - they create art with the full intent and knowledge that it will cause some sort of outrage or sensation. Like that British conceptual artist who invited a whole bunch of A list people to a gala opening and they showed up and the gallery was closed, padlocked dark. They were furious, yet his intent was to demonstrate facets of privileedge and being left out. And that's okay, that is their thing. There are also artists whose intent is not to cause sensation, but end up doing it because of the power of their work/talent/other reasons. I think I'm the latter sort. Taking my work to the edge and then pushing those boundaries *for me* is a more personal thing; it's about my own internal boundaries than challenging society's boundaries. I'm not smart or clever enough to be the intentional provacateur. I recently did a series that I titled "new_venus" with which I updated the image and perception of how women are depicted in art through the centuries. I did an African America Venus de Milo, a smiling/anguished Medusa and several other themese. I don't think, all in all, it was offensive, but I did push my OWN boundaries in the sense that I went all out for the photographs, reshot, and got the images I had planned/went beyond the images I had planned in my mind instead of accepting the so-so results from the first shoot. I took nudes, which I had never done before. (I really need to put these up on my site.) While some people may have been repulsed by some of the images (color was intentionally off to influence mood, some of the models that I picked - on purpose - had nipple piercings etc.), and some were bold images, I didn't do it to cause sensation. (I need to find this guy's thread and see what the conversation is about!) I think that in order to truly achieve anything in your art whether you're an unkown like myself or a famous artist, you have to go as far as you can for your art - whether it's an internal or external struggle, you know? My thought is - why *wouldn't* you go all the way for your art? (Of course, as long as cute furry things or other people aren't injured) I think you should go as far as you can - and unfortunately, that's pretty ambiguous, and I've blathered on and answered abosutely nothing!

[ken1953]

Ken - thanks for your response, and thanks for not taking it offensively, but more as the sort of observation that it was!

How far would I go with my art? As a side note, I have tried the whole bondage theme thing with my work, and - well - to gank a word from one of the other threads here, it was "pretentious." It's not me, not what I'm about, but it was a good experiment, and I learned from it.

In my own personal approach to art, hm - Okay. There are the artists out there whose purpose is to blatantly provoke, shock, offend - they create art with the full intent and knowledge that it will cause some sort of outrage or sensation. Like that British conceptual artist who invited a whole bunch of A list people to a gala opening and they showed up and the gallery was closed, padlocked dark. They were furious, yet his intent was to demonstrate facets of privileedge and being left out. And that's okay, that is their thing. There are also artists whose intent is not to cause sensation, but end up doing it because of the power of their work/talent/other reasons. I think I'm the latter sort. Taking my work to the edge and then pushing those boundaries *for me* is a more personal thing; it's about my own internal boundaries than challenging society's boundaries. I'm not smart or clever enough to be the intentional provacateur. I recently did a series that I titled "new_venus" with which I updated the image and perception of how women are depicted in art through the centuries. I did an African America Venus de Milo, a smiling/anguished Medusa and several other themese. I don't think, all in all, it was offensive, but I did push my OWN boundaries in the sense that I went all out for the photographs, reshot, and got the images I had planned/went beyond the images I had planned in my mind instead of accepting the so-so results from the first shoot. I took nudes, which I had never done before. (I really need to put these up on my site.) While some people may have been repulsed by some of the images (color was intentionally off to influence mood, some of the models that I picked - on purpose - had nipple piercings etc.), and some were bold images, I didn't do it to cause sensation. (I need to find this guy's thread and see what the conversation is about!) I think that in order to truly achieve anything in your art whether you're an unkown like myself or a famous artist, you have to go as far as you can for your art - whether it's an internal or external struggle, you know? My thought is - why *wouldn't* you go all the way for your art? (Of course, as long as cute furry things or other people aren't injured) I think you should go as far as you can - and unfortunately, that's pretty ambiguous, and I've blathered on and answered abosutely nothing!

I think your response has hit the nail on the head of what I was trying to do in this thread. You stated your position very eloquently. I am very interested in your photo project "New Venues", since I have been active most of my life in trying to improve womens rights and others as well. If you ever post this somewhere, please let me know!!!!
As for the guy who got me and many of us to thinking...here is a link to the thread he started. You can link to his site from there and read the furor it started here. Check out my revolutionary new art
Ken