For Art's Sake


"Other people change faces incredibly fast, put on one after another, and wear them out. At first, they think they have an unlimited supply; but when they are barely forty years old they come to their last one."
~Rainer Maria Rilke, from The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge


Perhaps because I'm starting to make money at writing and thinking more about "marketability" I've been pondering the lengths to which creative people must go to draw attention to their work. Although I consider myself difficult to truly shock, there have been three people in particular, in vastly different fields, whose works have succeeded on some level to trouble me (but in a good way):

The most recent was Jill Greenberg, a photographer whose exhibition, "End Times," is simply comprised of children crying. The controversy is twofold, though--her message and her methods. Some people are objecting to her use of children to put forth her leftist politics about the state of the earth and the US government (which I agree is somewhat forced but the art world is all about clever interpretations). Others are outraged to learn that she gets her subjects to cry by taking away their lollipops, calling it abuse and exploitation. Before we get too philosophical about whatever psychological harm this might be causing, it's only fair to add that they get a handful of lollipops afterward, that their parents were standing by, and that 80% of them are "professional child models"--the latter a disturbing can of worms in itself.

The second person is Gunther von Hagens, a German scientist whose invention of "plastination" allows actual human cadavers to be preserved and displayed in exhibitions called Body Worlds. The exhibitions have been traveling for a while now, but the controversy over how he obtains the bodies is still swirling because tonight I heard a spot on NPR about it. The guy is himself a walking controversy, from the sounds of it--having performed a (very illegal) public autopsy several years ago.

Lastly, we have Diablo Cody. Admittedly she is just one of MANY writers who put themselves through bizarre projects for the sake of a good story--but for some reason her deciding to become a stripper for a year just to write about it seems more sensational (and less noble) than say Ted Conover, who among other insane risks, recently took a job as a security guard at Sing Sing for his book NewJack. I heard him speak last week at Goucher and while I think both types of experiments are slightly masochastic, I still respect him more. Maybe it's because he wrote his books knowing the topics he chose were actually more difficult to sell, rather than easier.

I'm obviously destined to be poor the rest of my life--for one, because I'm not up for these kinds of adventures, and secondly because I've heard that if you have bad mental associations with rich people or believe money will corrupt your art, you'll actually deflect it. Starvation, here I come.

Posted: Fri - August 11, 2006 at 10:00 PM           |

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