Redefining Rockel

As I've heard it said before, artist see the world with corrective lenses. But in this case I'm not so sure. The artist is Asian and there culture differs from ours so I cannot comment wholely based on america's conception of what art truly is. But in my humble opinion using part of a human after death to showcase as art is barbaric. Modern civilization has moved past the point of shrunken heads and all that. Thats all i got to say.

 

Why should we be surprised that someone has decided to parade a dead body around and call it art? I think it is vile and disgusting and shows perfectly the state of mankind without Christ. But that's just my opinion.

 

I appreciate the opinion, Mr. Citizen. But I assure you that while it may have been the artists intent to shock, I was not, by bringing up this piece of art, attempting to "surprise" anyone by the medium used. My hope was to discuss the boundaries of art in relation to this piece.

As your opinion does not differ drastically from mine own, I will not refute your opinion myself, but quote from the artist himself:

"'It's precisely because I respect all life that I did this,' artist Xiao Yu said Tuesday. He said the bird and fetus 'died because there was something wrong with them. ... I thought putting them together like this was a way for them to have another life.'"

Not necesarily that I agree with Mr. Yu entirely, but I think John has a valid point when he says "The artist is Asian and there culture differs from ours so I cannot comment wholely based on america's conception of what art truly is."

 

Jersey, I think art crosses cultural boundaries. To be cliche, pictures are worth a thousand words. I believe those words don't have a language. They speak to the eyes, not to the ears. Their words are hear in heart, the soul, and the mind.

Art is not beauty, it is not Truth, it is not life. Art is not so menial as to be one person's perception of some aspect of either life or Truth. Though it can be any or all of these things.

Art lies without the realm of definition, as history has shown us.

I like the work. It is art. It is artful. Tasteful...maybe. Tasteless...perhaps. Controversial...indeed. I think that Great Art makes us talk, makes us argue, disagree, and rabble (to borrow again from south park).

I think the artist's words speak more true than any of mine: it "died because there was something wrong with [it]." It is so ironically sad. And I believe it is those emotions of sadness and pain that are most beautiful -- and the most hated by those who do not understand.

 

Again, I may not be 100% in agreement with Mr. Yu and his intents and purposes... however, I think oversimplifying things, like saying that the artist was merely trying to "parade a dead body around and call it art," really is an in justice to the artist.

Now... granted, yes. It is a real human, embryonic head. This is by the admission of the artist. If we are to believe him when he says this, should we not also believe him when he tells the motivation or intended message of the piece, or when he describes how he came into possession of the head:

"Xiao said he bought the head in 1999 for a few dollars from a man who was cleaning out a scientific exhibition hall. The glass bottle in which it came had a handwritten sticker identifying it as a female specimen from the 1960s. According to Xiao, it had no name or cause of death. He said he thought it was a miscarriage and not an aborted fetus, because it predated China's "one child" birth control policy -- launched in the late 1970s"

Now, if its perfectly moral and OK for Bush to allow stem cell research on existing embryos; to attempt to make something good come from an existing situation that no one had control over... and if it is OK and encouraged by certain pundits and activists for people to show pictures of aborted fetuses to get across the message that a fetus is more than a tissue... why would it not be OK for an artist to use something such as a 40-year-old scientifically preserved miscarried human head in a piece of art to convey his message?

 

I'm sorry Matt I didn't mean to imply that you were trying to surprise anyone, I was only trying to express my absolutly disgusted reaction to this horrific piece of garbage. Now I understand that it is difficult to cross cultural borders with certain things but I don't think that the respect for life is a cultural thing, personally.

 

And let me say that I don't think it's perfectly ok for Bush to allow stem research and I think that the difference with the signs is that they are trying to stop abortion, not by calling it art but by showing it's disgusting-ness.

 

CC,
"I don't think that the respect for life is a cultural thing"
But, it obviously is if you feel that this man has absolutely no respect for life, yet he claims that the motivation for his work of art was his immence respect for life.

"I think that the difference with the signs is that they are trying to stop abortion... by showing it's disgusting-ness"
So then what is the difference between an activist and an artist? One is allowed to have an opinion or an agenda, and the other isn't?

I appreciate very much the opinions... here is my hang-up: (The Bush thing I brought up because many people support his decision to allow research on existing fetuses, not necesarily that I thought you were one of these people) You seem to be able to respect (if not support) the displaying of "disgusting" pictures of aborted fetuses for political gain, but not for artistic message. Why?

 

What disgusts me is not the art. It is not the life, or more appropriately the loss of life, displayed within in the art that I find disrespectful. Instead I think what would be disrespectful to the life of the child is to be put into a glass jar with a date and a number: no name, no cause of death.

Xiao Yu has given this life lost a purpose. He has allowed her to deliver a message to thousands.

I think it is disrespectful to say that this Art is disrespectful to the life of the child.

I think that the people disgusted are the people who miss the purpose: to show how ready and willing people are to throw away that which they do not understand and that which they are unwilling to accept.

Concerned Citizen, Andrea, this piece of Art was made FOR your cause, not against it. I hope you can see that.

 

I think you miss my point. It wasn't that being put in a glass jar with a label was respectful. It was precisely the oppossite; that those people who took her life and sealed it away within a jar and put it on a shelf with a number to be forgotten disrespected whatever life, however short, she lived.

Xiao has used her life, death, and the aforementioned disrespect to force people to look inside themselves. To ask: "how have I disrespected such life?" His piece, I believe, is to show the value of all life. The Buddha says that all living things, like us, fear death and therefore we should neither take life, nor threaten the life of any living creature. So when he saw these dead creatures, thrown out, forgotten, because they were different, because they didn't meet someone's standards of what life should be, he felt compelled to make a statement about it.

To say that Xiao did this for shock value alone. Or that his art is stupid, or silly and that the pure lewdness of it is the only way for him to succeed as an artist is ignorant and spiteful.

The pure lewdness and disrespect that is prevalaent throughout the world is what is foul, disconcerting, and shocking. The piece has almost a satirical nature to it. It forces us to look within ourselves and see our own frailty as humans, not individually, but collectively.

To "memorialize" her death is to be cliche. It would be to give her the same honor as any other person respected within our society. but how do you memorialize those who no one knows, those for whom no one cares. No one gave her a memorial...no one gave her a name.

Xiao Yu gave her an identity, however twisted, so that we might look inside her glass world and see a tiny reflection of ourselves.