Art?

Apparently it’s too pornographic for the Louvre.

The Pompidou Centre in Paris will display a sexually explicit sculpture after it was deemed too risqué for the Louvre.

Standing 12 metres tall, Domestikator, a creation from Dutch artist Joep van Lieshout, was originally expected to stand in the 13th century Tuileries Gardens adjacent to Paris’ Louvre museum as part of a contemporary art fair this month.

But the geometric sculpture, showing a red human figure appearing to penetrate a four-legged creature, was perhaps just a little too imposing for the home of French art.

Frankly, it’s typical of modern art. Tasteless, puerile, talentless crap. Art, it isn’t.

“This work of art is funny, it is an obvious nod to the relationship of abstraction and figurative painting that co-exist in Dutch art in the 20th century. Spiritual yes, obscene no.”

One for pseud’s corner.

Van Lieshout insisted that his work defined the domestication of animals by humans for agriculture and industry as well as highlighting the ethical issues surrounding that.

No it doesn’t. It’s a pile of crap that means nothing. Much like all modern art.

15 Comments

  1. Whimsically ludicrous, yes. A bit weird, definitely. Funny, possibly. But pornographic? That’s a bit of a stretch isn’t it? They’re box shapes. Pornographic images are far more graphic.

      • Tom Wolfe’s The Painted Word is an instructive and scathing look at how the words describing the artwork became more important that the actual object in modern art. Well worth a read for anyone remotely interested in the subject.

        • Yes, indeed. Classical art requires genuine talent. Modern art merely requires pretentiousness and an ability to pass off crap as a work of art – although i suppose that in itself is a form of talent…

  2. I wonder what Dominic Bel Geddes and Daniel Cakebread would make of all this. They’d probably end up rolling on the floor.

    Modern art, eh, what’s not to despise about it?

  3. My understanding of the definition of pornography is that it is imagery that causes sexual arousal. I would be astonished if anyone could find a single human who is turned on by this sculpture. If they do find one I think that most would agree that this person has very unusual tastes.

    • The late great Lenny Bruce, when being persecuted for his act back in the 60s said that the Supreme Court defined Pornography as …having no artistic merit and producing sexual thoughts…

      Hmm. No artistic merit… check. Producing sexual thoughts? I’ve been more turned on by Lego.

      At times like this I always recommend Tom Wolfe’s The Painted Word. Over 30 years old but well worth a read if you actually like Art, as I do. It’s main thesis is… without written pseudo bullshit accompanying it, modern art is completely unrecognisable as Art. Devoid of point and meaning.

  4. Perhaps it represents a Muslim who is unable to find a sex slave and so follows the edicts of (the late) Ayatollah Khomheni who said it was OK to have sex with a sheep or a goat, as long as it was killed immediately after as it then became unclean (which I suppose it would be, having Muslim semen in it). That edict also suggests I forgo the lamb when eating in a middle eastern restaurant.

  5. I think it’s quite wonderful. It’s a 21 century take on the concept of vanitas which focuses on the death of traditional agriculture and industry – the rust red of the horizontal figure symbolises the richness of the earth and also the animal power – and industry – to encourage earth to yield its riches; the vertical figure in looking towards the viewer implies self-awareness and direction without which the animal power would be merely brute force and the linking of the two figures and the commonality of colour express their symbiosis. The depiction of power and cognition in cubist terms connotes that this is not a here-and-now relationship but one that has died on the altar of a post-agrarian, post-industrial society.

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