Disgusting "art" from slaughtered wild birds (1 Viewer)

Good to see the debate opening up again, yes Jo you're quite right, I'm oversimplifying things and mixing expression and impact, I suppose it's because when I feel expressive, I feel as though there is some sort of impact. In some senses, I'm caught between two sides, I can see artistic beauty and appreciate it, but I also admire the exact opposite. Sometimes I deliberately try to follow the surrealist goal of aesthetically displeasing. And yes, at the ned of the day, it isn't the art that has got people upset, but it is a vehicle for people to be aware of things they don't like.

Maybe I should stop drinking beer now and go and get ready for a lesson!

also thinking about impact, I suppose that many perfectly good and interesting pieces of art fall by the wayside because they don't get noticed, in whatever way it's done, 'impact' is a big part of what makes art noticed, and to be considered as good art, it has to be noticed first - otherwise it's just good art that isn't considered as such. In this case, playing on people's feelings towards death is what creates impact, follow the link that Ed just posted on the forum and the surprsie of a BB Sand next to a Wheatear creates just as much impact, making a stand out piece.

ColonelBlimp said:

But to let your cat wreck a local bird population...

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There you go again, emotive tabloid-style headlines The cat is catching birds, that we should be trying to minimise, or eliminate where reasonable. However, there is no evidence that this artist's cat is wrecking populations, and despite the protestations in the countless threads to date, there still is no evidence that cats in general are wrecking any populations in suburban Britain.

Jos Stratford said:

There you go again, emotive tabloid-style headlines The cat is catching birds, that we should be trying to minimise, or eliminate where reasonable. However, there is no evidence that this artist's cat is wrecking populations, and despite the protestations in the countless threads to date, there still is no evidence that cats in general are wrecking any populations in suburban Britain.

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hi Jos

See your point of view a mile off. Okay the cat problems are there causing problems, but to what effect of bird populations in the real life.

To me there are lots of other factors that cause problems for birds and cats are least IMHO. Cats add to the problem. but are not the full blame of all problems attached to birds, and their failings.

All I can say is please do not blame nature, and cats for birds problems

nickderry said:

also thinking about impact, I suppose that many perfectly good and interesting pieces of art fall by the wayside because they don't get noticed, in whatever way it's done, 'impact' is a big part of what makes art noticed, and to be considered as good art, it has to be noticed first - otherwise it's just good art that isn't considered as such. In this case, playing on people's feelings towards death is what creates impact, follow the link that Ed just posted on the forum and the surprsie of a BB Sand next to a Wheatear creates just as much impact, making a stand out piece.

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Part of being one of a population of six billion, I suppose. It's hard to get noticed, and it's interesting to see how 'good' becomes relative once you get enough passionate people in the mix.

Jos Stratford said:

There you go again, emotive tabloid-style headlines The cat is catching birds, that we should be trying to minimise, or eliminate where reasonable. However, there is no evidence that this artist's cat is wrecking populations, and despite the protestations in the countless threads to date, there still is no evidence that cats in general are wrecking any populations in suburban Britain.

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All the pictures have been taken at least within one year, showing that the cat is quite a prolific hunter.

Added to these numbers are the birds etc. that it eats, doesn't bring back etc., meaning that if it is hunting in a typical suburban territory, it is very likely indeed to be taking a considerable number of birds. Is this likely to be threatening the viability of certain species in that area? No evidence to make a definitive judgement with, but I bet it is.

Granted that this would not be a good thing, there are no studies I have heard of that deal with species being pushed out in local situations: only national, which is unhelpful for questions like this.

'Living with wolfie' to me....is the best picture shown....very nice composition! I don't particularly care for the victorian shrine 'types'....a tad twee for me....but hey...different strokes n all that. I have to confess to being an 'arty type'....in the past i have used the odd corpse as a model....not human i might add! A bloodied [peregrine] pigeon kill lying in the snow etc.....my intent has always been to achieve an artistic display. I even used a dead Blackcap i found and portrayed it in 'shrine like' conditions...

ps..won't get embroiled again in another 'cat fight'.....but always willing to comment on art.......

username said:

...A bloodied [peregrine] pigeon kill lying in the snow etc.....

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There's fantastically beautiful (to my way of thinking and seeing) and impactful image in that vein of a HB on the Punks at the moment

http://www.freewebs.com/punkbirder/index.htm

Hmm, I know that art is in the eye of the beholder, so to speak, but to me, Nick's or Tim's, etc, sketches of dead birds show a lot of talent in drawing, colour rendering, attention to detail and so on, while Ms Baker's art is simply photos of dead animals surrounded by flowers.

In my opinion of course.

ed keeble said:

There's fantastically beautiful (to my way of thinking and seeing) and impactful image in that vein of a HB on the Punks at the moment

http://www.freewebs.com/punkbirder/index.htm

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We think the same way then Ed on this one! That background of submerged vegetation gives the whole image a mysterious and macabre visual impact...which i like. Would make a good large size oil painting methinks. R H Ching...as i'm sure you know...has done some wonderful imagery of this nature...one of my all time favorites......! [have a signed copy of 'wild portraits' knocking around somewhere].....all the best to you.........

Ching is a fabulous draftsman but his work always looks a bit 'static' to me, much along the same lines as Brenders' stuff, Philistine that I am!

Back to the issue at hand; An artist has the right to say whatever they want, in whatever way they choose, if it has been said a thousand times before by a thousand others or equally if it is new and challenging. If an artist's expression shocks, disgusts or even simply baffles, then that lies with the interpretation of the viewer, influenced as they are by the accepted norms of the society that they are part of at the time. Look at the Pre-Raphaelites, (see Ophelia on page 1), they shocked the Victorian public to the core but looked at now across the years it's difficult for us to understand why because we simply don't have the same value system as society did then.

In the final analysis viewers of any art will make their own decisions as to what constitutes 'good' art or 'bad', what disgusts one will delight another, so it has always been and so it will always be. And thank (insert Deity or otherwise) for that!

Mike

Agree with you Woody...all in the eyes of the beholder.....

ps...shud have said 'image 9' was my favorite 'living with wolfie' piece'...

pps...i wonder wot 'cat people'...like myself...may think about Jake n Dinos Chapman's artwork....a kitten with arachnid eyes?...or something like that....a disturbing piece..amusing perhaps.....?

Interesting and refreshing debate (leaving aside the cat flinging stuff for a mo!)


Nick and several others make some excellent points regarding ''art'' (whatever that is?!) and our responses to it. Like Peewit, Tamany's images hold little aesthetic merit for me personally but then overly kitsch Catholic grottos don't do much for me either and to me, these images of birds surrounded by flowers are kitsch in the extreme.

However, as many apologists for 'art' on this thread have pointed out, 'art' is much more that the final 'product'. It's also a process that includes the self-determining expression of the 'artist' and, in order to be commonly regarded as 'art', images that provoke an emotive response in the viewer.

So, given the kitsch imagery, does the process stand in itself as enough that I can step back and still regard this 'playing' around with dead birds/animals, as an artistic process worth respecting?

Well what is the process here?

The 'artist' speaks for themself:

The series documents my response to the 'presents' that Wolfie, my beloved cat, brings into the home. At first, I experienced some kind of horror: these dead creatures waiting for me in different parts of my house. Then I looked at Wolfie and tried to understand the instincts which brought them there. It reminded me of the difficulty I have in understanding the behaviours of the opposite sex or of a different tribe. At the time, my ex-partner had been unfaithful and I saw some parallels in coming to terms with the difficult habits of the 'other', whilst also accepting their difference.

The ceremonial aspect of these photographs is similar to the Victorian practice of making a shrine from photographs of deceased loved ones, using flowers and locks of hair to preserve the memory of the living. With these images, I am instead making a photograph from a shrine, engaging with the changing patterns of nature to bring myself closer to the memory of death and of loss. It may also be a way of acknowledging certain destructive behaviours within myself (my own alien 'other'), as I become Wolfie’s accomplice in playing with the dead animals.

Initially as underlined, the 'artist' reacts, as others on this thread have done, in horror, to the slaughtering by Wolfie. But there is a problem. It's an issue of reconciliation of conflicting emotions. The love for Wolfie must somehow be reconciled with the conflicting emotion of what Wolfie does for a part time job! I understand this. It's nothing new. The very human (and all too common way) of reconciling apparently un-reconcilable and conflicting emotions, is by justification, of our own or the others behaviour, or by artificial de-sensitisation to one side of the conflict. To me, the 'artist' attempts both. Beginning with the need for emotional reconciliation, justification of behaviour, and finally de-sensitisation to the causes of the original conflict (by surrounding the cat kill with a ring of flowers etc).

War artists, to make a comparison of artists responding to horror, have been among some of the most talented artists - including work by Henry Moore etc - but they certainly didn't use their artistic talents to evade the truth or make it prettier and thus more paletable, on the contrary, it was purely about expressing the horror of war as they experienced it. Nothing beautiful about it.

http://fcit.usf.edu/HOLOCAUST/ARTS/artVicti.htm

Take a look at the above link - (interesting quote from Mr Horror incarnate interestingly on 'art')

So, is what we are discussing, ie. the images of cat kill shrines, 'art'? IMO It fails aesthetically and it fails in it's process, since it departs from the originating inspiration of horror, resulting in a kitsch attempt at reconciling some personal conflicts and even worse, de-sensitising the 'artist' to the continuing acts of slaughter that originally horrified her. A form of self-therapy to the 'artist' perhaps, good for Wolfie, that his owner can now live with him in peace and accept him for what he is. But for me, that's all it offers and says nothing of any honest extrinsic value nor holds any aesthetic qualities.

(But then as Oscar Wilde said: 'All art is quite useless'!)