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Message: <blockquote data-quote="deborah4" data-source="post: 1511705" data-attributes="member: 29880">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. <a href="http://fcit.usf.edu/HOLOCAUST/ARTS/artVicti.htm" target="_blank">http://fcit.usf.edu/HOLOCAUST/ARTS/artVicti.htm</a>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'!<img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" />)</blockquote>

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