Is this a misuse of tax money?

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Personally I found this to be offensive and an attempt to anger people of a particular religion.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/11/30/an ... nal-probe/

They would never have done this to Muhamad (sp?).

So the right does struggle with the first amendment afterall.

My wife earlier pointed that out. Number 1 son considers EVERYTHING inappropriate use of tax money.

Me - after my time at the U I fear I am jaded. I go straight to what else can you expect?

No, it would not happen to Muhammad. Could there, though, be a shock schlock artist who would do it to Obama?

I wonder if that "art" [why ants, anyway?] would count as "mean cynicism".

That is a red-herring and you know it.

While I don't approve of it, they are within their right to create that piece. However, the money I pay for taxes should not be used to further an agenda of bashing a religion. I can argue the funding for that work violates the 1st Amendment because taxpayer funds were used in its creation.

Nonsense. Either you support federal funding of the arts or you don't. The specific piece of art has nothing to do with it.

The closest thing (constitutionally) the government has the power to support art with is the granting of patents and copyrights.

ruveyn

As I was reading over the article, I was instantly reminded of something from one of my lecture hall classes at art college, regarding a similar notorious incident-- that being the controversy surrounding the photographer Andres Serrano's 1987 piece "Piss Christ", wherein the artist submerged a crucifix in a glass of his urine. As I recall the telling of the anecdote from from my studies, the Christian right was outraged when the piece was exhibited a few years later, particularly since Serrano had received quite a bit of money from the NEA to produce the piece. They called it blasphemous, and labeled Serrano as anti-Christian. These claims, as it turned out, couldn't have been further from the truth-- Serrano, half Honduran, half Afro-Cuban, was raised a devout Roman Catholic, and was later defended by a small group of Catholics who recognized that Serrano's message was less about his own desecration of a religious icon, and more a commentary on secular society's increasing distrust of Christianity, and problems within the church itself.

Being an artist by trade, I've learned to be prepared for my work to be protested by people who may not agree with its content. However, that being said-- I believe, 99 times out of 100, such protests spring out of misinterpretations of the artist's intent, rather than what the artist actually intended. Chris Ofili, for example, was also notoriously protested for his portrait of the Virgin Mary produced with elephant dung. Bernard Goldberg even claimed he was one of the "100 People Screwing Up America". This turned out to be a result of a cultural divide, though-- Ofili explained afterward that, in some African cultures, elephant dung is seen, for obvious reasons, as a symbol of fertility. It was not Ofili's original intent to make a piece of artwork that would denigrate any particular religion, but rather his attempt at reimagining the figure of the Virgin Mary in a cultural context that was more intimate to him. The article you've cited here, Inuyasha, appears to be another example of rigid literalists interpreting a piece of artwork only within the context of what they know culturally, and not allowing for the possibility that it may have been created from a much different intent, in the vocabulary of a different cultural perspective.

The irony of this, of course, is, the work may have been created rather innocuously-- but the more people raise Cain over something that might really not be all that big a deal in the first place, the more free publicity they give it. If these religious people really wanted to defuse the power of the work, they'd have just ignored it, and let it fade into relative obscurity. Now, though, you can bet that this piece will go down in the art history books as another important, groundbreaking, envelope-pushing work of art.

Because you want to be offended.

When I lived in the Washington area, I used to go to the museums quite frequently. All are free, and there is tons of art to look at and enjoy.

the taxpayers are bearing the burden of the care and feeding of the museums and their crews.

TANSTAAFL

ruveyn

@ Chevand

At what point does it no longer become art and start to just be downright offensive. Furthermore, the stickler here is tax payer funds were used to produce it. It is the same thing with College Printers not being able to be used to print campaign ads on College money.

If someone would privately be willing to fund the creation of that piece, fine, but I have every right to object to my tax dollars going to fund something I find quite disgusting.

I am sure artists could rationalize about anything, that doesn't mean that it is in good taste putting it mildly.

The article does not say that tax dollars funded the creation of the piece. The article says that tax dollars fund the continuation of the museum where it is exhibited. That's a very different thing.

As skafather suggested, it becomes offensive at whatever point you, the viewer, take offense. Art is in the eye of the beholder, and always has been. When Courbet painted The Origin of the World in 1886, high society of the time was scandalized because they saw it as purely pornographic. When Pollock began doing drip paintings in the 50s, the average viewer was confused and outraged that his paintings would even be suggested to be art, because the average viewer felt his or her 5-year-old kid could do it. When Warhol made prints of car crashes and suicides in the early 60s, it was seen as a vulgar stylization of violence. Yet, today, we view these artists retrospectively in the context of our postmodern society, and generally acknowledge how important they were in the formation of our contemporary culture. Like it or not, Inuyasha, society needs artists to push the boundaries (a lot more than most would acknowledge, in my opinion, but then, I'm biased), because otherwise our culture stagnates and dies. A vibrant art scene and the encouragement of creativity is essential to a flourishing society.



Like I have a right to object to my tax dollars going to fund unnecessary wars. We (supposedly) live in a democracy. That doesn't always mean you get what you want, or even what you pay for, though. Besides which, I'd like to see you live on what salary the average freelance artist makes, and then tell me you have a problem with federal funding for the arts.



Who died and made you the arbiter of good taste? The article you cited above is from a news source that employs a man who has suggested in no subtler words that President Obama is a racist, and another who said on air a few years ago that he believed a young woman who had been raped and murdered was to blame for what happened because what she was wearing invited it.

Not at all. The first amendment guarantees free speech. The federal government shouldn't take sides by funding particular examples. Simple.

You know I love the museums in DC but I don't really understand why they should be publicly supported. The NEA, PBS, NPR, etc, should be completely eliminated That's a luxury we can't afford since we're broke. Now if they are to exist, they should not be ideological at all because state sponsored art and broadcasting or whatever is just step away from propaganda. I see no reason why these things can't stand on their own.

What is disgusting to one may be delightful to the other. A good reason for government to say completely away from art sponsorship. In addition to which, it is not a power granted to Congress by the U.S. Constitution.

ruveyn