Controversial Art
&
Big Ideas
Art 11 Adv & IB
Exploring Life: Science or Art?
Dr. Gunther von Hagens
Damien Hirst, Artist
In 1977, the German anatomist Dr. Gunther von Hagens
invented a technology called plastination.
This ground breaking preservation method replaces bodily fluids
and fat with reactive fluid plastics that harden after vacuumforced impregnation.
Dr. Gunther von Hagens
Before hardening the
plastic in the specimens, the
plastinates are fixed into
lifelike poses, illustrating
how our bodies internally
respond to everyday
movements and activities.
Human Corpse Playing Chess
Plastination is a very slow
and labour intensive
process. It takes an average
of 1500 hours to to
transform a body into a full
body plastinate.
Dr. Gunther von Hagens
Von Hagens is quite the selfpromoter. "A good teacher is
a good showman," he says.
In 2001 he donned a fleshcolor bodysuit painted to
look like a plastinated
cadaver and danced on a
float in Berlin's "Love
Parade," a celebration of
techno music.
A year later he earned the
nickname Dr. Frankenstein
from British tabloids after
performing a pay-per-view
autopsy in London, charging
$21 a head.
“What's the problem? Is there
something about cadavers that is
wrong?
The bodies are in essence
machinery that is no longer
functioning. They weren't killed for
use. The bodies were donated, in
the same way that bodies are
dedicated to medical schools and
other scientific uses.
(And they probably undergo less
desecration here than being
chopped up by a med student.)
from an online blog…
The exhibit is presented not so
much as art as educational.”
Von Hagens insists all specimens come from consenting donors.
“The anatomist alone is
assigned a specific role - he is
forced in his daily work to
reject the taboos and
convictions that people have
about death and the dead.
I myself am not controversial,
but my exhibitions are,
because I am asking viewers
to transcend their fundamental
beliefs and convictions about
our joint and inescapable fate.”
Dr. Gunther von Hagens
“Goriest Show on Earth” – Forbes magazine
Body Worlds has exhibited to
sell-out crowds (18 million
people and counting) in 32
cities around the globe. It is
considered a science
exhibition.
On the other hand, Damien
Hirst is a British conceptual
artist who does work that
appears to be similar and
he has made millions.
Damien Hirst was born in 1965 in Bristol, England. As an artist he
has continually challenged the boundaries between art, science, the
media and popular culture.
A cow and her calf sawn in two, pharmaceutical bottles, cigarette butts,
medicine cabinets, office furniture, medical instruments, butterflies and
tropical fish are just some of the means Hirst employs to communicate
his unflinching view of the ambiguity at the heart of human experience.
Damien Hirst, Artist
•Mother and Child Divided, composed of a cow and a calf sliced in half in a
glass tank of formaldehyde.
“Maybe the creepiest of Damien's pieces to date, two cows, sliced and diced
and reassembled, almost, out of order, with a piece of head at each end.
Walking between the tanks, you can see right through the suspended cross
sections of animal and all the intricacies of the internal biological machinations.
You are, of course, bombarded with myriad thoughts of life's origins, your own
creation and genesis and certainly, perhaps the most universal thought running
through everyone's mind: How long do you have before you find yourself as
Damien Hirst's next work of art?”
Damien
Hirst
Artist
“Some Comfort Gained from the Acceptance of the Inherent Lies in Everything” 1996
• The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of
Someone Living (1991), composed of a tiger shark in a
glass tank of formaldehyde. This piece was nominated
for a Turner Prize.
“I just wanted
to find out
where the
boundaries
were. I've
found out
there aren't
any. I wanted
to be stopped
but no one
will stop me.”
Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst
“What I really
like is
minimum effort
for maximum
result.”
“Away from the Flock”
YBAs
Art goes on in your
head," he says. "If you
said something
interesting, that might
be a title for a work of
art and I'd write it down.
Art comes from
everywhere. It's your
response to your
surroundings. There are
on-going ideas I've been
working out for years,
like how to make a
rainbow in a gallery. I've
always got a massive
list of titles, of ideas for
shows, and of works
without titles.”
Hirst said that he only painted five spot paintings himself because, "I couldn't be
f@cking arsed doing it"; he described his efforts as "shite"—"They're shit compared
to ... the best person who ever painted spots for me was Rachel. She's brilliant.
Absolutely f@cking brilliant. The best spot painting you can have by me is one
painted by Rachel." He also describes another painting assistant who was leaving
and asked for one of the paintings. Hirst told her to, "'make one of your own.' And
she said, 'No, I want one of yours.' But the only difference, between one painted by
her and one of mine, is the money.'“ By February 1999, two assistants had painted
300 spot paintings.
They hate me now
because I made lots of
money," said Hirst,
referring to his recent
Pharmacy Sale, where
the artist pocketed an
estimated $19,000,000plus.
"
Memento Mori titled For the Love
of God, was a human skull
recreated in platinum and
adorned with 8,601 diamonds
weighing a total of 1,106.18
carats.
Approximately $15,000,000 worth
of diamonds were used.
Asking price $100,000,000
It is said that an art piece has three substantial parts:
The Artist's Intent
 The Work
 The Viewer’s Response
Describe the creator’s intent, the work and the viewer’s response for either
Dr. Gunther von Hagen’s show or the work of Damien Hirst (minimum 500
words) you could also choose Banksy’s new wrok too.
Chuck Close, Andy Warhol
Chuck Close was born in Washington on July 5, 1940. He is an
American photorealistic painter and photographer.
Chuck Close
(born in 1940)
American
Photo-Realist
Painter
To create his grid work
copies of photos, Close
puts a grid on the photo
and on the canvas and
copies cell by cell.
His first tools for this
included an airbrush,
rags, razor blade, and an
eraser mounted on a
power drill.
His first picture with this
method was Big Self
Portrait, a black and
white enlargement of his
face to a 107.5” in by
83.5” in (2.73 m by
2.12 m) canvas, made in
over four months in 1968.
Close has often returned to the same photos to paint over and over
again with different techniques.
Some of his early drawings were so finely done that even a full
page reproduction in an art book they are still indistinguishable
from a regular photograph.
In 1988, Close had a
spinal artery collapse, on
the day he was to give a
speech at an art awards
ceremony.
He felt ill beforehand,
asked to be first, gave his
speech, then painfully
went to a hospital across
the street.
A few hours later he was
a quadriplegic.
Close continued to
paint with a brush
held between his
teeth, creating miniportraits in grid
squares created by
an assistant. From a
distance, these
squares appear as a
single, unified image.
Chuck Close's subjects are his family, his friends, himself, and fellow artists
whose faces are described through his distinct, meticulous marks. His
photos/inkjet prints are exquisitely detailed, capturing shifting tones and
shadows as well as his subjects’ hairs and wrinkles.
The Granddaddy of Media Spinners: Andy Warhol
1950s Pop Art
Andy Warhol
AmericanPop
Artist
~Famous for
“Happenings”
at The Factory
Warehouse
~ Warhol
coined the
phrases
‘fifteen minutes
of fame’ and
‘superstar’
Warhol: Pop Art
“An artist is somebody who
produces things that people
don't need to have.””
Warhol: Pop Art
“Before I was shot, I
always thought that
I was more halfthere than all-there
- I always suspected
that I was watching
TV instead of living
life. Right when I
was being shot and
ever since, I knew
that I was watching
television.”
*
Warhol: Pop Art
Warhol: Pop Art
Warhol: Pop Art
Warhol: Pop Art
Warhol: Pop Art
Warhol: Pop Art
*
Warhol: Pop Art “The Factory”
“Everyone will
be famous for
15 minutes.”
Warhol: Pop Art
Marina Abramović
The Grandmother of Performance
Art
Abramović's work explores the
relationship between performer and
audience, the limits of the body, and the
possibilities of the mind.
Marina Abramovic Performance Artist
Marina Abramovic Performance Artist
Marina Abramovic Performance Artist
Marina Abramvovic
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Examines the boundaries between
the performer and the audience
Explores the limits (outer limits) of
physical boundaries, including
tolerance, privacy & pain
Also presents the audience with
confrontational work that challenges
comfort zones and expectations
Also challenges states of
consciousness
Shock art
Kind of Warholian
Marina Abramovic Performance Artist
Rhythm 10, 1973
In her first performance Abramović
explored elements of ritual and gesture.
Making use of twenty knives and two tape
recorders, the artist played the Russian
game in which rhythmic knife jabs are
aimed between the splayed fingers of her
hand. Each time she cut herself, she would
pick up a new knife from the row of twenty
she had set up, and recorded the
operation.
After cutting herself twenty times, she
replayed the tape, listened to the sounds,
and tried to repeat the same movements,
attempting to replicate the mistakes,
merging together past and present. She set
out to explore the physical and mental
limitations of the body – the pain and the
sounds of the stabbing, the double sounds
from the history and from the replication.
With this piece, Abramović began to
consider the state of consciousness of the
performer. “Once you enter into the
performance state you can push your body
to do things you absolutely could never
normally do.”
Marina Abramovic Performance Artist
Marina Abramovic Performance Artist
Marina Abramovic Performance Artist
Marina Abramovic Performance Artist
Abramović had placed upon a table 72 objects that people were allowed to use (a
sign informed them) in any way that they chose. Some of these were objects that
could give pleasure, while others could be wielded to inflict pain, or to harm her.
Among them were scissors, a knife, a whip, and, most notoriously, a gun and a
single bullet. For six hours the artist allowed the audience members to manipulate
her body and actions.
Marina Abramovic Performance Artist