Summary
According to Jonathan Jones in “Don’t lose your head over Hirst” (2013), he argues the censorship of archaeology department of Leicester University on ‘With Dead Head’ (1991), a black and white photograph of Damien Hirst, a British famous controversial artist, due to having no the rights or authority of scientific academics over artists, which they claimed that Hirst’s taking a humorous photo with the head of a corpse and present it on the public at the New Art Gallery Walsall in the Artist Rooms collection is no concerning with postmortem ethics and archaeological ethics, in terms of exposing a dead person’s identity and devoting body for scientific purpose, and also supports this work of art that is created from artistic honesty to provoking people’s consciousness of death, especially when we are looking at specimens.
____________________________________
Response
Figure 1, Damien Hirst, With Dead Head, Photograph, 1991(Manchester, 2019).
Figure 2, The Plastination of Dr. Gunther von Hagens (Charles David, 2017).
Scientists have no right to ban any artworks by claiming their postmortem ethics. Due to a scientist is not a person who works in the field of arts, as widely accepted that a scientist is a person who conducts scientific research and explores scientific knowledge in the area of interest. Moreover, using authority such as censorship, of course, is not accepted in democratic societies. In Hirst’s case, this controversy reminds to Dr. Gunther von Hagens’s multidisciplinary artworks[1], an anatomist exhibited the ‘Body Worlds’, an exhibition of dissected human bodies, animals and other organisms. While Hirst’ artwork was blamed that it has no postmortem ethics and does not a scientific purpose, Hagens has right to present corpses with eccentric anatomical poses due to whether educational purposes and getting permission to presenting the identity of dead persons from them or their relatives, which is announced in his exhibitions. Therefore, if Hirst had done the same things as Hagens, he would whether have not prohibited by scientists’ perspective.
The censorship on Hirst’s artwork is an unfair judgement. The reaction of those archaeologists with the artwork is a superficial consideration, which is a judgement based on only his acting. According to Hirst’s humorous pose with the dead head, academics claimed that such an unethical behaviour, lacking empathy, philanthropy and respect with the cadaver. Sixteen Hirst took a black-white photograph with his smiling face on the dead head by his friend. His concept is to differentiate death and life in realities and provoke people’s awareness of death even just being specimens (Jones, 2013, paragraph 19). Most of his con artworks (BBC, 2012) usually arose controversial issues in societies. In fact, many artists who play with death in various ways but their artworks are not censored.
Figure 3, Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, The Class, 2005 (Kangsadarn Suksomstarn, 2012).
Hirst’s artwork is similar to Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook that the using human body as media to express their idea but her artwork did not ban on her corpse fetish. In contrast, she received wide acceptance from viewers. Araya’s video installation namely ‘The Class’ (2005), exhibited in Venice Biennale, presents teaching and asking real corpses, presenting as her students, for the response. She aims to recall her loved ones who lost their life. The artwork also argues doctors and scientists who only have the right to use the human body for scientific study. How does this differ from the artist do with her idea or artistic purposes that may change the view and response to death? - Araya said (Suksomstarn, 2012, paragraph 48). In the video installation, viewers touch her respect to death from her serious acting. She also directly presents no corpses’ identity. She usually embraces tragedy and expresses it through her artworks. Furthermore, she is obsessed with death which is her inspiration. These factors may be reasons to save the artwork from censoring. However, those archeologists did not know the fact that Hirst was very depressed with someone’s death.
In conclusion, there is widespread controversy on the ‘With Dead Head’ (1991) of Damien Hirst. The main point is that scientists have no right to censor even if it represents unethical behaviour. Furthermore, the censorship is not a democratic action and not unprejudiced judgement. People in societies should ask the integrity of justice and ethics to scientists who use human bodies with their own purposes in return. Both professionals and individuals should not use emotion to judge someone, as Jones says, “Don’t lose your head over Hirst”.
[1]Some western art academics accept the Plastination of Hargens as multidisciplinary art.
____________________________________
Question
The artwork of Hirst was censored by those archaeologists with reasons that his artwork has no postmortem ethics and used the human body in the wrong purposes, which is actually not the scientists' right to do such authority, however, if this society requires to ban it because it reflects Hirst's unethical behaviour, could consensus building resolve this controversy in terms of prohibiting exhibiting the artwork?
____________________________________
Reference
- BBC News. (2012, March 27). Julian Spading attacks Damien Hirst ‘con art’. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-17523671
- Body Worlds. (n.d.). Exhibition. Body Worlds. https://bodyworlds.com/exhibitions/human/
- Davis, Charles. (2017, September 16). You Can See Dead People Having Sex for Less Than $20. But, Should You?. Daily Beast. https://www.thedailybeast.com/you-can- see-dead-people-having-sex-for-less-than-dollar20-but-should-you
- Johnes, Jonathan. (2013, July 17). Don’t lose your head over Hirst. The Guardian. https://www. theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2013/jul/17/damien-hirst-photograph-severed-head-censorship
- Kangsadarn Suksomstarn, Kangsadarn. (2012, Mar 30). Teaching the dead. Bangkok Post. https://www.bangkokpost.com/life/arts-and-entertainment/286717/teaching-the-dead
- Manchester, Elizabeth. (2009, October). Damien Hirst with Dead Head. Tate. https://www. tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hirst-with-dead-head-ar00617
I was happy when I saw Kun's choice of article to summarize and respond to. I've known about Damien Hirst for a long time, since some of his work became famous because it was shocking. I agree with Kun that it would be wrong to censor Hirst merely because we don't like his work. I don't like it either.
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me of Andy Warhol, who I also think is overrated. I think Warhol, who was famous when I was young, also tried to do things that shocked people, but he did try different things, and even that fails, it's still worth experimenting to see the results. And that reminds me of William Burroughs, whose writing I was a fan of for a while when I was university (Burroughs was friends with Warhol, a rock group I liked.). Burroughs fiction was often based on his own life and fantasies and it was a bit weird. There is a lot of violence and sex in it, and drug addiction (they were all addicted to heroin and other drugs), and he chops up the stories, which makes them hard to follow. I don't think I would want to read his work today, but it should not be censored either.
And that's my ten minutes or so writing my ideas in response to Kun's thoughtful blog post about censorship. It brought back a lot of memories for me.
In fact, I thought that, like everyone else's, there were lots of other interesting issues that come up in Kun's post, but we don't want these commments to get too long. Do not write essays here. One or two paragraphs is fine.
DeleteOops - and i just noticed a typing mistake that might be a problem: I meant (Burroughs was friends with Warhol, AND a rock group I liked.) The missing "and" does change the meaning a bit here.
DeleteI have known that Hirst's quite obsessed with death. I saw many pictures of his famous artworks such as The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, one of many animals preserved in his collection, but I didn't feel of any unethical things. Meanwhile, his picture with a corpse leads me to a negative feeling. I think that it doesn't depend on who you are (physician or artist), but how you treat their bodies is the matter. Using carcass might be acceptable however treating them as a material may be too rough.
ReplyDeleteI would like to say that the graphic is really disturbing. Being a photographer once you are filming others you may need to ask their permission filming or shooting others on the society with out their consensus is rude and sometimes can be illegal. Especially, in documentary's work we need to concern all the time that we are exploiting our subject or not. If we do, it will not legal but it is unethical that all journalism need to be concerned as it is a part of media ethics, and artist should do the same.
ReplyDeleteWhile I read the article, I support archaeologists and scientists's expression but it doesn't mean that I definitely agree with them. I think people should have right to expression their opinion with out harming each other. If no one rises the issue on Hirst's art I might question to human. Because of this is the way that we monitor each other to be work better and proper in differrent situation.