Posted on 11/19/2007 4:27:00 PM PST by ddtorquee
Britain’s contemporary artists are fêted around the world for their willingness to shock but fear is preventing them from tackling Islamic fundamentalism. Grayson Perry, the cross-dressing potter, Turner Prize winner and former Times columnist, said that he had consciously avoided commenting on radical Islam in his otherwise highly provocative body of work because of the threat of reprisals.
Perry also believes that many of his fellow visual artists have also ducked the issue, and one leading British gallery director told The Times that few major venues would be prepared to show potentially inflammatory works.
“I’ve censored myself,” Perry said at a discussion on art and politics organised by the Art Fund. “The reason I haven’t gone all out attacking Islamism in my art is because I feel real fear that someone will slit my throat.”
Perry’s highly decorated pots can sell for more than £50,000 and often feature sex, violence and childhood motifs. One work depicted a teddy bear being born from a penis as the Virgin Mary. “I’m interested in religion and I’ve made a lot of pieces about it,” he said. “With other targets you’ve got a better idea of who they are but Islamism is very amorphous. You don’t know what the threshold is. Even what seems an innocuous image might trigger off a really violent reaction so I just play safe all the time.”
(Excerpt) Read more at entertainment.timesonline.co.uk ...
I dont think the current style of Christians permitting trashy artists wannabes to drag Christianity and its closly held beleifs through vulgarity and mud to be wise either.
Hey, the guy’s a cross dresser. How fast can a man run in stiletto heels and a miniskirt?
You don’t have to look to England to see it.
Governments, businesses, newspapers right here ‘in river city’ are doing exactly the same.
Funny, before the Muslims ‘invaded’ this Country there wasn’t the furor over Christian holidays, emblems, etc.
Did Jews demand AND GET Kosher food in public schools? Demand AND GET all symbols of Christianity removed from the public AND PRIVATE businesses? Demand AND GET prayer rooms in schools? No, but the Muslims have.
A few Jews and atheists sued to have some symbols removed but that’s about as far as they went .
The Muslims threaten to kill, blow up, destroy if their demands aren’t met.
Bottom line... the government, newspapers, artists, film makers and businesses are AFRAID of the Muslims.
bump
I grew up in S. Fla.,large Jewish population.
In school we celebrated both religions. Used to sing Jewish Holiday songs.
Jewish Holidays many of the kids stayed home. It was as natural as sunrise.
The difference is Muslims want to dominate or destroy us. That simple.
bump
Could it be that artists “tackle” those things in their own lives, i.e. the religion they were raised in, their own country, etc.
This seems like a good place for the old saw "Cowards die a thousand deaths, the brave but once."
>>Could it be that artists “tackle” those things in their own lives, i.e. the religion they were raised in, their own country, etc.
Right now, Muslims aren’t just in the lives of the Europeans; they’re in their faces.
Modern artists know that they can piss/Christ and burn the flag and that their right to do so will be defended to the death – but not by them. Their acting out doesn’t push the envelope, nor is it brave. They shake their tushes for the attention which gets them money, power and laid.
The 60s produced great sounding music that was ideologically irrational, crass and corrupt. The artists who came after them through the 70s, 80s, 90s and into the 21 Century amplified the self destruction with an ideology that flatlined through all those decades as rehacked 60s dogma.
I’ve been wondering for some time now when that would change, when the genius would emerge whose art both critiques the lazy, uninspired mediocrity that is currently the backdrop to our children’s youth and points to the obvious truths that no one has been willing to admit.
Will Islam will force a confrontation that will require that rethinking? Looks like it. However, it also looks like there is no way that the current stagnant castrati are up to the challenge.
In the meantime, I’ll be singing: “Come senators and congressmen, please heed the call. Get out of the doorway. Don’t block up the hall. … For the times they are a changin.”
Imagine courageous artists of history like Fransisco Goya, Honore Daumier and Kathe Kollwitz being this cowardly. Kollwitz, for one, openly defied the Nazis with her art and Daumier went to prison in 1870’s France. Today’s artists, for the most part, are glad to harpoon Christianity, or our war effort, just like our cowardly “entertainers” in music and hollywood. None have the guts to tackle Islamofascism.
bttt
So, a cruicifix in urine is a “bold artistic statement” and a cartoon of Mohammed with a bomb on his head is “going too far.” What’s the difference, do you think? (Probably that My People stopped killing people to force conversions FIVE CENTURIES AGO.)
Ever meet an ‘artist’ that wasn’t a wimp?
Me neither.
Dude! Remember when the Amish hijacked those planes and flew them into the World Trade Centers? Oh, no...wait...OK, remember when the Quakers beheaded those journalists? Ummm, sorry. Oh, what about when the Southern Baptists implied that there may be several Scriptures in the Bible that say "sin is bad and Christ wants people not to do it"? Those bastards!!!!
bttt
Garrison Keillior, a Lefty who is none-the-less a clever person, once said: “Happy people do not need to make art.”
I have to wonder if this crossdressing potter Grayson Perry’s grandparents’ had been as cowardly during WWII would he be Gustave instead? What has happened to the British people?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.