Chloë Ashby at The Guardian:
According to the author, art can be depraved in five ways: it can show an immoral state of affairs; cause someone to do a bad thing; express a dangerous message; be created by an immoral artist; or be made in a morally suspect way. Forget good intentions. In 2017, protests erupted around Dana Schutz’s contribution to the Whitney Biennial, a painting of the mutilated body of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old black boy murdered in 1955 after being falsely accused of flirting with a white woman. Schutz’s aim was to present white remorse. The overriding response was that her use of black pain as material was appropriation. “Artistic speech can become depraved even when it is expressed in good faith,” writes Dixon.
How does art alter our moral compass? According to ancient writers, the first Greek sculpture of a naked woman was so lifelike that one man attempted to have sex with it before throwing himself off a cliff in shame. Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, who sexually assaulted and murdered five children in and around Manchester in the 60s, were avid readers of the Marquis de Sade’s “sadistic” oeuvre. In the 1990s, Marilyn Manson and his band were accused of corrupting disillusioned youth.
more here.
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