Ethics in art

In class we went over the subject of ethics in art. I decided to blog about it because I think it is an important issue to talk about. Making sure the art is not offending people on different levels is crucial because if a piece is offending for example someone's religion or sexual orientation then people offended will not like the art and will lose respect towards the artists. 

I believe that art should arouse emotions, whether it is sadness, happiness, anger, disgust or fear, the emotions should be there and it if completely fine and even desirable. The art that arouse strong emotions is generally considered interesting. However, there is a very fine line between making people feel strong emotions and offending people. Artists need to be very cautious when creating art on a sensitive topic, or just any art in general. 

In this post I am going to share some examples of unethical art and explain where is the problem. The problem often is not obvious at first, sometimes the art looks normal to most, but causes a conflict or controversy in only one social group, race or tribe. 

The first example is a Damien Hirst's series of paintings called "Veil Paintings"

Veil of Love Everlasting (2017)

At first the painting looks absolutely normal and I would not think that there are any controversies about this series of paintings. Apparently there is a community of indigenous female artists who create art in a similar style. Well at first I did not see a conflict in this, because many artists use other artists' styles to create their own art and it is not seen as unethical. However, this is where I needed to educate myself on culture appropriation. "Culture appropriation is the act of taking or using things from a culture that is not your own, especially without showing that you understand or respect this culture" (Cambridge Dictionary, 2021). When Australians saw Hirst's work, many of them noticed the similarity between his paintings and paintings created by Emily Kngwarreye. (Schwartz, 2018). Here is an example of a work by Emily Kngwarreye:

Untitled (n.d.)

I can easily see the similarity between the two works. What is also important to keep in mind is that: "Issues of cultural appropriation are particularly sensitive for Aboriginal artists in Australia because painting styles are not only an expression of the artist’s creative talent, but also often convey sacred stories passed down from older generations." (Schwartz, 2018) Pretty much the Aboriginal art is a method of keeping the culture alive. Now understanding fully the background of the controversies and knowing what cultural appropriation is, I can see how Hirst's works could be seen as unethical by certain groups of people. 

Here is another work that can be seen as unethical, it is made by Jani Leinonen:

McJesus (2015)

Just by looking at this sculpture I already can tell what got people frustrated about it. It is definitely a piece that is offensive to religious people. Putting the Ronald McDonald on a Crucifix is definitely controversial. The meaning of this artwork is harmless, it is simply raising awareness of how people are putting consumerism above the value of life (Galston, 2019). It is a great message, but I am not sure if it needed to be portrayed this particular way.  It definitely draws attention to the piece and I assume that was the artist's goal, however it would be better if the artist could reach their goal without disrespecting others' religion. Of course, living in a free country gives the artist the right to express themselves in whatever way they want to, and there is not a law that could possibly stop them from creating this sort of art. An artist should keep in mind that they lose their platform by disrespecting others and by offending them. 

The examples are countless, there are many religiously unethical pieces, there are racially unethical pieces and campaigns. In this post I have only looked at two examples.. I looked at culture appropriation because it is not an obvious conflict and I have looked at a religiously unethical piece. I think the best way to avoid this sort of controversies around an artwork is making sure any sensitive subject is treated with a lot of caution. Artist need to often educate themselves before putting something out there, because no one wants to be seen as disrespectful or a bad person.

Reference List:

Cambridge Dictionary (2021) Culture Appropriation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. available at: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/cultural-appropriation

Galston, D. (2019) 'McJesus A provocative work of art inspires thoughts on Jesus’ death', Westar Institute, 17/01. Available at: https://www.westarinstitute.org/blog/mcjesus/ (Accessed: 20/01/2021)

Schwartz, O. (2018) 'The Art of Appropriation', The ethics centre, 14/05. Available at: https://ethics.org.au/the-art-of-appropriation/(Accessed: 20/01/2021).