From the CBS transcript:
… A graphic exhibit of the shooting death of Ferguson teen Michael Brown by a white police officer is on display in Chicago. Even Brown’s father won’t view it.
CBS 2’s Mike Parker reports the art gallery on East 47th Street is the now at the center of a controversy. The owners have received hate mail and threats about one of their exhibits…
The exhibit is a white artist’s re-creation of Michael Brown’s lifeless body lying face down, uncovered, as part of a Chicago exhibit on white privilege.
It is stark and shocking and it has had a profound effect on his father.
“I really, really would like them to take that away,” Brown said. “I think it’s really disturbing, disgusting. I keep the thought, that thought, that picture is still in my head.”
The owners of the Gallery Guichard say they have no intention of covering up or removing the exhibit without first discussing it with the artist.
“The installation doesn’t say it’s for or against any side,” said owner Andre Guichard. “It really just says now that he has left us, he’s an angel.”…
Ti-Rock Moore is a white NOLA native, the child of professional artists, who upon reaching her AARP years abandoned a “well-paying professional career”, took a new name with a “hip-hop vibe”, and announced herself publicly as the artist she had always identified as:
My work is conceptual and reactive, and has been described as courageous and avant-garde. Honestly and frankly I explore white privilege through my acute awareness of the unearned advantage my white skin holds. My work is three dimensional and my preferred mediums are wood or neon…
And if she’d stuck to neon, or life-sized KKK mannequins, that would’ve been an exemplary thing for the woman who’s now being dismissed as the new Rachael Dolezal. Call me an old white fuddy-duddy, but there are places, Ms. Moore, to which you just do not go (and yes I can see that gallery owner Andre Guichard is a person of color; that’s no excuse for you).
Even a “reimagination” of Michael Brown’s death with a decently covered corpse would have been questionable; the display as it stands is just pandering to the lowest impulse to gawk at someone else’s tragedy, no matter how earnest its intention.
ruemara
Thanks, ally. You really know how to not help.
Rex Tremendae
I can see that gallery owner Andre Guichard is a person of color; that’s no excuse for you
Is it an excuse for him?
different-church-lady
@efgoldman: There are, however, places you don’t come back from.
scav
Ironic in that the artist is personally profiting off that death. So what’s the real lesson and subtext there again?
Speach and art may be free, but that doesn’t always mean they are well thought out or kind.
Anne Laurie
@efgoldman: Serrano, however, did grow up Catholic; I remember him arguing at the time that Piss Christ was done within the context of his upbringing.
scav
@efgoldman: Which is exactly what the comments here are. Expressions of that.
Ruckus
I think there are places you don’t go as an artist. Art has to have beauty to someone or try to depict a wrong that can be righted….. So maybe this is art. Absolutely a wrong depicted, but is there maybe a better way to go about it? OK I can think of about a dozen ways to portray this better. So maybe it’s bad art. Despicable art even. But come on someone making money with despicable art, entertainment, books, discussions? That’s never happened before?
Tree With Water
George Harrison referred to that school of art as avant got-a-clue.
Steeplejack
@Ruckus:
First time I’ve seen you in (relatively) real time lately. I saw earlier this week (maybe last week?) that you are considering cataract surgery. Here’s some information from last February that might be useful.
Cervantes
@efgoldman:
I agree.
@different-church-lady:
Ars gratia artis.
seaboogie
@Tree With Water: I am going with lousy, lazy “art” combined with lacking a clue.
As a creative sort myself, I am down with the bullet markers – and orange cones and police tape possibly so. But the body that looks like a blow-up doll? Seriously? This is where you go with a mandala of text with all of the reportage and commentary in the shape of a chalk outline (which doesn’t happen anymore).
dagon
There’s a long history of this in Chicago. “Piss-Christ” ring a bell for any of you oldsters? Anyway, Gallery Guichard has been trying to make a name for themselves for quite a while and I doubt they’ll take it down.
It’s Ti-Rock that I have more of a problem with. As a child of Chicago’s Art Institute and American Academy of Art, I know exactly what sort of “artist” she is. Is she helping? NO! Will anyone ever be able to tell her this? Not a chance.
Ruckus
@Steeplejack:
Thanks!
It’s early but do have cataracts, worse in one eye. Vision is still good, not even bad enough to correct but there will come a time, maybe sooner than later but it will get here. I get my healthcare at the VA so the person recommending is never the person doing most any kind of procedure. That is done by a specialist in whatever field, so they do lots of procedures. And when your assigned GP decides that you need something, like a complex diagnosis, or a surgery, you then see someone in that specialty that confirms. The GP will order tests, lab, x-ray, MRI, etc so that there isn’t a wasted appointment but then your treatment transfers to the specialty dept, urology, or surgery for example. Like your private GP but most/all of the testing is done when you get to the specialist and they all work for the same system.
seaboogie
@dagon: I agree. Seems more about her, and her need to call attention to herself.
dagon
@efgoldman: It was everywhere, but it was particular potent here in Chicago. Art Institute is one of the premier “if you have a lot of money and kinda weird…you’re an artist” schools in the nation. Therefore, we had all sorts of nonsense that was hailed as transformative “art” after “Piss Christ” rolled through.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: You are right that Cincy was ground zero for the controversy.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
That’s who you see in the eye clinic. They are doing their residences but they are closely overseen.
I should have been more specific, maybe. Certain clinics are somewhat different, like the eye clinic, as your assigned GP doesn’t have the tools or training to do the work. But you have to be referred by your GP, at least the first time. Once you are a patient of a clinic you can go back for what you were sent there for without being re-referred. It sounds a bit more complicated than it is and some vets don’t seem to understand the system so there can be some complaining but it really is straightforward.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
I know you stated that tongue in cheek but is there anyplace in OH that is a moral bastion?
Just asking, lived there for 11 yrs and don’t recall ever finding that.
ETA Of course I don’t recall looking either.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: Gahanna. Because of Temperance.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
You must have remembered that I lived in Gahanna. However I believe that it was in Westerville that temperance reared it”s stupid head. It’s still dry and has the temperance museum. I know this because I worked in Westerville.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: Crap, it was Westerville. I just remember it was one of the northeast suburbs. Me, I lived in the viper’s nest of sin that was German Village where even we straights were all deviated preverts.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Deviated preverts. You spell it the way I say it. Still, a great band name, and they make the best friends.
dagon
@Omnes Omnibus: You’re right. I tried to buy a Playboy in Cinci @1992 and was rebuffed and scolded.
I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was a beautiful town (downtown) with lots of attractive ladies and I wanted a Playboy….Nope.
dagon
@Ruckus: Temperance? Evanston, IL.
dagon
@efgoldman: Cincy is a pimple compared to Chicago. You are correct about the “coverage” of the outrage. I was speaking more to the outrage and the backlash.
dagon
Anyway, that’s kind of foul paper mache’ figure gone bad, passing as “art” in the first place which brings me back to my initial post.
notorious JRT
@efgoldman:
I can think of realistic depictions of many actual events that ought not be portrayed as this artist hac chosen to do to the killing of Michael Brown. What’s next for Ti-Rock, a real, old timey lynching? Martin Luther King on his back bleeding life? Someone beating a child to death? Bill Cosby raping one of his victims? All ok as long as a video along side plays some song about angels or another appropriate icon? IMO this installation disrespects Michael Brown all over again. I give it the scorn I feel it deserves. Pretentious BS.
Ruckus
@dagon:
Westerville is sanctimonious enough to claim at least a moral right to the temperance title.
Ruckus
@notorious JRT:
There’s good art, great art, crap and whatever it is that’s 18 steps below crap. The difference is sometimes subjective, except in this case, where really there is no realistic discussion. For this we may have to add a couple of steps lower than that of the 18 previously below crap.
Tim in SF
@efgoldman: “in art there are no places you do not go. ”
+1. This is art.
m.j.
Guernica.
msdc
Looks like someone is about to learn that parroting all the right theoretical language won’t save her.
kent
I rarely go to art shows or museums, and when I do I am often struck by … well not many but a few pieces that are really good and make me think in a new way, or feel something I hadn’t felt before.
THIS piece is so powerful, it made me think in a new way just HEARING about it. Seriously. I took a second to think about what it would be like to walk into that room and see that piece, and it made Michael Brown’s death just that little bit more real to me. Empathy, transmitted hundreds of miles. Well done, artist.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@scav:
LOL
“What’s the difference between an artist and a large pizza?”
“A pizza can feed a family of four”
We Artists don’t do it for the money, we do it because it’s what our damn Muses are telling us to do.