15. Art & Ethics 4: Shock Value

Generally speaking, shock value is present in any artwork that surprises and upsets the viewer, conceptually or visually. The work may be quite vulgar, or absurd, or morbid, revolting, repugnant, sacrilegious or just plain ugly. 

The Ugly Duchess, by Quentin Matsys, 1513

(Never anger an artist!)

There is a history to this, but it's become much more common recently - it's almost expected of artists today, to come up with some way to offend their audience. There are many examples I could show, although I want to be careful, as my goal is to make this website school appropriate. One older example, this portrait by Thomas Gainsborough:

The Blue Boy, 1770

was his way of disproving the artist Sir Joshua Reynolds, who long advocated placing warm colors in the foreground, and cool, soothing colors in the background. Gainsborough wanted to show that the opposite way could work just as well.

As a more recent example, Damian Hirst uses dead animals in some of his artworks. This one work is a real shark, in a tank of formaldehyde:

The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, by Damien Hirst, 1991

There are other works I could add here, but I won't. 

I can't say whether shocking works of art are devoid of value, although some works remind me of the tale "The Emperor's New Clothes" by Hans Christian Andersen. I can only venture some reasons for this historical shift, which began in the 19th century. This has mostly to do with the artistic rebellion from academic art, and the resulting new respect for and expectation of originality. 

Bar at the Folies-Bergère, by Edouard Manet, 1882

Ever since Eduard Manet, you're not an artist unless you're different from the rest. This never-ending quest for "the new" has had artists scrambling for over two hundred years now, with many scrounging at the bottom of the barrel for any new idea whatsoever - it's the dilemma of originality versus quality and authenticity. Add to that, the rising art market, with more and more collectors looking to cash in on art, having no interest or appreciation for the art itself - much of it getting packed away in "free ports" as Sarah Green explained in the last lesson. It's hard for quality, that necessary ingredient for intrinsic value, to keep up. Remember:

Price is no guarantee of quality

You've been in that situation before, right? You go to an expensive restaurant, and your meal wasn't that good? Or you buy the fancier dress and it tears the next day? Or the expensive mug that cracks the second you pour hot coffee into it? What about the film you thought would be great, but you end up walking out after the first twenty minutes? They might've spent $30 million making that film, but that doesn't mean it's any good, if the story's bland, or unrealistic, or one-dimensional. It happens all the time, because the artists who made it are only human.

So, how does this affect art? I think it hurts the reputation, generally, of art and artists, and it merits a complaint. When you do, the most common answer we get from the artworld is, "Hey, anyone could've done it, but you didn't! Did you?" So that means the artist deserves credit? For an original idea that was bad? I've also never fought a bear, or tried to row across the Atlantic in a bathtub. I've never tried to dig into an anthill and live with the ants. Doesn't make it a good idea.

I'm just one little voice in a sea of opinions. I do think there's validity in the range of opinions to this topic. And, I can't say shock value and intrinsic value are mutually exclusive. I think many artworks, like The Blue Boy, have both, just as they can have extrinsic value, whether socially, politically, and so on. 

This is all a matter of opinion. What is not opinion is that shock value is far easier to create than intrinsic value. All you need is some duct tape, and zero integrity:

Quality artwork takes a great deal of time and patience to produce, whereas shock value does not. There's a reason Da Vinci produced so few paintings in his lifetime compared to artists like Gerhard Richter or Jeff Koons. It's not because Leonardo was lazy.