Aftershock The Ethics of Contemporary Transgressive Art

by Cashell, Kieran

• ISBN13: 9781845115241
• ISBN10: 1845115244
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-09-15
• Publisher: I. B. Tauris & Company

Summary

This provocative book subjects contemporary transgressive art to a rigorous ethical exploration. Accused by the tabloid press of setting out to "shock", controversial artworks such as those in the infamousSensationshow--which in 1999 prompted New York Mayor Giuliani's outrage--are vigorously defended by art critics who frequently downplay their disturbing emotional impact. Yet in doing so, Cashell argues, these commentators actually fail to understand the work they defend. Scrutinizing notorious works by Damien Hirst, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Sally Mann, Robert Mapplethorpe, Marcus Harvey, Orlan, Tracey Emin and others, Cashell maintains not only that such work produces a visceral, emotional and "ethical" response--but that it actively sets out to do so.

Author Biography

Kieran Cashell is Lecturer in Critical and Contextual Studies, Limerick Institute of Technology.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Acknowledgements	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
The Incompatibility of Aesthetics and Contemporary Art	p. 1
Transgression: The War Against Disinterestedness	p. 5
The Ethics of Transgressive Art	p. 12
Everybody Hates a Tourist	p. 17
The Ethical Analysis of Contemporary Art	p. 17
Disinterestedness and Cultural Tourism	p. 18
The Ethical Evaluation of Art: Autonomism versus Moralism	p. 27
A Difficult Case: Marc Quinn and Alison Lapper	p. 32
Transgressive Art Meets the Autonomist-Moralist Model	p. 42
Quinn and Lapper Revisited: A Contextualist Analysis	p. 46
Conclusion	p. 49
Carte Blanche	p. 51
Marcus Harvey's Myra	p. 51
Preliminary Approaches to the Ethical Analysis of Mym	p. 56
'Suffer Little Children': The Facts of the Case	p. 58
Myra: Portrait of a Serial Killer	p. 61
Postmodernism and the Absence of the Referent Thesis	p. 66
Contextualist Ethical Analysis of Myra	p. 68
Myra and Merited Response Theory	p. 79
Conclusion	p. 84
Atrocity Exhibition	p. 87
Aesthetic Defences of the Work of Jake and Dinos Chapman	p. 87
The Canonic Defence and the Chapmans' Disasters of War	p. 90
The Transgressive Defence of Transgressive Art	p. 97
Hans Bellmer, Bataiiie and Authentic Transgression	p. 101
The Trivial Pursuit of Psychoanalysis	p. 107
Evaluation of Aesthetic Defences of Transgressive Art	p. 109
Acknowledging the Immorality of the Chapmans' Work	p. 114
Contextuaiist Ethical Evaluation of Zygotic Acceleration	p. 116
Conclusion	p. 121
Fearless Speech	p. 123
Tracey Emin's Ethics of the Self	p. 123
'With Myself Always Myself Never Forgetting': The Structure of Ethical Subjectivity	p. 129
Exposure Without Reserve: Emotional Response and its Moral Significance	p. 138
Shame: An Existential Analysis	p. 145
Concluding Ethical Evaluation: Tracey Emin's Fearless Speech	p. 151
Horrorshow	p. 159
The Transvaluation of Morality in the Work of Damien Hirst	p. 159
Obscene Objects of Pleasurable Fascination	p. 162
Non-Human Animals and Ethical Inclusion	p. 167
Attending to the Other of the Animal: Art and the Ethics of Care	p. 172
Exquisite Corpse: Death and the Sublime	p. 176
Cognitive Immoralism	p. 179
The Artistic Transvaluation of Morality	p. 182
Aftershock: Tragic Sympathy and Meta-Ethical Significance	p. 188
Conclusion	p. 196
Notes	p. 201
Further Blading	p. 241
Index	p. 249
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