Yeah, so I’m providing links to a bunch of other people instead of writing myself, but heck at least I’m providing something to read:

LILEKS on a new art display in Denver and the ‘artistic romance’ that’s cropped of late with the bomb-belt:

Look. The people who actually use these devices think they will be instantly whisked to heaven so they can poke holes in six dozen hymens. The people who use these belts kill women and children and young girls and old men. They blow their legs off. They shoot nails through their eye sockets. You who are so horrified by John Ashcroft%u2019s piety are applauding people who think God tells them to kill everyone in a pizza parlor. The bomb belt is not a symbol.It’s not a metaphor. It is not a contemporary icon of power struggles and resistance. It’s a bomb belt. To put it in poster terms: it is bad for children and other living things, inasmuch as it throws their flesh on the walls and the streets. Can’t you find something else to play with?

The quote’s from somewhere down in the middle of today’s piece, or permalink here.

Looking at the picture in question, I see a lot of talent… the guy’s obviously got a lot of skill and put a great deal of effort into the piece.

I don’t see a message.

Let me rephrase: I don’t think it’s clear what the message is - I can’t tell if he’s pro-terrorism, pro-Palestinian, thinks the Asian American community needs to undertake such drastic measures to gain power in this country, or if he’s poking holes in all those ideas by showing us what something like that would look like and how pointless it would be.

The article reports ‘the artist could not be reached for comment’. ‘Kay… he wants the art to speak for itself? He doesn’t want his own interpretation to cloud the issue (or make the issue clear enough actually see?)

One student looks at the picture, finds it disturbing and asks that it be moved, that person is told ‘you want it moved becuase the message you perceived bothers you… we’re not moving it for that.’ Fine.

If the artist tells us what he thinks, and people object to that, the objections raised (if any) are much less subjective.

Also, fewer people are riled about it once the lines are clearly drawn (pun accepted), and the cynic in me points out that this would mean less press coverage for a young artist.

I’d be unavailable for comment, too. It’s a good business move.

Have to reiterate what Lileks said about the article in the local paper, though. Gutless. The staff writer that turned that bit out… eh. Gutless. Passive voice is its own artistic statement.

I read the Lileks rant and thought I might post - but here you have, so I will simply comment.

It is art, and therefore you bring your own message(s) to it.

I see it as humanizing monsters. There are tons of those in the Asian cultures, too... witness today's news in China.

We don't want to humanize monsters, because they are easier to kill when they are monsters.

Alternately, monsters are everywhere, and occasionally they wear human skin. Warnings.

My views of what I see.
Art.

Occasionally, Lilek's eye-rolling makes me do the same... just not *with* him.

And certainly an artwork like this one opens a forum of intelligent debate much more readily than say... the crucifix immersed in waste water...

It is pieces like this one that prove to me how much freedom we do still have. In times prior to this modern era, artists would never have dared to put such images to paint and canvas. What Goya depicted in his images was radical and dangerous.

What this art student has produced, because he produced it here, is not.

Now, hopefully this guy is an American citizen... May the mercy of Quan Yin preserve him if he is not...

I found Glenn Reynolds' comment more interesting -- that *this* is considered art, and that it disturbs people is a *good* thing. While at the same time, some frat boys who dress in blackface as the Jackson 5 get the boom lowered on them and their chapter.

I should have read Glenn's post on the subject as well. It's an excellent point.