Have we come to the point where we must say "If we don't like it that Muslims get so excited about the West's insulting Mohammed, we have to be BETTER THAN THAT and not get excited" about what this article says?
We're 'better than that' when it comes to waterboarding, right?, we're 'better than that' when it comes to wire tapping, right? At least these are things our Leftists love to say. I usually retort with "We're so 'better than that' we might be 'deader than that' if we don't stop being better than that and allow our CIA to do it's work, but....." So, read this whole article, the descriptions only start about halfway through.....and tell me, should we really be 'better than that' and turn the other cheek?
43 comments:
Catholics aren't yet THAT liberal, eh? Not "balanced enough" yet eh? But the fact that this could even have been considered for showing in a Catholic cathedral has to tell you something about that institution, truly the Antichrist system as the Reformers all said it was even in their day.
Come soon, Lord Jesus. The more I see of the way this world is going the less I want of it.
Zin;
Is this Cathedral the Gate for SODOM and GOMOR?
To see everything by sex, to feel every human being by sex, to look at everything by sex, was from always the mindset of the diabolic Dominators.
the perversity is the result of an uni-dimensional dirty mind.
This kind of dirty mind was always a barrage for the humanity,
this kind of diverted mind do not accept SAINTE VIERGE MARY.
I'm not religious, and it is not from a religious point of view that I write this, but, the rapeors, the pedophils, the Mullahs, have this kind of sexiest mindset, they see the sex in everything!
SAM
Hi, cj...pretty awful, isn't it? I just can't see the motivation, frankly, for such a disgusting display. but, hey..we have to open minded, right? (WRONG!)
SAM...It does sound like Sodom and Gomorrah, doesn'it. You are right; but the mullahs see sex in everything and want it OUT, right? Here, they are putting sex INTO an otherwise holy situation!
How people who supposedly honor and respect and consider Jesus HOLY could do THIS is way beyond me.
youre so right Z..its only a one way street for tolerance and it never goes our way!
Zin;
The mullahs do not want the sex in or out, they see the humanbeings a sexual thing,
For the Mullahs, to DOMINATE someone and to lower the human being, they rape him or her, in the west you call them the criminels and rapeors, and in our world, we call them the mullahs.
Why the Mullahs stone the women?, because they consider an adultered woman, something used who has lost it's value.
the Bishops of that Cathedral and the Mullahs are the double faces of the same coin.
YES; you'r right, it's SODOM and GOMOR!!
BTW, for the story, it remains the last part, i'll try to send it very soon, and thank you so very much to arrange it by your sensitive feelings.
SAM
I don't suppose any has seen or noted the incredibly humorous irony that this artist's name is perilously close to "Hard Licker" in English? From there it's all too easy to go to "Hard Liquor", which may have been the inspiration for this deliberately rude, shockingly inappropriate stuff.
I, personally, do not believe in censorship, but the idea of placing material of this sort (as described) in any place related to a CHURCH seems preposterous beyond description.
Not offend anyone here, but I'd have to see these paintings for myself before I could properly pass judgment on their artistic merit or lack thereof.
Nevertheless, I can't imagine what got into these church officials that made them sponsor anything of this sort.
Hared Licker's stuff MAY properly belong in an Art Museum, but to associate the work of an Atheist, probably Marxist, "anti-war" advocate, who references the NAZIS to justify his own brand of politically-motivated moral and artistic anti-Christian turpitude, strikes me as more than foolish–––it's downright PERVERSE.
Let the Church be the Church. If you don't believe in the tenets of Christianity, by all means shun the Church, but it strikes me as terribly wrong for Church Officials to permit the Church to be attacked and possibly corroded from WITHIN in this particular manner.
But I STILL want to SEE the works in question. A lot of stuff deemed sacrilegious, heretical, immoral, dangerous and offensive in the not-too-distant past was long ago accepted and then enshrined in the Western Canon as "Fine Art" and "important Literature."
After all, the ceiling of the Capella Sistini is full of breasts, buttocks and penises–––as was MOST of the Art and Sculpture from the Renaissance and of course, the ancient world.
SAM, the bishops didn't DO the art, but they sure are honoring it by displaying it, aren't they? Our political correct world 'forces' them to feel guilty for NOT displaying this stuff! Why can't they have been outraged and prohibited it? Becuase there will be those who say "See? you're behaving as stupidly as the muslims when their mohammed is insulted" But, of course, you would only have letters or edicts, not death threats for having done so!
FreeThinker..is that your post? Well, reading the details in the link was quite enough for me..especially about the Last Supper. Someone might suggest it is taken "out of context... and why shouldn't apostles be committing acts like that on each other?", but I'd say that's as ridiculous as suggesting Rev Wrights' saying "God D America" can be taken out of context.
Sorry, that last "Anonymous" post was, indeed I, Z.
Sorry I forgot to sign it.
I'll only add this: I could NEVER accept the hearsay description–––particularly of a NEWS organization–––on anything.
Media is ravenous for anything sensationalistic, and will shamelessly exploit it to the hilt for media's own purposes without fail.
My own opinion has always been that we humans are generally too quick–––and too eager–––to condemn.
The works described strike me as ":unsavory" at best, but I will STILL reserve judgment, until I can see them for myself.
~ FreeThinke
Hi FREETHINKER..You know, I'm trying to avoid using a certain word that's described in this article of what THE APOSTOLES are 'doing to' each other......and I won't publish anyone who does type it. Yes, we're all adults, but it's my blog, and it's not a word I want here. HuMor Me!
You Might want more clarification, or to see it yourself, but I'M quite content with believing the writers and can't iMagine how this act Might be taken out of context.
So sue MMMME! Anyway, for sake of arguMent, let's say the writer's got 20/20 eye sight and got it exactly right. Now, let's talk...that okay?
PS: As for the questionable taste and judgment of the Bishop, I feel compelled to say that bad as it may be, it sure beats burning heretics at the stake.
~ FreeThinke
SAM, THANK YOU..Now, may I mention your relationship if I mention no actual names but Baskerville's?
This might take me a few days....wish me luck!
What's with you, FT? I don't care how artistically rendered that abomination could possibly be, it remains an abomination, and I don't need to see it to know that. It could have the most sensitive treatment of color and form and composition and it would still be an abomination.
And apart from the sacrilege and blasphemy, pornography isn't the mere depiction of body parts, it's what those body parts are depicted as doing that makes it pornography, the intent to inspire, not artistic appreciation but something at a much lower level of human feeling.
And I am completely in favor of intelligent censorship. The perversion of "freedom" into tolerance of all such low things is a BIG cause of our current predicament as a nation, and if you really object to the Frankfurt School's agenda it's odd you would embrace this facet of it. We're awash in a sea of sewage these days thanks to this twisted idea of "freedom."
And frankly, I'm not sure it beats burning heretics by much, if at all.
Your friend,
Connie
Connie....well said, I'm with you on this one. The Frankfurt School is a good point. It is 'twisted freedom'....we really oughtn't "let it ALL hang out"...that should have died in the Sixties...but, it got a foothold and is strangling us.
So sorry. I came here to comment not to quarrel. I did not mean to offend anyone. I read the article referenced, and reacted as I did. The language used in the article is far more direct and calculated to provoke a furor than anything I've said here.
I do believe we are all entitled to our opinions. Sooner or later mine ALWAYS seem to raise eyebrows wherever I go, so perhaps its better that I just keep my thoughts to myself.
Better to be silent than play the hypocrite.
~ FreeThinke
FT, why leave the topic now? What if it is exactly as described? You have every right to still think it's acceptable for that museum......but we have a right not to, no? Didn't Connie have a good point?
Well... I was pleased to read that the display had since been removed, I don't think the church, of all public areas, is a place for displaying carnal imagery. Sometimes I just want the world to stop so as I can get off...
Good post!
Let me ever see anything thing like this and myself and my friend Louis(''Louie'') Sluggerville, of Saint Louis, Mo. will ''swing'' into action. I'm serious. So lets take a crack at Catholics again, eh.? Nice. This little worm of an ''artist'' wouldn't dare try anything with an Islamic motif, no sir, too cowarderly for that. Johnnymac.
AmericanInterests..it HAS been removed! Good news.
JohnnyMac, you are so right. Nobody'd dare do that and LIVE to a muslim about his 'faith'.
Boy, this all makes me so mad.
But don't you know? It's SAFE to do these sorts of things to Christian and/or Jewish believers...we don't;
riot,
behead,
burn,
screech,
scream,
threaten,
or any other of those nice things that mohammadins do!
Good morning, G*D bless and Maranatha!
tmw
We just WRITE irate letters and e-mails, or make a few phone calls...we are just so 'weak'!
Hi Johny;
The problem is not about the painting, I mean that only the sick minds paints or writes the obsenities on the Prophets and their belivers,
The problem is, "Why the bishops of the Church allow this kind of pictures be exposed in a public monaster?",
The people are free to expose what they want, but not everywhere they want.
The Church is a selected place for the believers.
I don't like this kind of diverted Artists, But, I'm strongly against the bishops who promote and expose the Obsenities in the churches.
SAM
A SMALL POINT
From the article:
••• . . . "the small Cathedral Museum . . . is nestled down a narrow street in Vienna's historic Gothic quarter." •••
Someone seemed to think this controversial stuff was exhibited in the CHURCH, itself. Instead it was placed in a museum that was, indeed, associated with the Church.
That may make little or no difference to anyone, but I do think it shows why we should be careful to read and digest an entire article in some detail before jumping to conclusions.
And Connie, I did not say I was advocating or promoting this kind of stuff, all I said was that I would have to see it for myself before I would dare attempt to evaluate it.
As described, its sounds grotesque and deliberately calculated to shock and offend. In REALITY it might have a different impact.
The question I bring to this discussion is "Do we want to know the TRUTH, or do we merely want to allow ourselves to REACT with vehement passion to what-may-well-be-nothing-more-than a media-generated CHIMERA?
~ FreeThinke
And some people wonder why I stress a distinction between Christianity and Catholicism. It's disenheartening that people still confuse the two with each other.
In that light, this "art" was intented to provoke a reaction among Catholics, who no doubt have rules and regulations concerning the display and appearance of their graven imagery.
If you are brave enough to want to see some of Hrdlicka's expressionistic paintings, and a few sculptural images, please check out this link
http://www.hilger.at/549_DE.5EAD6C4907165?kuen_id=22
I'd hardly call them "realistic." They are not "lovely" that's for sure, they are typical of MOST post-impressionist 20th-century Art nearly all of which shows a marked penchant for the grotesque.
However, I found the DESCRIPTIONS in the article that started this discussion far more provocative and offensive than the DEPICITIONS. But then, I practically grew up in New York's MOMA and other of its great museums, so I may be shockproof. ;-)
~ FreeThinke
Here's a review of Hrdlicka's work. I've added the emphasis in capital letters.
ALFRED HRDLICKA
"Fleischeslust" (Lust of the Flesh)
Opening: Thursday, February 28th 2008, 7 pm
The exhibition lasts until April 5th 2008.
The artist will be present.
Alfred Hrdlicka – Austria’s great sculptor and graphic artist celebrates his 80th birthday.
Already before the time when Hrdlicka committed himself primarily to three-dimensional art, he was in contact with plastic structures, in the form of dental impressions made of gypsum, during his apprenticeship as a dental technician between 1942 and 1945. It was in 1944. . . .
Between 1946 and 1952 Hrdlicka studied painting with Gütersloh and Dobrowsky at the ACADEMY of FINE ARTS in VIENNA.
After obtaining his diploma in painting, Hrdlicka began to study sculpture with Wotruba, and he completed his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in 1957. Fritz Wotruba was renowned as the doyen of figurative cubism. His human figures are purely formal solutions, verging on abstraction. Hrdlicka, in turn, instilled human life into the marble block, turning it into human flesh – a portrait of a man marked by destiny.
The difference between the two artists could not have been any greater. The teacher Wotruba is a representative of MODERNISM, Hrdlicka on the other hand is a CLASSICAL REALIST.
Hrdlicka’s credo was to return to reality. Hrdlicka is an artist who is close to the classical sculptors of the western world – ranging from Michelangelo to Rodin. HE FINDS TRUTH IN UGLINESS AND PAIN, BUT NOT IN BEAUTY.
The best-known sculpture in the context of human violence in the oeuvre of Alfred Hrdlicka is the multi-piece memorial monument at Augustinerplatz in Vienna, in front of the Albertina museum. His Mahnmal gegen Krieg und Faschismus (Memorial Monument against War and Fascism) was unveiled in 1988 and ultimately completed in 1991. THE ARTIST WANTS TO STIR THE EMOTIONS OF ONLOOKERS, HE WANTS TO ATTACK THEM AND URGE THEM TO REFLECT ON VIOLENCE AND THE FLESH.
Hrdlicka’s art is always physical and mundane, driven by instincts, sexuality and violence. It does not belittle or embellish. HRDLICKA HAS A SUPREME COMMAND OFF THE LANGUAGE OF EXAGGERATION and MANNERISM. However, THE TRUTH IS ALWAYS THE ESSENCE.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Posted by FreeThinke
If you want to see a SELF-PORTRAIT of Hrdlicka (intensely revealing and not a bit erotic) Go to this website please:
http://www.artfacts.net/index.php/pageType/exhibitionInfo/exhibition/16297/lang/2
~ FreeThinke
Sorry, but the painter has strayed from the standard necessary for inclusion in the realm of classical realism and has strayed into the realm of classical sexual fantasy...
The painting lacks the most critical ingredient necessary to render it more than simple "art" and move it into the realm of "good art". And that ingredient is TRUTH. Jesus and his disciples did NOT engage in homosexual orgies.
Plato, "Philebus"
SOCRATES: And there is no difficulty in seeing the cause which renders any mixture either of the highest value or of none at all.
PROTARCHUS: What do you mean?
SOCRATES: Every man knows it.
PROTARCHUS: What?
SOCRATES: He knows that any want of measure and symmetry in any mixture whatever must always of necessity be fatal, both to the elements and to the mixture, which is then not a mixture, but only a confused medley which brings confusion on the possessor of it.
PROTARCHUS: Most true.
SOCRATES: And now the power of the good has retired into the region of the beautiful; for measure and symmetry are beauty and virtue all the world over.
PROTARCHUS: True.
SOCRATES: Also we said that truth was to form an element in the mixture.
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then, if we are not able to hunt the good with one idea only, with three we may catch our prey; Beauty, Symmetry, Truth are the three, and these taken together we may regard as the single cause of the mixture, and the mixture as being good by reason of the infusion of them.
PROTARCHUS: Quite right.
evidently...despite his assertions that "THE TRUTH IS ALWAYS THE ESSENCE."... in this case, HE LIED!
JESUS WAS NOT GAY.
Although if he want to paint Mohammed molesting a pre-pubescent child... he can return to his claims to genre...
FT, I still wonder why anyone would want to insult the holiest of holies in the Christian world just to "STIR THE EMOTIONS OF ONLOOKERS" and "FIND THE TRUTH IN UGLINESS" Why is it that ugliness always seems to be the quality deemed to have more TRUTH?
FJ: You have an excellent point about the truth; to take a real incident, lie in the ugliness of terms, and call it art seems so debauched and agenda-driven that it loses any meaning to me.
Still, FT is right in suggesting now all art is beautiful and that artists should get us thinking. On the other hand.........
well........lots of good input here, plenty to ponder. I just keep thinking that nihilism is this type of thing; ruination and misrepresentation to uglify the non ugly.
or something.!
z
Did anyone LOOK at the illustrations in the links I provided?
I think it's AWFUL stuff, personally, but not in the way the the article leads us to believe. The infamous "Last Supper" is not depicted in any of the images I found, but the illustration of Christ being abused on the Cross by a Roman soldier is. It looks to me like something drawn by a naughty, not-very-talented child. A lot of his stuff is reminiscent of GRAFFITI sprayed all over the subways of New York.
The Hrdlicka is, apparently, highly respected, even LOVED in late-20th and early-21st-century Vienna. This may say a lot more about the current state of Austria in general than it does about Hrdlicka, himself, whose work seems coarse, childish and yes–––nihilistic.
As i said earlier, it's run-of-the-mill for 20th-Century Art. Why anyone would dare attempt to describe his sculptures as anything even remotely like the works of Praxiteles, Michelangelo, Bernini or Rodin, I can't imagine.
Let's just call it "CHUTZPAH" and be done with it.
Whatever the work of Hrdlicka may be it most certainly should NOT be described in any way as "erotic." If anything, it is the direct opposite.
This is Art is nowhere near good enough to TERRIFY. A good look at it serves only to STUPEFY. It's not "shocking," it BORING.
This Hrdlicka (How are we supposed to pronounce that?) is an ADMITTED Communist. He's PROUD to be a Marxist. He doesn't flinch from the title the way American Marxists (i.e. Democrats and many Republicans now) invariably do.
Apparently he has much support for his abominable view of Life in his home environment.
That Marxists hate Life, Truth, Principle, deny the existence of Soul and Spirit, and seem incapable of expressing Love is undeniable. That so very many people find this perverse, demented view of life attractive should be our largest concern.
Debased Art is but a symptom of a moribund culture.
Could it POSSIBLY be that the Bishop seized this 80th birthday of Herr Hrdlicka as an opportunity to AWAKEN basically decent people from their slumber of complacency and unawareness?
I'd like to think so.
~ FreeThinke
FT. Fine. you win. We're just plain wrong and, maybe, even a bit pedestrian and bourgois. SO:
Let's just have apostles M'ing all the other apostles and have Jesus being ..well, I can't and won't say it here, but I wish I could just for the shock value, frankly...
You're the one who's constantly fighting for decency yet, for some reason, this seems to be something you elevate to a chance for people to wake people up from complacency. WHAT complacency?
Complacency by believing Christ couldn't have been homosexual? OR because we just can't QUITE believe that the Lord's SUpper, that evening before Christ's death on the cross, the apostles all felt like playing with each other (there, that's a safe way that can be taken two ways, right? like on jungle jims or hopscotch, except it isn't, BIG TIME)?
And does "support" make someone right? Tell me. please.
I'm willing to say that sometimes off-the-wall art can open eyes to thought provoking and even enlightening things....and you think this is one of them.
Are you willing to see how offended most of us are here at this particular kind of 'art' without adding that we're just complacent?
Hey Z,
I said I thought it was AWFUL.
We are talking past each other and not connecting. That makes me sad.
I'm not interested in getting angry or being offended. There's too much of that everywhere these days, and it doesn't CONSTRUCT anything.
I'm searching for a logical explanation as to why things of this nature should occur.
That's it's UNDESIRABLE is elementary, but none of this was really about US it's about modern day Austria and the terrible influence Marxism has had–––and continues to have–––on European as well as American culture.
I didn't intend to make anyone upset. Why do you think I am ADVOCATING Hrdlicka's so-called Art, because I want to discuss IT, instead of just talk about the article that DESCRIBED it?
Anyway, I've pretty well exhausted my interest in this. It's sad. It's depressing. It's degenerate, but I am looking for a ray of HOPE in the Bishop's actions here.
Either he's a depraved lunatic, a moron, a Communist Sympathizer, a closet homosexual, or he MIGHT just be a genuinely concerned human being.
Most people ARE blind to the danger they're in. This "event" inspired considerable anger among the faithful, as well it might. Maybe we should take THAT as healthy sign?
~ FreeThinke who is tired of being sick and tired, and frankly desperate for some sign of positive thinking ANYWHERE.
PS: Not being able to communicate with you via email anymore is very frustrating. I MISS you–––a LOT.
FT;
The Painter opposes GOD and the will of GOD and GOD's Messenger, and the Bishops witness him!!!
We have the believers, and non believers, and oppositions to GOD,
In all the Holiest books, this particullar chapter is a main chapter and discussed.
FT;
You'r well placed to open the discussion from this point of view, you have the knowledge and the literature to do that, please,
SAM
FT, yes...maybe we should take it as a healthy sign. I hope so.
Are you emailing to my old Adelphia account? I just can't understand the problem and I'm sorry about it, too!
SAM...well said; the painter opposes the will of GOD, indeed. z
FT,
Great points. The text WAS very misleading... and I hope you're right about the bishops intent... and that the outrage displayed is a healthy sign that people are willing to rely on their own artistic judgement and standards of beauty and not simply believe or rely upon the reviews of the latest "progressive" (or other) critic du jour w/o actually eyeballing the work.
Yes, Zin; the Painter opposes GOD;
and to Oppose GOD, the painter should lower and reduce GOD's prophet to the Human's bestial feature.
And the best way to do that, he has got the witnesses from GOD's and Jesus's followers (Bishops and the Mullahs).
What a LUCIFERE!!!
SAM
FT: I'm sorry I sounded so sour....
FJ says the text is misleading and so I think I missed a link. And, if the actual art is shown in one of the links, PLEASE post it again. I"ve been doing a gazillion things AND blogging here so I must have missed something.
So none of the description in the article I found is valid according to pictures you're seeing OF that exhibit?? I'd like to know.
Thanks to you both; As Dennis Prager says, and I totally agree with him: I don't have to agree but I like clarity.
as the song says "Teach me tonight.." Cuz "...I got a lot to learn.." WHAT did I miss?
xxx
There's a very slow loading "video" of the painting in question at (CAUTION: GRAPHIC) this link. The "re-stored artpieces" are actually pretty grotesque sketches, something any first year art student could have drawn.
And because the work is so "bad", I can see how this actually "could" have been used by the church museum more to provoke a conversation than to revel in heresy's.
...and it's not that what the article says is invalid... it's just that the 'art' is just "bad" and so perhaps isn't quite as "threatening" as you'd expect it to be from reading the text. Instead, it simply looks "juvenile"... IMO.
Had the work been more realistic (like the Serrano photographs), I would have been much more offended... but I'd place this in the category of the Mary w/elephant dung works... blatantly bad art.
Thanks for the information and video, FJ.
Here's my feeling about it:
While the sketches are bad (actually, I don't find them such bad art) everyone knows what they are; and while they're sketchy, you see Apostles drinking from bottles, Jesus is naked, Someone's hand is 'on him', you see something going on that's not quite the standard Last Supper story, right?
The artist says "God became flesh"...Christians know what that means. Is it important that the artist wants us to know he thinks it means "God became of the flesh?" See what I mean?
And, sure...sketch and paint away...and he has a right to paint or sketch anything he wants to. But, is it because he's apparently so famous that the Catholic church would display them? Or why?
Why have an institution supposedly revering Jesus Christ display art that misinforms and demeans him and the apostles? That's my point....
Just seems low to me.
I think they're trying to draw a contrast between how the Muslim world reacted and how a civilized society reacts.
Instead of beheading the artist, we take the painting down and put it away.
FJ, I doubt that was the intention originally, but the more I think of it, you could be right. I just don't think of the Western world being this cunning..but the end product is exactly that. I hope journalists take note, but they're probably cowering behind their computers wondering if they can draw the comparison and LIVE!
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