The Cold Dead Heart of Modern Art

Art and culture are the heart and soul of a people.  Without a sense of art, what I call an aesthetic awareness of beauty and ugliness, people are missing something in their maturity at least as important as their moral compass.  The degeneration of art and culture is related to civilisation in the same way anorexia is to healthy body image.  The purpose of art is to reflect, at people their identity, their emotions, their pride, their dignity, their secrets and their heartfelt longings.  At present, all European nations are suffering from various degrees of artistic degeneration, but the English speaking world is probably suffering more than most.  What is the cause of this?  Frankly, my opinion is that it is the same thing most of our systemic social problems come from: the government interfering in affairs outside of its proper jurisdiction.  By interfering with the artistic free market, via government subsidies and salaries to struggling artists, we have a distortion of the cultural supply and demand.  Also, importantly, as discussed in my previous article, the universities are not centres of learning, but communist indoctrination centres that destroy creativity, not nurture it.

In this article I am going to introduce the idea of how state funding of the arts is undermining the culture of our nations, and indeed our social well-being, but first I am going to share a couple of my favourite pieces of artwork and then introduce you to some examples of “art” that I’ve come across in museums that receive at least some public funding or have art from artists who received public funding.

There are three things necessary for the production of good art: creativity, effort/suffering and beauty.  These three things are immediately self-evident whenever a person observes a piece of art.  If you need an arts degree to appreciate a piece of art, then the Emperor has no clothes on and you are actually looking at a piece of junk.  When I think of the price tags on some of the pieces I am about to show you, I also think fraud.  Appreciating art is something every human being with empathy and sensitivity can do naturally.  Before I start giving you examples of how bad and degenerate modern art has become, here are a couple of examples of excellent artwork.

The Accident by William Geets (1899)

The Accident by William Geets (1899)

This painting is wonderful on many levels.  The selection of colours is aesthetically pleasing by itself, so the eye is immediately enticed to look at this piece before it has even focused on what is there.  The people in the piece are fantastically interesting to examine as they come from a complete spectrum of medieval society.  Through the decoding of the gestures and facial expressions of the people one can piece together a narrative of what is happening off the frame.  We see a young nobleman preparing to attempt a rescue by diving into the water, so there is a plot and much activity in this scene as well as conflict: should he attempt to rescue the drowning child or is it better not to risk more lives?  The architecture of the buildings is complex and interesting as well.  Consider also that this is a painting and it took a lot of time and effort to create this scene purely from imagination.  Thus we have beauty, creativity and effort all combined into one.

I could spend hours, if not days, examining this picture and every time have a new interpretation of what is actually happening in this scene.   I can feel my wisdom increase as I think about the significance of every single detail in the picture.  This is good art.

The Burgers of Calais by Auguste Rodin (1889)

The Burgers of Calais by Auguste Rodin (1889)

This piece is a sculpture called “The Burgers of Calais” by Auguste Rodin.  It is about a historical event that occurred in 1347 during the Hundred years’ war.  It is a very moving work depicting six leaders who, for the love of their fellow townsmen, have voluntarily chosen to surrender themselves to certain execution in exchange for the sparing of the people whose well being they were responsible for.  The six men are accepting their fate each in a deeply moving and personal way as they trudge across the field to be executed by King Edward III.  However, the Queen was so moved by their selflessness that she convinced her husband to spare the lives of these brave men.

This is good art because it has a narrative, because it is beautiful, not for the depiction of suffering, but for the depiction of sacrifice and love, it is aesthetically pleasing to the eye, it is also inspirational and it took enormous skill and effort to produce.

Now that you have seen what good art actually is, I hope you will quickly recognise what bad art is:

Holy Virgin Mary by Chris Ofili (1996)

Holy Virgin Mary by Chris Ofili (1996)

This is a canvas of the Virgin Mary.  She is African and those are cut-outs of women’s anuses and vaginas from porn magazines glued onto it, she has a naked breast hanging out of her dress.   The colours are sickly yellow to me, but I know some people like yellow so maybe it is not a total aesthetic disaster for everyone.  But there is no real narrative or deep insight to be found in this picture.  To me it is an infantile scream for attention through the deliberate creation of a physical incarnation of offense directed at Christians, and all who lay eyes on it who do not hate their heritage.  I hate even putting it here because the artist is clearly emotionally five years old and is begging for someone to pay attention to them.  Good or bad attention is does not matter, this person just wants attention for themselves and their ego, I also suspect that they have an axe to grind against European civilisation, and infantile hatred is ugly.

Angel by Sean Scully (1990)

Angel by Sean Scully (1990)

This is not something I would ever put on one of my walls.  It is lacking in skill, aesthetics, subject matter and interest.  It is called ‘Angel’ but there is nothing in this picture vaguely symbolic about angels, yet if you are interested Google the artist and read his explanation of the title: it was along the lines of being that it reminded him of bookshelves that might contain books with stories of angels in them.  If you can take what he says seriously, you are lot less incredulous than I am.  If I did want to put this on one of my walls, I might pay $50 for it and that is saying something because of all the examples of bad art I will show you this is the only one I would ever consider buying at all.  Something tells me if I “accidentally” threw up on it I’d have to pay a lot more than $50, even though my vomit would probably be more interesting to look at, and depending on what I ate for lunch, more expensive to produce.  I have no precise idea for how much this piece would go for in an auction, but based on the price of other works by this artist we are talking a six figure sum of money.

Nude by Stuart Ringholt

Nude by Stuart Ringholt

Here we have an example of how lustful sex is again being used to offend and degrade human dignity.  This picture is hideously ugly.  The artist who created this sees nudity by itself as art, I have this image of him flicking through a porno with pictures of men’s faces stuck on women’s bodies and him thinking himself sophisticated for doing so.  However, nudity and porn are polar opposites aesthetically, something every artist should understand, the fact that he called this a “Nude” is a calculated offense against those who are aware of the distinction (depictions of naked people with in an expression of lust are pornography, if they have any other expression it is called art.  Pornography is often said to be degrading to women as it depicts them as pathetic needy creatures and validates this as an acceptable aspect of female identity, whereas a nude woman expressing pride is empowering to the embodiment of mature womanhood).  The orientation of the body is not one of elegance and grace that can be found in true nudes, but of craven sexual hedonism found in porn.

Another interpretation is the confusion of the transexual or bisexual living in conflict between their body and their spirit, but I am simply not convinced the artist has successfully pulled this off for a number of reasons, but chiefly because the ugliness is still degrading.  Therefore I would call this an immature piece or a specialist piece more fitting for a museum that specialises in such works, not something that should be considered healthy, normal or representative.  Not that I would want anyone to decide what was healthy, normal or mainstream for other people, but government funding denies people the choice of what art they believe if healthy, normal and appropriate for them.  People should decide with their wallets what art they enjoy, not with their taxes.

Sadly, the public who have been convinced that they are too simple to offer a valid opinion about art because they do not have an arts degree, are highly likely to believe that their opinion on this is not important because someone with more authority than them spent their money on it for them.  This work should perhaps be put in a museum of perverted and degenerate art to help educate the public as to how to recognise ugliness and offense because you would never find this in the vast majority of people’s homes, almost only in a public art gallery, because no human being wants to fill their house with perversion, except the perverted.

Arse End of the World by Juan Davila (1994)

Arse End of the World by Juan Davila (1994)

Burke and Wills are two heroic figures in Australian history and folklore.  This work can only be described as a calculated hateful attack on the dignity of the Australian people.  Imagine if someone painted a picture of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson fucking raccoons and sodomising each other?  That is how I feel when I look at this painting.  I know the author wanted to make me feel like this, but he also wanted me to feel ashamed and disgusted with being Australian.  In that regard, he has completely failed.  I am proud of my heritage and I well aware of the complexity of the interpretation of Burke and Wills as heroes or not.  To publicly shame and humiliate this artist might be too good for him.  Better to just ignore him into obscurity and poverty.  Unfortunately, public money is being used to support and promote artists like him so my freedom to ignore him has been taken away from me.  Imagine if artists only got paid based on how many “likes” they got for their art?  Imagine the improvement in the quality of art that would take place if this was the case?

Suicide Bomber in Chocolate by Stephen Shanabrook

Suicide Bomber in Chocolate by Stephen Shanabrook

This is a cast of a suicide bomber made out of chocolate.  The artist made a remark about how calm and at peace he seemed.  I have to wonder if the artist’s sympathy with a deranged mass murderer is an indication of his own hollowness as a human being?  Firstly, this is simply a cast any forensic pathologist might be able to do for you, no impressive artistic skills required.  Secondly, the implication of the peace and tranquillity a suicide bomber feels after committing mass murder is creepy and disturbing, especially if you have the empathy to wonder about his victims and their families.  I appreciate that understanding how mentally deranged suicide bombers truly are is important, so this piece might serve a valuable point of reflection or even education for teaching children about this, but that is not the primary job of art to do.  Again, I am going with attention seeking, not a genuine interest in stimulating people’s minds.  Especially since anyone with enough experience around corpses will tell you: all people look calm and tranquil when they are dead.  Including this man’s victims.  The decision to make it out of chocolate might seem interesting, but consider this: if you stuff up with marble, you have got to start again.  If you stuff up with chocolate, you can fix it up easily.  Again, we do not see evidence of real technical skill, creativity or beauty.

Now that you witnessed some of the works and artists your tax dollars are helping to prop up and promote, I hope you are ready to read this.  Across the Australian Commonwealth our governments are collectively spending just over $6,650 million annually on the arts and culture.  The European Union expends almost 150 billion Euros annually propping up the arts and culture.  I could not find any figures on the amount the USA expends on the arts and culture but I would imagine it is considerable as well.  These figures do not include money spent on education, purely for artistic and cultural programs, but consider how much money goes to universities as education funding only to produce more art and artists like these?

Let me be clear, the government is taking your money and giving it to people like these artists so they can humiliate, embarrass, demoralise and mock you.  Ever wonder why you find it so hard to pinpoint what your culture is as a white English speaking person as compared to other cultures?  It might because bad artists are getting paid to make you think your culture is disgusting, ugly and contemptible.  You might also have had so much of this ‘art’ shoved down your throat that you do not want to even feel a part of your own culture or heritage.  I suspect if you spent some quality time looking at good art, instead of the rubbish I just showed to you, you would feel a lot more comfortable calling yourself a person of European descent with a proud European heritage.

I know compared to other things the government wastes other people’s money on, the art and culture budget might not seem like it is a significant amount of money, but artworks generally are not that expensive to produce so the money can be redistributed by government to inflict enormous harm on the industry.  This harm can be seen in the examples of bad art I just showed you.  These works should not be on displayed in any galleries that can not survive from their own sources of income from charging visitor’s admission.  People given a choice when paying for something will not choose ugliness over beauty.  It is only natural and aesthetically healthy to desire beauty and to reject ugliness.  I do not mind private collectors displaying them in their private museums, but that is the thing.  Art is a private matter, not a public one, so the government should stay away from it entirely.  Especially from their funding of schools and universities.  The spread of ugliness and the decline of beauty is important when one considers how pleasurable and inspiring beauty is, and how ugliness leads to depression and anxiety.

Apart from the brainwashing and the indoctrination universities do to young people, they also carry out a program of supporting artists they considered worthwhile:  Basically anyone who is related to a politician or a university employee, and is pro-depression and anti-liberty.  This creates a protected market where we have producers (the artists) making products they know people will buy (with taxpayer money) regardless of whether they are good or not.

However, the majority of the public want to buy interesting, exciting, positive and uplifting artwork.  That is what they were going to spend their money buying, before it was taxed out of them.  However, the artist, if given the money and freedom to produce art he wants to produce, is going to produce depressing, self-loathing, meaningless and mediocre work because that is what happens if you spend too much time looking inward living the lifestyle of the entitled narcissist.  Looking inward tends to result in discovering how imperfect and wretched you are, because pride comes only from successful interaction with the real world, not the inner one.  Consequently our artists are all suffering from “body image issues” of the soul and it shows up in the depressing rubbish they make.  If they at least created a painting with high technical skill, even if it was meaningless, the personal accomplishment of their high technical skill would make them feel better about themselves.   So do not let the artist have this kind of ‘artistic freedom’.  He needs to struggle and work hard to earn a living like everyone else, not be coddled like a helpless child.  It is for his self-esteem that he must struggle because it is only by overcoming ordeals that we develop self-esteem.  Do not give the artist a blank check otherwise all you are going to get from him is his excrement smeared over a canvas.

Another point that bothers me is that taxation affects everyone but not everyone wants to spend their time appreciating art, so they are effectively collecting money from everyone and giving it to a small proportion of the population just so they can pursue their hobby.  Their hobby is giving their friends and relatives other people’s money to produce rubbish.  I do not pay taxes to support other people’s hobbies.

This article is just the beginning of a series I would like to write about how the arts have been perverted by the government into something toxic to human dignity and public welfare.  I will be making it a point to visit more art galleries and museums to collect more examples and evidence of this degeneration and hopefully spread more awareness of this problem.  If you read this article and agree that modern art is a horror that must be resisted then please share this article so that more people can learn about this and my sincere hope is that more people will actually go out and discover real art for themselves and, apart from buying good art from real artists, together we can pressure the government to stop wasting our money on people who do not deserve it.


Categories: Culture, Entertainment

Author:Jason Sutherland


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18 Comments on “The Cold Dead Heart of Modern Art”

  1. May 14, 2013 at 10:43 pm #

    Reblogged this on murderbymedia.

  2. Jimbo
    May 15, 2013 at 3:01 am #

    Could not agree more!

  3. May 15, 2013 at 12:31 pm #

    Government spending is consistently atrocious these days it seems.
    I was wondering though, about your opinions of abstract art, or art with less of a definite picture I suppose. I’ve tended to enjoy them more than other types, the ones you can get a real sense of emotion from. But I haven’t seen as much art as I might have liked, where it sounds like you have. So I’m curious

    • May 15, 2013 at 5:06 pm #

      The main problem I have with abstract art, is that all art is abstract. I was in a naval lounge a couple of weeks ago and there were hundreds of paintings of warships on the walls. A lot of them were simply faithful reproductions of actual ships and looked like painted photographs, whereas there was one that stood out from all the others as it was an unrealistic depiction of a warship, moving in the water in an impossible manner with colours that would almost never been seen in real life. However, the colours aroused strong emotions (for me fear and trepidation) and the stance of the ship was of powerful and deliberate motion. This wasn’t simply a painted photograph but a carefully constructed piece of artwork, it was quite poignant how it stood out from all of the other paintings because it was charged with emotion and a narrative one had to think about to decode.

      This unseen dimension is present in all forms of art, it is the context, the situation, the intentions, the medium, the emotions etc… it is all abstract as it requires the observer to interact with it and not merely passively adsorb it. So what is a lot of abstract art? I my humble opinion it is often a case of a lazy artist putting much of the burden on the observer to tell him what he made than the artist revealing to the observer what he created.

  4. May 15, 2013 at 4:41 pm #

    Take an Art History class, please. It is unfair of you to conjure a proposal if you have a very limited sense of how artistic practice operates. Not to mention that you only focus on painting as a modern form, when in fact contemporary art is continually shifting between performance, installation, and other practices.

    This is like someone who doesn’t understand basic architecture trying to erect a skyscraper… with a spoon.

    • May 15, 2013 at 4:56 pm #

      Hello Matthew,

      I’m a bit confused here, are you telling me I need to take an Art History Class before I am qualified decide for myself what I consider worthwhile art or utter rubbish? To continue on with your example: do I need to be an architect before I’m qualified enough to use a building?

      Please explain this to me, as I can’t wait to be enlightened by your immense knowledge and understanding of what I like. Also while you’re at it, I’ve never had a class on architecture, so could you explain to me how to use a house as shelter?

    • Jimbo
      May 15, 2013 at 6:36 pm #

      Oh Matthew, please tell us more about how to enjoy art from upon the top of your ivory tower. To continue along the theme… I guess I better get that masters in mechanical engineering before I enjoy riding my motorcycle again.

      I would argue that a lay person is more qualified to pass judgement on art. The average patrons are more likely to cut through the crap and call a spade a spade. Colours carelessly splashed on a canvas belongs on a bathroom wall, not in a gallery!

      Furthermore, Jason is correct in that the attention seeking nonsense of the like above should be ignored into obscurity and not funded by the government. Someones self indulgent hobby is not worthy of my tax dollars.

      Side note:
      For me a motorcycle that strikes a balance through beautiful engineering in both form and function is by far more worthy of the title of art than most paintings in my humble opinion. I would be no doubt laughed at for thinking along those lines by arrogant art critics and self congratulatory artists… Says more about them than me don’t you think.

  5. Anonymous
    May 16, 2013 at 12:14 am #

    • May 16, 2013 at 12:24 am #

      Ironically, as bad as a lot of that art was, and it was bad, it was still better than any of my examples!

      Thanks for sharing!

  6. anon
    May 17, 2013 at 2:16 pm #

    these quite a few confusing terms bantered around here – the modern period of art is over for one – it ended in the 70s/80s most of the works you are commenting on are classed as contemporary – as are any future ones government includes in funding proposals

    spend some time reviewing the article and you’ll have a stronger case.

    • May 17, 2013 at 2:33 pm #

      Thanks for the advice, in return I’ll offer you some advice:

      Don’t expect articles to perfect, instead see them as gardens of ideas you can choose to pick flowers from without having to take everything with you. This article isn’t perfect, maybe I’ve made some typos and many themes and ideas are barely explored as deeply as they could be in a book, but to complain about imperfection like this, is the same shallowness that judges a book by its cover.

  7. Anonymous
    May 17, 2013 at 2:26 pm #

    also the sculpting effort in the suicide bomber and the Rodin pieces is EXACTLY THE SAME – a process of making a clay base, a wax slip cast and then a solid form using chocolate or bronze does not discount the sculptors talent to represent human form in the primary. Why is human physcial and realistic representationthe only kind of art thats acceptable in your brief tantrum???

    • May 17, 2013 at 2:37 pm #

      Could I just clarify something?

      a) Rodin created a clay base from his own imagination.

      b) Shanabrook took a corpse from a Russian morgue and used it as his base.

      Now, tell me again, are these exactly the same process?

  8. Anonymous
    May 17, 2013 at 9:52 pm #

    Have you ever considered that time tends to filter out the crap? So if you look through older art, you just won’t find the bad stuff, so it seems better overall. Give it a bit of time, and maybe people will look back on contemporary art with a higher opinion than now because the rubbish has gone where it belongs.

    • May 18, 2013 at 7:04 pm #

      I am familiar with this idea when applied to music it is fascinating. I had considered this possibility but rejected it on the grounds that as bad as most music is, people still liked it enough at the time to buy it and even put posters all over their walls about it. Trillions of dollars are spent on pop music related items that overwhelmingly are rejected later on as rubbish. However, we don’t see large numbers of people buying into and enjoying modern art like they do pop music, instead we see people so disgusted and horrified that they avoid going to free museums in favour of paying money for boy band paraphenalia! As bad as most pop music is, at least ordinary people buy the trash. Ordinary people only buy modern art if it’s to show off their pretentiousness.

  9. Anonymous
    May 23, 2013 at 9:13 am #

    shanabrook didn’t use corpse from russian morgue. if you write the critic piece, please, make sure your facts are right. shanabrook found the image on the internet of palestinian suicide bomber and created the figure himself

  10. Anonymous
    May 23, 2013 at 9:23 am #

    oh.. and NUDE is by JENNY SAVILLE !!!

  11. May 26, 2013 at 6:18 pm #

    Another hilarious one- this passes as “art”… masked performers defecating in front of a live audience

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