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Example research essay topic: Piss Christ Paradoxes Of Aesthetics - 1,371 words

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... s that we rightfully hold dear... (51) On the other hand, they cannot deny that the symbolic effect of blasphemy is in fact entirely mediated by the cultural and contextual reception of the offending image, which end up constructing the image in the minds of its readers as either 'work of art', 'act of blasphemy', 'tedious self-indulgence' or any number of interpretations, all finally equally valid in an era of liberal capitalism: This notion of "the image itself" is a major misunderstanding of the nature of art: the subject depicted, the means of its creation, the title it is given, the history of its reception, and the circumstances in which it is displayed, are all dimensions of the work and its effect on the viewer (51). It is interesting that the historical truth of the means of the creation of Piss Christ has not been questioned by anyone (to my knowledge). As I wrote above, the shock comes when learning that the 'radiant glow' in the photograph is due to the fact that the crucifix has been immersed in urine. But this fact is rarely challenged.

For all anyone knows, the crucifix could have been immersed in lemon cordial and, like approaching the image out of its received context, its blasphemous impact would cease to be effective. This, however, is not an appeal on my behalf to discover the real historical truth about the creation of Piss Christ, but is rather to argue that the construction of the work is a result of an 'heterotopia' approach, a Foucaultian concept particular to modernist art, but already developing from the fifteenth century onwards, aptly summarized by Horrocks and Jevtic (1997): the traditional bonds between language and image are disturbed, made different and in tension In paintings or illustrations, text (words) and images (resemblances) often appear together, but one is always subordinate to the other. For example, an illustration can serve a text, or a letter in a trompe l'oeil painting might serve the image. There is a hierarchy of resembling the world through images and using non-resemblance (representation) through words (they don't look like the world) Resemblance was always an affirmation of an object. When an image is painted, a statement is assumed. "What you see is that" [In the heterotopia approach] only similitude's remain - a series of visual and linguistic signs without external reference (79 - 81). With Piss Christ, in terms of its public reception, it is the representative element - the title and the description of its creation which subordinate the image.

The effect of blasphemy cannot be ascertained by an appeal to the resembling aspects of the image alone - it is crucial that the title and the history of the image be known for blasphemy to occur. The whole effect of Piss Christ is because, powerfully, what you see is not what you expect to get - the external reference of sacredness is entirely undermined by the representative elements of the image, where the effect of blasphemy is felt. However this dislodging of the hierarchy which serves to concretely link resemblance and representation also then refuses any particular interpretation as more valid than any other. A bar comes between image and word. This is the reason why the Piss Christ causes such offence. It is essential for orthodox Christianity, that only one interpretation of the meaning of the figure of Christ surround any depiction of Jesus Christ.

This is because for orthodox Christianity there is only one historically valid interpretation of history - the interpretation that history becomes transcendentally meaningful by the direct intervention of the person of Jesus Christ within history, as revealed in the Bible. It is the loss of control over this singular interpretation. However, due to the historical effects of late capitalism and modernism such as mass reproduction, the loss of uniqueness, and the proliferation of diversity, a single interpretation cannot be guaranteed leading to the need to constantly 'shore up' and insist on the Truth - even where it leads obviously into contradiction, which is one of the reasons for the success of religious fundamentalism. This trend or motif is eloquently expressed by Derrida (1978) when he writes, To write is not only to know that the Book [eg the Bible] does not exist and that forever there are books, against which the meaning of the world not conceived by an absolute subject is shattered, before it has even become a unique meaning; nor is it only to know that the non-written and the non-read cannot be relegated to the status of having no basis by the obliging negativity of some dialectic, making us deplore the absence of the Book from under the burden of "too many texts!" It is not only to have lost the theological certainty of seeing every page bind itself into the unique text of the truth, the "book of reason" as the journal in which accounts (ratings) and experiences consigned for Memory was formerly called, the genealogical anthology, the Book of Reason this time, the infinite manuscript read by a God who, in a more or less deferred way, is said to have give us use of his pen. This lost certainty, this absence of divine writing does not solely and vaguely define something like "modernity." As the absence and haunting of the divine sign, it regulates all modern criticism and aesthetics (10). This highlights the fact that wherever resemblance and representation have become disjointed, representation comes to stand in crisis, and not only for the theologian.

What is lost as certainty and what haunts as absence - the possibility of an absolute truth-value and aesthetic judgement by its invocation, expresses itself as an irresolvable antinomy in modern criticism. As Feher and Heller (1986) write: On the one hand, depository [of art as 'species-value'] is, per definition, a value preserver, on the other hand, a substitute for life The work of art, however, conserves (or at least it may conserve) the atomization of life just as well. The work itself is nothing but a 'beautiful appearance' which, with the passing of the effects, may just as well reintroduce us into life, feeding into the recipient the false feeling of having fulfilled his duty in the intermezzi of reception as, according to the general postulate, it may guide him out of it, in the direction of a real transformation (4). The paradox is that the appearance of totality can only be challenged and rebelled against in the shadow of the claim of totality - without the possibility of this claim, or the historical haunting of this totality itself, the problem between representation and resemblance would collapse.

Specifically, for Piss Christ, the blasphemous effects of the artwork would disappear if it did not in some way reproduce the claim to the sacredness of the Christ-figure. For Feher and Heller this means that, "Aesthetics is, consequently, irreformable, in the sense that its autonomic character is untranscendable" (22). Nonetheless the very artwork itself demands or desires that there should be a real correspondence with its value as art and aesthetic judgement about it. No artist, no matter how much they claim to be, can really be free of the critic's impact. LIST OF REFERENCES Cody, L. and Tomkins C. (1998) 'Piss Take Piss Christ'.

On-line: web > Derrida, J. (1978) Writing and Difference London: Routledge. Feher F. and Heller, A. (1986) 'The Necessity and the Irreformability of Aesthetics' in A. Heller and F. Feher (eds. ) Reconstructing Aesthetics: Writings of the Budapest School Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Fish Communication Network (1998) 'A take on Piss Christ'. On-line:
web jan 98 /life / l piss christ. htm Fisher, A. and Ramsey, H. (1997) 'The bishop, the artist, the curator and the crucifix', Quadrant v 41 n 12 pp. 48 - 54.

Horrocks C. and Jevtic Z. (1997) Foucault for Beginners Cambridge: Icon Books. Jameson, F. (1991) Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism Durham: Duke University Press. Schildgen, B. (date not given) 'The Church, the Pope, Piss Christ, and the Culture of Death'. On-line: web >


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jesus christ, interpretation, resemblance, modern criticism, historical truth

Research essay sample on Piss Christ Paradoxes Of Aesthetics

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