Art and Anger

Plastic sent me this link to a New York Times article about a group of Swedish nationalists who vandalized the Kulturen gallery in Sweden on Friday. The group destroyed the work of photographer Andreas Serrano, a shock artist who is perhaps most remembered for his work, "Piss Christ," and the controversy that arose around it in 1989 due the fact that it was funded by a grant from The National Endowment for the Arts.

This most recent exhibit by Serrano, called "A History of Sex," is racy, but it is scary that it could provoke this kind of violence with such unrestrained bravado and conviction. Oh yeah, did I mentioned that the vandals video taped the act and posted it on YouTube? It is quite disturbing. I was particularly unsettled by the fact that the cameraman focuses on the destruction of a photo of an interracial gay couple for the majority of the video, despite the other "objectionable" photographs in the show, including a depiction of a woman fondling a stallion. That just smacks of hate to me.

Here is a link to the video, which has been removed from YouTube "due to terms of use violation," but can still be found on google video.