Art on the Offense

When is art too much?

Can art be too offensive?

What is Pop Art? 

These questions usually lead to one of the oldest questions in the Art Book; What is art?

This question is Pandora's Box of some philosphers. I don't think you can have one answer for that question because art is many things to many people. 

The painting above was intended to inspire some reverse sentiment towards Klu Klux Klan and similar groups, but many people find it offensive to even paint a Klan member. Strangley enough, Tanner Veatch, Columbia College Chicago student, the current owner of the piece claims after he bought it he was targeted as a racist on the C.T.A while trying to get the art home. He claimed it was an anti-klan creation, but the riders were agressive and inquired to the racial orientation of the artist.

The message of this piece is to begin offending the Klu Klux Klan and other White Supremist Groups.

The Black Panthers are compared to the Klan often for no apparent reason, but I have never seen Klan members hunted in cold blood on their own ground on false pretenses. I have never known of any Klu-Klux-Klan members to initiate a non for profit program in order to give out free lunches to needy children. Nor have I never seen Black Panthers setting crosses ablaze or killing innocent white children or hanging innocent white men for fun.

The painting is fictional. I have never seen a Klan member get a hole blown through their back, and I doubt you have either. For some odd reason, the idea is what offends people. Either they do not want to think about it, or they are scared to think of it.

I would love to think I would paint the same no matter what race I was. I would love to think I would listen to the same music and dress in the same clothes as well. Considering my geneology as fodder for the basis of my aesthetics is almost as constricting as trying to gage how offensive a piece of art is. 

If an artist is not offended, should the viewer be?

 Try to put yourself in an artist's shoes. If you are not allowed to push the envelope, than how can society as a whole break boundaries? I've noticed some parts of society are afraid to grow or change. Fear seems to dictate the lives and juristictions of most people. When an artist is thinking outside of the box, they usually are fearless. Many artist's are really looking for a truth in themselves or trying to expose a truth in others. For many of the people who claim that they are the victims of being exposed to offensive art, they should try to understand what kind of pain the artist has been through themselves. One constant of art is that it communicates. One constant message in life is: the truth hurts.