Representing Animals in Contemporary Art (original) (raw)
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Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 2018
In recent years, an increasing number of contemporary artists have incorporated live animals into their work. Although this development has attracted a great deal of attention in the artworld and among animal rights activists, it has not been much discussed in the philosophy of art—which is quite remarkable, given the serious ethical and artistic questions that these artworks prompt. I focus on answering two such questions. First, is the use of animals in these artworks ethically objectionable? Or are such artworks instead morally permissible or even laudable? Second, what might be the distinctive value or good of incorporating animals into artworks in this way? In response to both questions, I argue that one distinctive value of some of the artworks I discuss is their ability to facilitate a relationship of moral concern and respect on the part of an audience towards the animals that are a part of the artwork. Insofar as artworks facilitate such relationships, they are not simply artistically important; they are also, to that extent, morally good.
The Animal Is Present: The Ethics of Animal Use in Contemporary Art
The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 2018
In recent years, an increasing number of contemporary artists have incorporated live animals into their work. Although this development has attracted a great deal of attention in the artworld and among animal rights activists, it has not been much discussed in the philosophy of art-which is quite remarkable, given the serious ethical and artistic questions that these artworks prompt. I focus on answering two such questions. First, is the use of animals in these artworks ethically objectionable? Or are such artworks instead morally permissible or even laudable? Second, what might be the distinctive value or good of incorporating animals into artworks in this way? In response to both questions, I argue that one distinctive value of some of the artworks I discuss is their ability to facilitate a relationship of moral concern and respect on the part of an audience toward the animals that are a part of the artwork. Insofar as artworks facilitate such relationships, they are not simply artistically important; they are also, to that extent, morally good.
Ethical dimension of live animals as ready-made objects in
2024
Reaction through art, observed among the 20th century artistic movements, can result in artistic works in which animals are made the object of violence. The objections caused by these works sometimes make people question what art is and its value, and sometimes result in legal interventions. It is the forms of expression in contemporary art where idea gets ahead of physical production. In such an atmosphere, 'philosophy of art activities that question what art is' have become almost equivalent to artistic production. However, the controversial works make the concepts of ethics, law or public influence determine what art can or cannot be. In the background of all these developments, advances in the field of biology blurred the boundaries between animals and humans. After such developments, through which the anthropocentric thought system has lost its power, the position of animals in the system will also change. The reappraisal of animals will fundamentally affect the behavior of the human species towards them, undoubtedly. In such a system where the determinants of the concept of ethics are redefined, objectification of animals will not be ethical as before. In this regard, art can no longer be separated from other fields. When the determinant of the boundaries of art is a non-art field, the discussions within the field lose their meaning. This study aims to investigate the limits of contemporary art by examining the reactions to the selected examples of artists whose ways of including animals in their productions are criticized.
2010
This essay will ethnographically explore some social, material and visual dimensions of contemporary art praxis, focusing on its conjuncture with ‘the animal question’ and other animals’ bodies1. It will demonstrate that an anthropological approach to art, as defined by Gell (1998; 1999), is invaluable in beginning to trace some of the multilayered ethnographic pathways that constitute the ‘art-objects’ and/or ‘art-events’ that are at the centre of today’s complex ‘art-world’ scenes. In exploring these issues it will address such questions as: what is the place of nonhuman animals in contemporary art? Does the presence of the animal body in contemporary art imply the address of ‘the animal question’? Is it socially acceptable to inflict pain or cause the death of other animals ‘for the sake of art’? Throughout this paper it will be demonstrated and argued that using Gell’s idea of the art “nexus” (1998: 12 et al.) for ethnographic research is invaluable to engage critically with the at times obscure, murky and dazzling worlds of the ‘postmodern’ art scenes. It will also, towards the end of the text, and perhaps as a playful alternative to Vogel’s net and Gell’s traps as artworks, present the work of Angela Singer as what art might look like if it were produced by (some) anthropologists.
Body in the gallery: posthumanist ethics and the nonhuman animal body in contemporary art
2021
This research examines how the manifestation of the nonhuman animal in contemporary visual art is often entrenched in prevailing human systems and practices of violence against nonhuman species. Furthermore, the divide based on species is symptomatic of socially constructed binary divisions such as the 'natural' and 'cultural', the 'rational' and 'emotional', in addition to privilege based on gender, race and species. This thesis proceeds from a foundational hypothesis that the killing or abuse of nonhuman animals as a methodology in art practice (even where this is intended as a means to critique killing or abuse) is ethically problematic. It suggests that posthumanist philosophy challenges anthropocentrism and that a radical reassessment of the use of nonhuman animals as an artistic resource, is necessary. Bringing together posthumanist thinking that challenges anthropocentrism (Cary Wolfe, John Gray) and the historical dialectic between feminism an...
The Frontiers of Ethical Transgressions in Contemporary Art
Art and morality share a complex, almost paradoxical, intersection of interests; often an offence levied against one is offered the possibility of acceptance in the another. But art is not created in an environment of isolation; they are to a certain extent bound by the rules of society, the socio-cultural space of whose landscape it utilises for its creation, reception and preservation. And the moral codes of the society are often guilty of cultural relativism and religious or historical dogmatism. Hence, neither the fair practice of Art without any moral obligations nor social ethics without consideration for artistic freedom can be accepted when theorising a rationally founded cultural utopia. The present paper engages with the particular issue of animal treatment in contemporary artistic practices to rear further insights on the legitimacy of using moral standards as an evaluatory framework to judge art objects and the aesthetic value of 'immoral' art.