‘jOker’: ‘Art is What You Can Get Away With’

In 1987, Andres Serrano submerged a small plastic crucifix in a glass jar of his own urine and called it Piss Christ. Not to be outdone, Chris Ofili daubed elephant dung on a painting of the Virgin Mary.

While some narrow-minded philistines complained, the artistic establishment heaped praise (and money) on these and works like them. The National Endowment for the Arts was so impressed with Serrano’s work they granted him $15,000 courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. For his effort, Ofili was awarded the Turner Prize, Britain’s most prestigious art award.

Other recent Turner Prize honorees include Damien Hirst, whose works feature livestock suspended in formaldehyde, and Tracy Elmin, whose nominated work was an unmade bed. The Turner Prize is named in honor of J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851), renowned as the original “painter of light” (pace Thomas Kinkade). (One of the Stuckists, a group of anti-conceptual figurative painters who demonstrate annually against the Prize, puckishly said, “The only artist who wouldn’t be in danger of winning the Turner Prize is Turner.”)

Art and Popular Culture defines “transgressive art” as: “art forms that aim to transgress; i.e., to outrage or violate basic mores and sensibilities.” (more…)