Art Lies, Volume 52, Fall 2006 Page: 15
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The Characters Depicted in this Text...
Haced la muerte, no el amor,
Destripaos los unos a los otros,
Eso evitara que os acaricieis
-Michel Tournier 1
Sin, sin, sin, look where we've been and
Where we are today...
-Robbie Williams 2
Barbara PereaI've always thought it quite telling that one of the first written accounts
in Western culture dedicated to artists-Giorgio Vasari's The Lives of
the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects published in
the sixteenth century-is based largely on the concept of the artist
as "genius." The mythical aspect of creative genius, at that time mod-
eled after the hagiographic work The Golden Legend by Santiago de la
Voragine, paved the way for the modern substitution of religious saints
with secular icons.
However, the contemporary construction of political figures in the
mass media uses strategies not so distant from those employed by
the propaganda machinery of the Catholic Church, instated to pro-
mote new devotional figures or head campaigns aimed at preparing
a case for sainthood. Carefully composed images promoting specific
values, accompanied by sermons to reinforce particular messages, are
fundamentally the same ideological tools used throughout history to
coerce and convince the public of the valence of new paradigms of
behavior or thought, artfully synthesized in a given corporeal character.
Ideological images, whether intentionally used as coercitive tools or
not, have proven so powerful as to occasionally provoke riots (i.e., the
caricature depicting Mohammed recently published in a Danish news-
paper), revolutions and wars, or direct the masses to congregate in
shrines-religious or secular-be they concert halls or sacred ground.
But what is blatantly obvious in the use of icons is the lack of dis-
tance, as perceived by the audience or flock, between the subject and
its representation. Historically speaking, this phenomenon is known
as idolatry or fetishism; that is, the adoration of a representation rather
than the concept for which that bodily amalgam stands: a represen-
tation that substitutes or obliterates-to varying degrees-what itdepicts. Thus, burning a multicolored piece of fabric can be construed as
an act of war, provocation or protest and is rarely seen for what essentially it
is: burning a rag. A drawing can be perceived as defiling the religious tradi-
tions of a given culture in very much the same way. In politics as in art, the
object is not valued in terms of the materials that constitute it but, rather,
by the added symbolic value measured by the consensus of a community.
This is nothing we didn't already know. But burning a Rembrandt, on
the other hand, is hardly destroying a piece of cloth. It constitutes destroy-
ing a representation-an icon-a symbol regarded in terms of how it came
to be just as much as its "author." The notion of authorship, so central to
Western art, has much to do with creating myths, which is probably why
so many artists deem it necessary to resort to eccentric antics to construct
public personas, akin to the strategies used by any self-respecting cult
leader. Again, I must stress the importance of separating the artifice of rep-
resentation from factual and objective reality. And, of course, it helps if one
has a sense of humor.
II
A cult with benefits: Dr. Korda, I exhume? Or how I learned to stop
gagging and love tofu... maybe.
The Church of Euthanasia, a self-proclaimed Dadaist organization
established by the Reverend Chris Korda, drives carefully constructed com-
mentary on contemporary society and mass culture through the use of his-
torically established icons in ways that tend to infuriate and provoke many
while amusing others. The group's stiletto humor-a unique, cutthroat
approach to sensitive and controversial issues-can often be too hard to
stomach, both for the easily and not so easily offended.ARTL!ES Fall 2006 15
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Bryant, John & Gupta, Anjali. Art Lies, Volume 52, Fall 2006, periodical, 2006; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth228017/m1/17/: accessed March 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .