Pure art; the absence of offending art

Similar to architecture, which according to Østerberg can be experienced as a relief or as a burden, (Østerberg 1998) also visual art can be experienced as a relief or a burden. The latter is undoubtedly the case with offending art, and a significant quality that appears when observing corporate art and art collections, is the seemingly “purified” selection of art expressions and the absence of

65 Aftenposten, 11.29.2010; Odd Inge Skjævesland (My translation)

66 Aftenposten, 11.29.2010; Odd Inge Skjævesland

67 Aftenposten, 01.16.2011; Eirin Hurum

68 Aftenposten, 01.16.2011 Page 7; Kaja Korsvold and Per Kristian Bjørkeng (My translation)

offending art. It is important to notice that offending art must not be mistaken as controversial art, although these categories overlap. While offending art is

“always controversial”, controversial art is not always offending. As told in an article by Ilana Stanger; the in-house curator of Pfizer, Ingrid Fox, explains how the company consciously avoids controversial artworks that may offend the company’s clients, as artworks containing political, religious, nude, or gun issues. In the same article, it is also expressed that Michael Klein, the former chief curator at Microsoft exposes a similar attitude, that the art must not be offending but with one clear distinction to the attitude of Pfizer, namely that the art may well be provocative. When people are passionate for or against an artwork, this shows that “the collection works”. According to Klein, the company wants to have discussions about the art, because “If it just sits on the wall and no one notices it then its wallpaper, not art”. (Stanger 2007) Although a small amount of corporate art may be experienced as rather controversial, corporations avoid displaying art that is regarded as offending, due to the content or the motif of the art. In the following I discuss different types of offending art, forces in the society that put restraints on art or make art instrumental, and the consequences and dilemmas that may appear by displaying controversial art that most people also consider to be offending.

2.1.5.1 Offending art

The reason for why most corporations avoid displaying offending art is obviously because it is “not good for business”. But they also avoid offending art because it raises ethical problems opposite to their corporate values. It may become a burden for people within the business as well as to visitors, clients and customers. But what is offending art? The view on what is considered to be offending art varies, but usually it represent art with motifs with an improper 1) sexual, 2) religious, 3) political and 4) violent character.

In respect of improper sexual motifs, what is improper or not varies from time to time, and from culture to culture. Many of us are familiar with the fig leaf covering the genitalia of nude sculptures in the Vatican Museum. In the Christian culture the genital part of the body in old paintings and sculptures are often conveniently covered with a piece of cloth, or accidentally hidden behind a hand or other objects. When the French painter Éduard Manet painted his “Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe”, or “Lunch on the Grass” in 1862-63, it led to severe commotion, because to show a naked lady in public together with two dressed gentlemen was a scandal. Not because of the nudity as such, but because of the modern context where the nude was made a symbol of dubious business. Also Manets “Olympia” from 1864, a paraphrase of “Venus of Urbino” from 1538 by

the Italian painter Titian, created an erotic shock, as the model was presumed to be a prostitute. (Harris 1979) Today hardly anyone in the Western world reacts to images of naked people, as we are bombarded with images of more or less naked people every day through television, magazines and the Internet. Although not all images of naked people are of a sexual character, corporations still have to be conscious about displaying art with motifs that can be interpreted as sexual, because they have visitors, clients or employees from other cultures where nudity is not as common and accepted as in the modern Western culture. An example of this is described recently in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten. In a short contribution to the newspaper the visual artist Päivi Laakso, of whom three artworks are purchased by the Norwegian oil corporation Statoil, claim that the corporation has not included any of her artworks in their new book “Pieces of energy”, (Jenssen and Våga 2008) which is presenting the corporations art collection, because her art contain images of naked people. When she confronted the corporation, the answer was that they had been advised by a professor of anthropology not to include artworks depicting naked people in the book, to avoid insulting business partners from other cultures.⁶⁹

Different religions have different bids and bans that put restrictions on what kind of art and art motifs can be displayed without being regarded as blasphemous. An example of art that is considered to be blasphemous is the American artist Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ” from 1987, a photo of a plastic crucifix placed in a glass with the artist’s urine,⁷⁰ which most people experienced as blasphemous and offensive. The art work represents a genre called Shock art, where the purpose is pronounced; to shock. Nevertheless, the art work was sold in London in 1999 for

$162 000,⁷¹ so obviously, not everyone was shocked by this piece of art, or conversely they enjoy being shocked. Because of its offending character, many are critical of Shock art as “genre” which ironically is characterized on a website:

To make British Shock art, you need to be a filthy rich, ad executive or maybe a worn-out rock star with deep pockets. Start by buying up all sorts of outrageous art: A carefully sliced cow or finger painted portraits of child molesters...it really doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you tell the “journalists” down on Fleet Street about it. They tell everyone how ugly, obscene, disgusting and icky it is. A big fuss ensues. Fleet Street sells copy and you’ve made shock art.⁷²

69 Aftenposten, 11.09.2010; Päivi Laakso

70 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andres_Serrano (11.29.2010)

71 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andres_Serrano (11.29.2010)

72 http://www.possessionsessions.com/2008/11/user-friendly-guide-to-shock-art.html (11.29.2010)

The “sliced cow” in the quotation above refers to the English artist Damien Hirst’s “Mother and child divided”, where a cow and a calf is cut in to pieces and kept in formalin, while the “finger painted portrait” refers to the English artist Marcus Harvey’s “Myra”, a portrait of the female child molester Myra Hindley,⁷³ based on handprints made by children. Addressed as US Shock art, the genre is further described as:

What is that you say? You are not a rich, wrinkled rock star and you don’t have buckets of cash? No problem. Just follow this simple formula for American Shock art:

Always remember, it is a better shock if you make it with government money.⁷⁴

The American artist and photographer Robert Mappelthorpe has been considered by many as controversial, among others because of his photographs of the New York S&M scene in the late nineteen seventies, containing a lot of shocking motifs. As expressed by the artist in ART news in 1988;

I don’t like that particular word “shocking”. I’m looking for the unexpected. I’m looking for things I’ve never seen before… I was in a position to take those pictures. I felt an obligation to do them. ⁷⁵

Mappelthorpe also took a lot of photographs of celebrities and film stars, among others for “Interview Magazine”; such as Andy Warhol, Donald Southerland and Isabella Rossellini, and created album covers for the American musician Patti Smith, who he moved in with at the famous Chelsea Hotel in 1970.

Mappelthorpe died of AIDS in 1989.⁷⁶ Among other artists that are considered by many as controversial, is the English artist duo Gilbert and George; who often push the limits towards “shock art” in their works. The duo started working and living together in the end of the nineteen sixties. Most of their large scaled art expressions from the last decades represent bright playful and colorful works based on photographs that give their art expressions a bright and graphic

73 http://www.artdesigncafe.com/Marcus-Harvey-Myra-Hindley-John-A-Walker (05.10.2011)

74 http://www.possessionsessions.com/2008/11/user-friendly-guide-to-shock-art.html (11.29.2010)

75 http://www.mappelthorpe.org./biography/ (03.15.2011)

76 http://www.mappelthorpe.org./biography/ (03.15.2011)

medias (feces + religious icon)

right-wing politician = shock art

character. However, as it appears, several of their colorful art works actually contain enlarged photographs of bodily fluids such as feces, urine and semen, as in their series called “Naked Shit Pictures” from 1994, which many people find shocking, although the artworks are in their essence also humoristic. The duo has also been criticized for depicting sexual acts, and in 2005 they were criticized for their series “Sonofagod Pictures”, with several works containing “Crucified-Christ-like images”.⁷⁷ Apparently many people find these images blasphemous and offending. But in spite of the “shocking content” of these artworks, the shock effect is largely modified through the bright colors and the duos humoristic approach to these, in its essence, “shocking” themes.

Religious demands may put restraints on art that is breaking marital and sexual norms of the current religion, depicting situations that are considered to be a sin against God. For instance many religions consider homosexual practice as a sin, and in some cultures it is forbidden, while in other cultures it is legalized for marriage. In Norway homosexuals have gained the right to marry, but not yet as a Christian marriage in the church, although the Norwegian Church is a state institution, but at the same time with a high level of independence of the state. In Norway homosexuality was forbidden by law until 1972 and the hesitation of the church to be open to homosexual marriage, is that it considers homosexual practice to break with Christian rules and values. In many cultures politics and religion are closely intertwined, to the extent that the law rests upon the imperatives of the religion, such as in many Islamic states, where the religious Sharia rules are practiced as the legal rules. Many may remember the reactions of many Muslims in respect of the so called Mohammed-caricatures that were published in Denmark a few years ago, because the drawings were considered to be blasphemous. In many states the political system decides what is regarded as proper art expressions and not, and may forbid undesirable images, for instance art depicting historical or holy persons, or expressions that do not fit in with the political ideology of the state. It is for instance well known in Western countries that unwanted persons in the former Soviet regime were erased from public photographs, while German abstract painters before World War II, such as the Expressionist Emil Nolde were declared unwanted by the Nazis as their art was regarded as degenerated and forbidden.

Opposite, in some countries, particularly within totalitarian regimes, both in our time and historically, artists are commissioned to create favourable images of the leader, and propaganda images to state the content of a political system or an ideology. The latter, artists that have depicted scenes from working life has also

77 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_and_George (12.21.2010)

been practiced in democratic countries, based on a tradition of showing ordinary people and men at work. In the Western culture this tradition started with Realism in art, represented by the French painter Gustave Courbet’s

“Stonebreakers” from 1848. Actually it was the poet Charles Baudelaire, who was a friend of Courbet who also encouraged him and his fellow painters to depict the “heroes of everyday life” in the 1800s. (Janson and Janson 1978) Although this tradition was initiated by social engaged artists, political

movements in the nineteen hundreds have also used artists to depict scenes from the development of the society, particularly within industry and agriculture. In Norway we have many examples of how artists have been depicting the

industrial development and Norwegian working life, such as the fresco murals of the Norwegian artist Alf Rolfsen in Oslo City Hall from the nineteen forties.⁷⁸ The murals in the Coit Tower in San Francisco from 1933, is another interesting example of artists depicting peoples everyday and working life. The murals made by 26 young artists decorate the walls of the ground floor. In keeping with this style these murals have clear references to the murals of the Mexican artist Diego Rivera, who also usually depicted the life of ordinary people in his works.

Actually the artists in Coit Tower wanted to pay a tribute to Rivera,⁷⁹ who a short time before had created a commissioned mural in the lobby of the Rockefeller Centre in New York, named the “Man at the Crossroads”, but which ended with the demolition of the work because he refused to remove a small portrait of the Russian revolutionary leaders Vladimir I. Lenin and Leon Trotsky on the request of the American politician and director of the centre, Nelson Rockefeller. The large wall painting that replaced Rivera’s mural at the Rockefeller Centre was created by the Spanish Catalan artist Joseph Maria Sert and named “American progress”, a work that also represents an interesting story of men constructing the modern America.⁸⁰ Additionally Sert and the British artist Frank Brangwyn made a series of large sepia coloured murals to decorate the lobby and ground floor elevator shafts between 1930-34,⁸¹ named “Mans Intellectual Mastery over the Material Universe”, and “Mans Conquest of the material World”.⁸²

In regard to the political demands of art expressions, the Norwegian art historian Rolf Braadland claims that the development of post World War II Abstract Expressionism in the USA was made possible because it was supported by political forces, including the CIA. He claims that the freedom and individualism that characterized the abstract art was a metaphor for the abstract as an

78 http://www.snl.no/.nbl_biografi/Alf_Rolfsen/utdypning (11.01.2010) Store Norske Leksikon; Redaksjonen

79 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coit_Tower (11.01.2010)

80 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Center (11.29.2010)

81 http://www.frankbrangwyn.org/murals.html (11.29.2010)

82 http://www.nyc-architecture.com/MID/MID055.htm (11.29.2010)

expression of globalisation and a new global language. Opposite, realism in art was regarded as the expression of totalitarian regimes, with reference to Nazism and Communism; represented by the Nazis preference of Romantic art and classical figuration, and Social Realism in the Soviet Union. Because of this, socially engaged art was made suspicious by the modernists; and figurative art became politically suspect, while abstract art was regarded as a symbol of the struggle of freedom against tyranny. (Braadland 2008)

Photographs removed

MIH Photo: 15 (left) Murals in Coit Tower, San Francisco, June 2009 MIH Photo: 16 (right) Murals in Coit Tower, San Francisco, June 2009

Photographs removed

MIH Photo: 17 (left) Sepia-mural in Rockefeller Centre, New York, June 2009 MIH Photo: 18 (right) Sepia-mural in Rockefeller Centre, New York, June 2009

Opposite to the Soviet Union the public debate was not strangled in the United States. Instead, as described by Braadland, the sharpest social critics were restrained and neutralized by looking through and neglecting political and revolutionary standpoints. Because of this, Braadland claims, the CIA practised a repressive tolerance, by silently accepting social critics, anti capitalistic and anti American attitudes among the artists. (Braadland 2008) According to Braadland, social realist art became the art doxa in the Stalinist regime, where the historical

experimental and revolutionary Avant Garde; as the German author Berthold Brecht mentioned as “the operative aesthetics”, was condemned. As described by Braadland, this was probably the reason why abstract art in the USA could also function as a tool in the war of propaganda during the cold war. (Braadland 2008)

Also the American sociologist Vera Zolberg describes how the new international standing of the US in the Post World War II period, is claimed to have created

“...a climate supportive of the fine arts to achieve regime goals”. (Zolberg 1990)⁸³ Zolberg is referring to a view particularly proposed by the French art historian Serge Guilbaut, on how “the cold war competition” between the USA and the Soviet Union contributed to make the US turn itself into an artistic leader, using the Abstract Expressionism as a propaganda tool to promote the US as a country where artists were free to follow their imagination, the opposite to artists in totalitarian regimes. (Zolberg 1990) The differences between the US and Soviet art is also strikingly described by the French philosopher Jean-Francoise Lyotard; “when the power is named party”, Realistic art and Neo classicism concurs the experimental Avant Garde, which becomes disgraced and forbidden. (Lyotard 1986)⁸⁴

Art and artists can be used and misused by political regimes and others. As mentioned above, the Nazis admired Romantic art, and in particular the German Nazi regime adored the works of the nineteen century Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840),⁸⁵ regarding him as a model for life and art in the Third Reich, claiming that he was expressing the “real German spirit”, and the true essence of the nature of Germans. (Hinz 1980) It is also well known that the former Soviet regime used art in political propaganda and publications. Still an interesting aspect of the early Soviet publications is the political posters called the Rosta-windows, emerging during the civil war in 1918-21, representing not only political propaganda, but also common advices and information on peoples practical life including food, education, health and hygiene, for instance about how bacteria grows, along with direct advices like “wash your hands before you eat”. (Brunse 1980) Similarly, as told by my informant at the Norwegian chocolate factory Freia, one of the objectives of the founder Johan Throne Holst to commission artworks by the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch to decorate the female workers dining room was, besides of giving the workers good art

experiences, to encourage good eating manners. I presume that also included the washing of hands before eating. In any event today in our times openness and

83 Page 184

84 Page 85 (My translation)

85 http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspar_David_Friedrich (05.10.2011)

global interaction within business and trade, corporations have to be strictly aware of not showing art that is provocative to different religions or with an improper religious or political content. This explicitly applies to contemporary art, since historical paintings that glorify political leaders and war heroes such as the French emperor Napoleon in the early 1800s are modified in its political message through the ages, and by being subordinated to aesthetical rules.

The forth kind of art that is considered to be offending is art with a violent content. As most of us know, violence, for instance in war zones, may often be a mixture of killings, accidental violence, torture and sexualized violence,

particularly represented by rape and sexual abuse of women and children carried out by males, in some war zones this is almost ritually taking place. Due to the

particularly represented by rape and sexual abuse of women and children carried out by males, in some war zones this is almost ritually taking place. Due to the

In document Cultural similarities and diversities of corporate art and architecture in Norway, USA, Japan and France (sider 77-101)