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A powerful piece of art can change the perception, views and beliefs of the viewer, hence artists’ constant attempts to transgress, to push beyond what has gone before. But in the modern world how successful are these attempts at transgression, when our younger generations are raised by flat screen technologies and are witness to explicit content, both violent and sexual, in a routine fashion?
Day after day we become more and more desensitised by things we see as a part of our daily routine. Violence on the news, offensive and graphic cartoons and videogames, gruesome advertising attempts to scare the viewer into action, horrific violence and gore in movies and television programs are all responsible for an ongoing desensitisation.
With a desensitised audience, how can an artist successfully use transgression as a powerful and necessary tool to communicate their intended meanings and messages? How can an artist break the boundaries of social normalities to realise a powerful artwork when the boundaries are already blurred?
We have reached a point where it seems the only way to shock an audience is morally. For example, Bill Henson has been through hell and high water in a recent case of his artwork, a photograph of a naked minor, being considered child pornography. In artwork of a grotesque nature where vile, bloody scenes are depicted, such as Kittiwat Unarrom’s and David Young V’s works, it is alarming in itself to realise what society really considers inappropriate. Or similarly in the case of gore as entertainment in, say, the currently popular super-genre of zombie fiction, be it movies or interactive gaming.
In comparison to Kittiwat Unarrom’s bakery art, where the artist skillfully creates breads in... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline
