Violence & Art

by Justin Holmes

“Good art however ‘immoral’ is wholly a thing of virtue.”
 - Ezra Pound

For centuries, artists such as Francisco Goya and the Viennese Actionists of the 1960s have pushed the envelope in terms of violent content in art, and challenged what some deem obscene or offensive. Headlines are made annually linking the glorification of violence in the media to school shootings and street murders. Questions are raised: what effect does violent art have on society? How should such expression be moderated? And who is best to make these decisions?

These decisions are part of Seamus Kealy’s everyday life. The curator of the Blackwood Gallery, at the University of Toronto at Mississauga, Kealy enjoys the freedom of what is practically a total lack of boundaries as to what can be exhibited. “I don’t really have much concern about showing anything. I think that I can show, in different ways, almost anything,” he says, but clarifies, explaining that context and purpose are everything.

“I’m not going to put out Cannibal Holocaust on our public image bar downstairs,” says Kealy of the 1980 horror film which holds a world record for being banned in almost 60 countries. “It’s needless. What would be the point? The only justification for that would be to horrify the students and to make everyone really angry and unhappy. That’s not my job.”

He concedes that even in this case, there is no hard line. “I could imagine having that film screened within the context of an exhibition,” he says, “but the context is important.”

“Art has generally depicted all kinds of things, all things that exist, and violence is just one of those things,” says photographer Jenni Tapanila, a Finnish artist who spent time in Canada through a work study program in 2004. Her work is distributed largely online via her website. She has a part-time job in customer service to support an artistic calling that only occasionally brings in commission.

Many of Tapanila’s photographs are violent, portraying battered and murdered women. “I don't think violence in itself is aesthetically attractive. It’s attractive due to the subject,” she explains. “I present it in an aesthetically pleasing way that combines violence and aesthetics and the combo is what is attractive.”

Kealy tries to further explain the role of violence in art. “It can be many different things, but let’s simplify it and say it’s a means of testing social codes, or testing the limits of the body. It could also be a means of drawing attention to the world at large around them. It can be somewhat symbolic, or it can be just ritualistic.”

In a world of wardrobe malfunctions and new limits reached in mass media, the role of censorship is often thrown into question. In Canada, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) holds the responsibility of censorship. Their policy is to ensure that “Canadian children will be protected from harmful programming regardless of its source… while preserving freedom of expression for creators and choice for adult viewers.”

Tapanila doesn’t agree with this concept of censorship, but she does understand it. She cites two examples – a performance video displayed at a Finnish museum in which the artist kills a cat and masturbates on it, and the controversial caricatures of the prophet Mohammed first published in a Danish newspaper last year. “I think [the publication of the caricatures] was acceptable,” she says. “I don't think the cat killing video was good. I do not accept it, but I accept the fact that it was shown to an audience because it happened. Hiding the video does not change anything.” Tapanila adds that the line between art and exploitation cannot be drawn by an individual.

“Whether it’s art or not is not for me to decide.”

Kealy is even less accommodating. Asked if he supports censorship, he almost laughs the question off.

“No, there’s no way that I favour censorship – but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be responsible about what we depict. As the curator, I have responsibility to the public in terms of what we represent in this gallery. That doesn’t mean that I’m not going to take risks and sometimes annoy people. In fact, I think it’s really important to challenge the way it is that we deal with ourselves, the way that we all come to understand different issues.”

He insists portrayed violence is very different from the real thing. “The image is not reality,” he says. “If someone depicts something violent, it’s not like murdering someone. On television, we see 10,000 murders in a year or whatever it is, but there’s no way that’s equivalent to 10,000 actual murders.”

This begs another question: if depicted violence isn’t harmful, does it have a positive effect? To resort to a well-tread phrase, is such violence cathartic? “Sure. Why not?” Kealy responds reluctantly. “Why do we have violence on television? Why do people watch it?’ We need it. People would hate to admit it, but we need it.

“I think if someone’s working with violence – someone who’s an artist – in a way that’s thoughtful and has other things connected to it – social critique, or whatever it might be, then it’s cathartic.”
It may be disempowering as well, Tapanila argues. “Violent art can be cathartic, I suppose, if it makes you think of death in a more open way, taking some of the taboos or fears away. If you look at a very violent photo, it might make you feel bad, but perhaps after a while you come to accept that this sort of thing happens and could happen to you and you can live with that thought instead of brushing it off. But then again,” she admits, “ignorance is bliss.”

Kealy ends with a piece of advice: the key to tastefully exhibiting violent art is to show the proper respect for the audience. “You always have to be aware that the audience itself is extremely diverse, and be prepared to have to speak with them about things. And never come across as just ramming art down people’s throat.”