Do What With Religion?

Remember when an American artist got in trouble for Chocolate Jesus?

People in Britain are much more laid back when it comes to art.

Artist Dan Baldwin created a painting called “Fuck Religion” (seen above).

Apparently, it’s popular in the town of Brighton:

Seventy-five limited edition prints of Fuck Religion were sold – at £400 each.

That’s $804.88 in American dollars.

Each.

$60,366 total for those keeping count. (Of course, there would be three 6s in the number…) And it all sold out in under an hour.

As Mediawatchwatch says:

Clearly there is money in fucking religion these days.

Personally, I never understand art, In the painting above, I see a skull with crosses in the eyes… the Virgin Mary… a red knife… half a dollar bill… Would anyone like to explain to me what that all means?

Baldwin is the same guy who painted (the prequel?) Holy Fuck, as seen here:

That one also sold out pretty quickly.

[tags]atheist, atheism, Chocolate Jesus, Britain, Dan Baldwin, Fuck Religion, Brighton, Virgin Mary, Holy Fuck[/tags]

Logos

Is the skeleton supposed to be the Easter Bunny?
PrimateIR

After glancing at his website, I’m betting not even the artist is sure about the symbolism.
Darryl

Hemant, I know you’re being facetious, but this is not art (read James Joyce on what is true art). It’s propaganda at best, and probably just commercial product. It requires no insight or reflection to decipher its message—hell, it’s spelled out for you. It has no layers of meaning in the object itself, and requires no imagination.

Courtesy of your self-appointed, resident culture critic.
olvlzl, no ism, no ist

I wrote a piece about the artiste during the controversy. If he hadn’t planned on the controversy blowing up (and making him more famous than his other food based creations ever did) then he’s too stupid to be practicing art. From what I saw during my research the guy was pretty much a phony. Wm. “rent a rant” Donohue was guaranteed to react the way he did, the entire thing from beginning to end was done to create exactly the reaction it got. About the only one I remember coming out on the short end of things was the “curator” of the “gallery” who got fired. If he didn’t know that was a likely outcome of the thing he was too stupid to be working in the arts.
Eliza

I thought the Chocolate Jesus (“My Sweet Jesus”) was priceless. (Do you bite off the ears first, or leave them for last?)

Last winter I was going to take a nativity scene & string little Christmas lights up inside the stable, & put a Santa w/ sleigh & reindeer on the roof (same size as the Mary, Joseph, & animals in the stable). I thought of putting a menorah in the window of the stable, but then learned that Hanukah is a holiday of fairly recent origin.

I didn’t end up getting the pieces & putting this touching scene together, but it was fun to think about. Ah, well, it would have been for laughs rather than for display or sale as “art”…
Darryl

Eliza, you may have something there. I bet you could sell them on Ebay.
stogoe

Darryl is full of shit. He doesn’t like it, so he says it’s not art. It’s not subtle, no, it’s not neoimpressionist or dadaist that I can tell. It wasn’t painted by Cezanne or Manet. It is art, though.

As for the ‘meaning’, what do you think it means? Certainly the artist has an opinion on the meaning of his creation, but the author is no longer the authority on meaning, and neither is the critic. I can only think that’s a good thing. Find your own meaning.
Darryl

Stogoe, big talk; little sense. I can spot an amateur from a mile away.
Sobex

I don’t claim to have any appreciation for the finer aspects of art (as will become apparent below). While I understand the commercial success of this painting, why pay $800 when you can pay $10 or so for Slayer’s “South of Heaven” album and get about the same quality art.

What impresses ME, is the following link. This is a link of a painting made by a gorilla (!) in a wildlife preserve, who painted a rendition of his “pet” dog. The link also shows a picture of said dog. Well, *I* think it’s impressive, I’ve seen humans do a worse job.
Siamang

Ha!

You all don’t know real art. I know real art.

And I’m the authority on what’s real art. Everyone at every art gallery asks me before they buy something. The other day someone asked me if they should buy a piece for the gallery. I said, that’s not art! It’s an old abandoned refrigerator!

Good thing they asked me. I know.

My opinion? These are shit art. But art.

The first piece is pure shit. The second is not quite so shitty, but still shit.
Richard Wade

I know art. I have a Master’s degree in art. I make art. I even sell my art. Well, I traded some for a lot of therapy and a membership in the local theatre. Anyway, The easiest way to tell if something is art is to look for a little paper label on the wall next to whatever the hell the thing is. If it has a title, even if the title is “untitled” and it says what it’s made of, even if it says “mixed media” and most importantly it has a price that is at least 1500 times the cost of the materials, then it’s art. The real clincher is if there’s a little red spot sticker in the corner of the label indicating that somebody actually paid that much money for it. Then it’s really art.

Any time you have a question about art, just ask me. I can say a lot of intelligent sounding things about art, even if it doesn’t make any sense.
Mriana

I have often thought it. 😆 I’d like to meet this person who seems to think similarly to myself. Is this a man? By chance close to my age? 😆 I’m terrible.
Richard Wade

Mriana, what and whom are you talking about?