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Showing posts from March, 2019

No Federal or State Laws Against the Use of Live Animals in Art

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In 1947 Joseph Beuys iconic performance artwork I Love America and America Loves Me was created. In it, Beuys locked himself in a room with a wild coyote for 8 hours a day for three days straight, with only a blanket of felt between them.  Joseph Beuys,  I Love America and America Loves me 1947 It is a powerful, heart-pounding performance, one which questioned Americans treatment of its land and people. My first thought when I saw the photos...Did that coyote have water?  I will probably never know what happened to that coyote, or how its time in that room with Beuys affected its future. But it leaves me wanting knowledge about its treatment, and who is responsible for an animal when it becomes a test subject for art?  There are many laws that interfere with the use of animals in art, for example, endangered species remains are prohibited for being sold. This is meant to discourage the killing of rare animals for the sake of creating art. Something that has been done for

Implicit Tensions: Mapplethorpe Now - Gugeenheim Exhibition

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Lisa Lyon , 1983 © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. The Guggenheim Museum in NYC is holding a new exhibition for photographer Robert Mapplethorpe from January 25th-July 10th 2019, and July 24th 2019-January 5th 2020. Read more about the exhibition here: https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/mapplethorpe Ken Moody and Robert Sherman, 1984, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Gift, The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, 1993 Mapplethorpe's array of work provides an insight into the questions the Western world grapples with, questions about sexuality, identity, values, and openness. Mapplethorpe managed to demonstrate the journey of an openly gay man through the 60's to the late '80s. Beginning with grand explorations of gender and sexuality, the challenging of previously held Western beliefs and attitudes. Who are the fetishizers of certain images? The Voyeur of a work of art? It turns out to be you, me, everybody. Instead of the assumed white-male gaze, Mapplethorpe s