What we call and leave to posterity as art defines us as a culture. As we’ve seen throughout history, the discovery of artifacts have in many cases been the only maps that let Archeologists, Scientists, and Intellectuals track a society’s norms and cultural identities. Therefore, if we are going to leave controversial artifacts behind we’d better also leave behind an explanation for them; otherwise, their purpose will be lost.
Even today as we view controversial art, we often have no idea what it’s about or why it was made, or even if we should consider it art. Take Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ (1987) for example. To many this piece was an outrage; what was its purpose? Should it be considered art? And if so: what was the artist trying to convey? Are we simply to take art for art’s sake or should there be aesthetic purpose behind it? And who is the authority that is qualified to absolutely say that it is art?
These are all questions that a person has to answer for themselves; because, if we let others--the so called art authority--answer the questions for us, art will soon become a mass produced commode straight off of the “production line” of the art authority’s opinion.
Art seems to be a matter of individual tastes. What I find beautiful you may see as offensive and you may see it as offensive for reasons that have nothing to do with aesthetics. It may be controversial to your religious beliefs, or you may find the depiction disgusting because it doesn’t conform to views of what is wholesome, or you may find the medium that the art is done in as being unhealthy.
For some people, Serrano’s Piss Christ encompasses all of them. And for most of us we will never really know what the artist’s intent truly was. So if we cannot answer the questions raised now how are we to expect future generations to answer them with any amount of accuracy. It’s like the dinosaurs: we find their bones so we know their size and we can reasonably tell what kinds of things they liked to eat by their teeth, but do we really know what color they were.