Jesus Darth Vader Painting By Cedric Chambers Selling On eBay

Fenny the Fox

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Yeah, why would that offend? The picture of Jesus isn't Jesus, just like a picture of Muhammad isn't Muhammad. There's no need to get to stressed about it. I'd hope that people in diverse countries would have learnt to deal with disagreement.

When I was a Christian, I don't know if, or why, I would have been offended. I might have just thought, "Oh, well that's a strange picture". I'm not sure what the offence towards Jesus is meant to be. Even with a cross in urine, you can still simply accept that the artist disagrees with you, and that is because they are ignorant, not immoral.

I think shock or offence can play a role in art.

I don't think it just "can", I think it SHOULD and does. Pushing buttons is the easiest way to them make people back and say "hey...why did I get offended". Regardless of if they revise opinion or just get angrier, it makes people think, reflect on their personal and collective beliefs and thoughts.
 
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Dusky Mouse

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'No matter how controversial or seemingly-absurd your critique, as long as you justify it, it can't be entirely wrong.' Silly as it seems, it works when it comes to art and literature analysis. lol
I can see this piece being qualified for the label of, 'art'.

However, a crucifix standing upside down in a mason jar of the so called artists urine is not. It was a gay man's blasphemy, as he informed the public, before he died of AIDS.

It was also obscene. As many informed him while he was alive to hear.
 
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Standing_Ultraviolet

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However, a crucifix standing upside down in a mason jar of the so called artists urine is not. It was a gay man's blasphemy, as he informed the public, before he died of AIDS.

Er, the guy who made it wasn't homosexual, and he isn't dead. To my knowledge, he also isn't infected with HIV. That said, despite Serrano's statements to the contrary, I really do believe that it was probably created to be offensive for the sake of getting attention.
 
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Paradoxum

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I don't think it just "can", I think it SHOULD and does. Pushing buttons is the easiest way to them make people back and say "hey...why did I get offended". Regardless of if they revise opinion or just get angrier, it makes people think, reflect on their personal and collective beliefs and thoughts.

Sure I agree. :thumbsup:

I can see this piece being qualified for the label of, 'art'.

However, a crucifix standing upside down in a mason jar of the so called artists urine is not. It was a gay man's blasphemy, as he informed the public, before he died of AIDS.

It was also obscene. As many informed him while he was alive to hear.

Why would blasphemy or obscenity make something not art? I suppose it depends on your (and the creators) attitude towards it. A cross in urine can either be childish rebellion, or it can be trying to make a point. If done in the a certain way, it could even present a Christian message.

It's just one bad artist trying to get publicity. Ignore him and he'll go away. I support his right to try and offend as many people as possible, but I do think it's crude and childish.

Why is a picture of Vader and Jesus crude or childish? Unless you are talking about the cross in urine.
 
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Wolseley

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The purpose of art used to be thought of as creating something that appealed to mankind's more noble instincts; something that took him out of himself, that inspired him, uplifted him, made him reflect of the larger world, his place in it, and the Creator Who made it.

Somewhere along the middle of the 19th century, however, art took a sharp turn; it was no longer about inspiration; it was about "expression". The artist's purpose was to rattle his viewer's cages---to get them to look and think about old topics in a new way. Of course, this soon grew stale, and then as time went on, the focus shifted more towards creating shock; and, eventually, to create outrage.

I myself think that one can create art that is very much thought-provoking without being offensive; Andrew Wyeth is a good example. So is Edward Hopper. In a different vein, Peter Max, or even, Lord save us, Andy Warhol. Naturally, I don't expect those of you who stoutly defend the avant-garde to agree with me, and that's your right. I'm just laying it out there as I see it.

As for this particular painting, I don't find it offensive, I just find it shallow and silly. It strikes me as something produced by a guy who is bereft of ideas, and resorts to this type of caricature to, as has been said, simply get noticed.
 
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Dusky Mouse

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Er, the guy who made it wasn't homosexual, and he isn't dead. To my knowledge, he also isn't infected with HIV. That said, despite Serrano's statements to the contrary, I really do believe that it was probably created to be offensive for the sake of getting attention.
Robert Mapplethorpe was gay, and is dead, and died of AIDS.
 
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Gadarene

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Robert Mapplethorpe was gay, and is dead, and died of AIDS.

So there are two pieces of artwork involving crucifixes in urine, or aren't there? The only results I'm getting for Mapplethorpe and crucifixes in urine are bringing up Serrano because they were both publicly funded artists whose work at various points ended up being pulled from display.
 
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Dusky Mouse

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The artist was Andres Serrano, he is alive and kicking, and neither nor HIV positive.
I did the research just prior to coming back into this thread.
When the Mapplethorpe display was advertised initially the "[bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] Christ" piece was attributed to him.
It was my error. Andres Serrano is the artist. And is alive.

RM however did expire as I mentioned. And his art was as controversial as was Serrano's when it appeared with Mapplethorpe's work, and remains so to hear tell it.
 
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Dusky Mouse

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I'm pretty sure that we're all talking about a relatively recent sculpture made by a man named Serrano. Not sure if Mapplethorpe ever made anything similar or not, but I've not been able to find anything on it if he did. Granted, I just did a quick check of his Wikipedia page, because I'm not about to Google that.
The "[bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] Christ" controversy is years old. At the time Mapplethorpe got all the heat because this so called art appeared amid his photographs. His name predominated the news and the controversy that surrounded it.

Turns out, now researching it due to this thread, Serrano and Mapplethorpe were working together at that time. But apparently Mapplethorpes work, being obscene for the most part on its own, was seemingly tied to the Christ blasphemy. With Serrano not getting the press as that artist responsible for it specifically. At least not that I heard when controversial art history was a subject of interest a few years ago. All I ever heard was Mapplethorpes name during the PC years.

Here's something I found for you. :)

[bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] Christ is not Serrano's more visually striking piece, but it does seem to have generated its own aura out of controversy, and has subsequently become a sort of standard bearer for many of the issues that Serrano's work addresses. It all began in 1989 when [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] Christ, along with the homoerotic photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe, found themselves at the centre of controversy in the United States, where the forces of the Christian Right rallied to curtail the National Endowment for the Arts. More recently, Congress legislated, upheld by the Supreme Court, that the NEA must take "into consideration general standards of decency" in awarding grants. (Biskupic, 1998) The "culture wars" in the U.S. were launched by what could be seen as a ritual counter-desecration, when Senator Alphonse D'Amato tore up a copy of [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] Christ in the chambers of the U.S. Senate on May 18, 1989. In so doing, the Senator launched [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] Christ into prominence, making it a symbol of the excesses of liberalism. (Source:
Sacrifice, [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] Christ, and liberal excess.
This article was originally published in Law, Text, Culture. (June, 2000)....[SIZE=+1] [/SIZE][SIZE=+1] )
[/SIZE]
 
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HorsieJuice

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One has to be careful with things like that. Just because he doesn't do well in his life, or that he doesn't do well currently, do not mean he is bound to be a "nobody" or that he is not a good artist - opinions aside.

I mean, hey, Van Gogh never made it as an artist in his lifetime, but look at what his art means to the world now. And he is certainly not the only artist to have this happen.

That's true.

My point (which I could've been clearer about) was to stave off what I saw as the inevitable posts regarding how the art world is full of a bunch of heathens looking to mock Christ.
 
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