Reports on Art That Has Been Made to Fool

Artists throughout history have never shied away from controversy—in fact, many even endeavor to courtroom infamy. (Need proof? Simply await at Banksy, the anonymous street artist who recently created a work that self-destructed the moment it was sold at auction—for a whopping $1.37 million.) While it'due south up to critics and historians to contend technique and creative merit, there are some works of art that shocked most people who saw them. From paintings deemed also lewd, too rude or too gory for their fourth dimension to acts of so-chosen desecration and powerful political statements, these are some of the virtually controversial artworks ever created.

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one. Michelangelo, "The Last Judgement," 1536–1541

Some 25 years afterwards completing the Sistine Chapel ceiling, Renaissance polymath Michelangelo returned to the Vatican to work on a fresco that would be debated for centuries. His depiction of the 2d Coming of Christ in "The Final Judgement," on which he worked from 1536 to 1541, was met with firsthand controversy from the Counter-Reformation Catholic church. Religious officials spoke out against the fresco, for a number of reasons, including the fashion with which Michelangelo painted Jesus (beardless and in the Classic style of heathen mythology). But near shocking of all were the painting'due south 300 figures, mostly male and mostly nude. In a move called a fig-foliage campaign, bits of fabric and flora were later painted over the offending beefcake, some of which were after removed as role of a 20th century restoration.

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2. Caravaggio, "St. Matthew and the Angel," 1602

Baroque painter Caravaggio's life may be more than controversial than whatever of his work, given the fact that he died in exile after being defendant of murder. But his unconventionally humanistic approach to his religious commissions certainly raised eyebrows in his day. In the at present-lost painting "St. Matthew and the Angel," created for the Contarelli Chapel in Rome, Caravaggio flipped convention past using a poor peasant as a model for the saint. Only what upset critics the well-nigh were St. Matthew's muddied feet, which illusionistically seemed to jut from a canvas (a recurring visual play a trick on for the artist), and the way the paradigm implied him to be illiterate, as though being read to by an angel. The work was ultimately rejected and replaced with "The Inspiration of St. Matthew," a similar, nonetheless more than standard, depiction of the scene.

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3. Thomas Eakins, "The Gross Clinic," 1875

This icon of American art was created in anticipation of the nation'south centenary, when painter Thomas Eakins was eager to bear witness off both his talent and the scientific advances of Philadelphia's Jefferson Medical College. The realist painting puts the viewer in the centre of a surgical amphitheater, where physician Dr. Samuel Gross lectures students operating on a patient. But its matter-of-fact delineation of surgery was deemed likewise graphic, and the painting was rejected by the Philadelphia Centenary Exhibition (some arraign the doc's encarmine hands, others debate it was the female effigy shielding her eyes that put it over the border). Still, a century later, the painting has finally been recognized as one of the great masterpieces of its time on both its artistic and scientific claim.

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4. Marcel Duchamp "Fountain," 1917

When iconoclastic Marcel Duchamp anonymously submitted a porcelain urinal signed "R. Mutt 1917" as a "readymade" sculpture to the Lodge of Independent Artists, a group known to accept whatsoever creative person who could come up upwards with the fee‚ the unthinkable happened: the piece was denied, even though Duchamp himself was a cofounder and board member of the group. Some even wondered if the piece was a hoax, but Dada journal The Blind Human defended the urinal as art considering the artist chose information technology. The piece marked a shift from what Duchamp chosen "retinal," or purely visual, fine art to a more than conceptual manner of expression—sparking a dialogue that continues to this solar day about what actually constitutes a piece of work of art. Though all that remains of the original is a photograph by Alfred Stieglitz (who threw the piece away) taken for the magazine, multiple authorized reproductions from the 1960s are in major collections around the globe.

Photograph past Ben Blackwell/Robert Rauschenberg Foundation/San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

five. Robert Rauschenberg, "Erased De Kooning," 1953

In some ways, Robert Rauschenberg's "Erased De Kooning" presaged Banksy's cocky-destructing painting. Only in the case of the 1953 cartoon, the artist decided the original artwork must exist important on its ain. "When I just erased my own drawings, it wasn't art still," Rauschenberg told SFMoMA in 1999. Then he called upon the most revered modern creative person of the day, the mercurial abstract expressionist Willem de Kooning, who, afterwards some convincing, gave the younger artist a drawing with a mix of grease pencil art and charcoal that took Rauschenberg two months to erase. It took well-nigh a decade for give-and-take of the piece to spread, when it was met with a mix of wonder (Was this a young genius usurping the master?) and disgust (Is it vandalism?). One person not particularly impressed was de Kooning himself, who afterwards told a reporter he initially found the idea "corny," and who some say resented that such an intimate interaction between artists had been shared with the public.

Ringlet to Continue

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6. Yoko Ono, "Cutting Piece," 1964 / Marina Abramovic, "Rhythm 0," 1974

Every bit performance art emerged every bit an creative practice in the postwar years, the fine art form frequently pushed toward provocation and even danger. In Yoko Ono'southward "Cut Piece," a 1964 performance, the artist invited the audience to have a pair of pair of scissors and cut off a slice of her clothing as she sat motionless and silent. "People were then shocked they did non talk about it," she afterwards recalled.

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Ten years later, Marina Abramovic unknowingly revisited the concept with "Rhythm 0," in which the artist provided the audience with 72 objects to do what they "desired." Forth with pair of scissors, Abramovic offered a range of tools: a rose, a feather, a whip, a scalpel, a gun, a bullet, a slice of chocolate block. Over the course of the six-hour performance, the audition became more than and more violent, with one drawing blood from her neck ("I still have the scars," she has said) and another property the gun to her head, igniting a fight even inside the gallery ("I was ready to die"). The audience bankrupt out in a fight over how far to take things, and the moment the performance ended, Abramovic recalled, everyone ran away to avoid confronting what had happened. Since and so, Abramovic has been chosen the godmother of functioning art, with her oftentimes-physically-farthermost work continuing to polarize viewers and critics alike.

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7. Judy Chicago, "The Dinner Party," 1974–79

With her "Dinner Party," Judy Chicago set out to advocate for the recognition of women throughout history—and ended up making fine art history herself. A complex installation with hundreds of components, the piece is an imagined banquet featuring 39 women from throughout mythology and history—Sojourner Truth, Sacajawea, and Margaret Sanger among them—each represented at the table with a place setting, well-nigh all of which depict stylized vulvas. With its mix of anatomical imagery and craft techniques, the piece of work was dubbed vulgar and kitschy by critics, and it was speedily satirized by a counter-exhibition honoring women of "dubious distinction." Simply despite the detractors, the piece is at present seen as a landmark in feminist art, on permanent display at the Brooklyn Museum.

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8. Maya Lin, "Vietnam Veterans Memorial," completed 1982

Maya Lin was only 21 when she won the commission that would launch her career—and a national fence. Her design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was called by a blind jury, who had no idea the winning designer was an architecture educatee. While the proposed blueprint fit all the requirements, including the incorporation of 58,000 names of soldiers who never returned from the war, its minimalist, understated form—two blackness granite slabs that rise out of the world in a "V," similar a "wound that is closed and healing," Lin has said—was immediately subject to political argue past those who felt it didn't properly heroize the soldiers it honors. One veteran called the design a "blackness gash of shame," and 27 Republican congressmen wrote to President Ronald Reagan enervating the blueprint non be built. Merely Lin advocated for her vision, testifying earlier Congress about the intention backside the work. Ultimately it came down to a compromise, when a runner-upward entry in the competition featuring three soldiers was added nearby to consummate the tribute (a flag and Women'due south Memorial were likewise added later). As the distance from the war has grown, criticism of the memorial has faded.

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9. Ai Weiwei, "Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn," 1995

Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei is 1 of fine art's most provocative figures, and his practice oft calls into question ideas of value and consumption. In 1995 the creative person nodded to Duchamp with "Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn," a piece he called a "cultural readymade." Every bit the title implies, the work consisted of dropping, and thus destroying, a two,000-year-old ceremonial urn. Not only did the vessel take considerable budgetary value (Ai reportedly paid several hundred thousand dollars for information technology), but it was also a potent symbol of Chinese history. The willful desecration of an historic artifact was decried every bit unethical by some, to which the artist replied past quoting Mao Zedong, "the only way of building a new earth is by destroying the one-time one." It'southward an idea Ai returns to, painting a like vessel with the Coca Cola logo or bright candy colors as people debate whether he's using genuine antiquities or fakes. Either way, his provocative trunk of work has inspired other acts of destruction—like when a visitor to a Miami exhibition of Ai's work smashed a painted vessel in an illegal human action of protest that mirrored the Ai'southward ain.

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10. Chris Ofili, "The Holy Virgin Mary," 1996

It'south hardly shocking that an exhibition called "Sensation" caused a stir, just that'south just what happened when it opened in London in 1997 with a number of controversial works past the and then-chosen Immature British Artists: Marcus Harvey's painting of killer Myra Hindley, Damien Hirst's shark-in-formaldehyde sculpture, a installation by Tracey Emin titled "Everyone I Have Ever Slept With (1963–1995)," and Marc Quinn's cocky portrait sculpture made of blood. When the show striking the Brooklyn Museum ii years later on, it was "The Holy Virgin Mary," a Madonna past Chris Ofili that earned the most scorn. The glittering collage contained pornographic mag clippings and hunks of resin-coated elephant dung, which media outlets erroneously reported was "splattered" beyond the piece. New York mayor Rudy Giuliani threatened to pull the city's $vii million grant for the show, calling the exhibition "sick stuff," while religious leaders and celebrities joined the protests on opposite sides. Two decades later, Ofili's controversial painting has earned a place in the arc of art history—and in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

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Source: https://www.history.com/news/most-controversial-art-in-history

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