Comment

Comment by John McCreery on November 18, 2010 at 8:42am

Art is a form of transgression by means of taking the liberty to do something against a given set of rules, and to go beyond what is considered to be a state of normality or of common sense.

This is, historically speaking, a recent view of art that owes much to Romanticism and, putting aside for the moment, the globalized world of fine art, not all that common in cross-cultural perspective. Living in Japan, I can't help thinking of traditional art forms (tea, haiku, Noh, Kabuki, the various martial arts) in which the epitome of art is to achieve subtle differences in highly rule-bound forms. The apprentice's task is first to master the forms and, only then, reveal individual character in how the forms are executed.

Comment by ionut-alexandru cheran on November 10, 2010 at 2:05pm

About transgression in art and sexuality

Art is a form of transgression by means of taking the liberty to do something against a given set of rules, and to go beyond what is considered to be a state of normality or of common sense. Nichita Stanescu which was a great Romanian poet thought that one should lose the common sense in order to create. So first of all transgression means renouncing at your common sense, that is stop being timid or reluctant and express your inner diseres. To create is to lose control of yourself and to gratify your wanting, so to create resembles sexuality. Sex and art both are clear forms of transgression, undoubtedly they are acts of penetration, of breaking the shell, of trespassing the frontiers of ordinary existence ( what is permitted and what is also interdicted ). Permission and interdiction are the austere doorkeepers of everyday life;they react in contradiction with our wanting, they post stop-signs to our intemperate initiatives. All the acts of re-creating reality that is sex and art go through a very keen filter made of morality, religion, law and professional critique. One needs art and sexuality to re-order the routine and to freshen up the air of his little room ( existence ). Transgression goes hand in hand with punishment, if your art or sexual conduit brings harm to daily perspectives of existence you might suffer reprobation or condemnation, the cases of Baudelaire, Oscar Wilde and William Burroughs, and even worst death. Nowadays art and sexuality suffered great alterations, to create almost equals to shock, the more shocking the act of creation is and the more stupefaction it brings the more comments it will receive.
Sexuality is also very acclaimed today we can see it everywhere, it lost its mystery by dropping the veil and became something more than obvious it became quotidian. Art and sexuality made always part of our lives nonetheless the limits of interdiction grew with time and we discover that more and more things are accepted today as a maybe different conduit but an allowed one. We find that anything is accepted in art and sexuality and then nothing seems to scare and impress us. In conclusion the transgressions of prohibition soften its repertoire allowing art and sexuality to play conspicuously their game losing on the other side their interest in danger, and if it isn't dangerous it doesn't worth the effort. Maybe art and sexuality should gain prohibition to recover their esteem and make again some impression on people.