If we talk about art, we are very often faced with scandals or events that have brought works and artists to the center of attention.
Below we list 10 of the most famous scandals that have shaken the world of contemporary art.
Gino De Dominicis, Second solution of immortality
The twenty-sixth room of the 1972 Venice Biennale housed the work of De Dominicis.
The artist had positioned a boy with Down syndrome sitting in a corner with the inscription “Second solution of immortality (the universe is still)” around his neck.
The historian Giuseppe Garrera speaking of the work said :
“De Dominicis reproduces the vulgarity, presumption and often obtuseness of the beholder. And this is a work that reflects the prejudices of the world“. And it was that world in fact that defined the boy in the chair as "mongoloid", "handicapped", "subnormal". The media coverage of the story was so suggestive that the boy's own family, who had given the artist permission to create the work, reported him.
Marina Abramovic, Rhythm 0
It was a night in 1973 when the famous performer Marina Abramović divested itself of any right to Studio Morra Gallery .
The artist had left around him 72 objects and instructions where he declared the object of the performance and that he fully assumed responsibility for what he was doing. The performance consisted of remaining still in silence and semi-naked for six hours, letting people use her body and the objects around her freely.
Initially the spectators just watched but gradually they became familiar with the situation and decided to take turns touching her, cutting a lock of her hair, injuring her and
going so far as to threaten her with a revolver. The Gallery stated that the next day many called to apologize, failing to understand what had prompted them to behave in this way.
Jeff Koons, Made in Heaven
Jeff Koons cycle of works Made in Heaven is a collection of provocative works showing the couple (Jeff Koons and Ilona Staler) naked in explicit poses, the purpose of which is to examine the place of sexuality in visual culture. Koons employed the photographic style creating the aesthetics of "glamorous" images; by blurring the lines between art and pornography, Koons challenged the conventions of artistic taste, encouraging his audience to make their own decisions about what is acceptable.
Paul McCarthy, The Garden
It was 1991 when Jeffrey Deitch inaugurated an exhibition that would go down in history: post human , which brought together the works of 36 artists. Paul McCarthy 's remained in the lead of many, in fact it represented a standing man who had sexual intercourse with a tree describing a purely mechanical and repetitive act, expressing a sexuality that exceeded the natural limit.
The spectator himself was in a situation that made him feel bad, embarrassed, a "voyeur".
Orlan, Successful Surgery
Between 1990 and 1993Orlan underwent nine surgeries to modify her body, a performance broadcast live internationally on which Orlan herself said: “ Between 1990 and 1993 I did not undergo nine operations. I organized, orchestrated and staged in a completely voluntary way a series of surgical operations entitled The Reincarnation of Saint ORLAN and Image/New Imag and , because I wanted to sculpt myself, build a new image attacking the masks of the innate and questioning the notions of beauty. […] because I intended to criticize, dismantle, destroy these models. There's no reason to hide body transformations because these show the decisions a woman can make with her body and about her body. ”
Petr Pavlensky, all works
In 2012 he became world famous for protesting against the incarceration of the so-called Pussy Riot , he stitched his mouth shut with barbed wire quotingDavid Wojnarowicz . Pussy Riot was guilty of "hooliganism" as they were against the support of the Orthodox Church for the government of Vladimir Putin.
The work of Petr Pavlensky is halfway between art and activism, he has been talked about a lot because in any of his actions he creates havoc and splits public opinion in two; he claims freedom of speech by resorting to raw and violent performances referring to Viennese actionism.
Oliviero Toscani, Sentenced to Death
In 2013 Oliviero Toscani , an Italian photographer, subsidized by Benetton, flew to America to photograph men sentenced to death.
The state of Missouri sued the photographer for not communicating his intentions, i.e. an advertising campaign against the death penalty, before taking the shots.
Toscani and Benetton instead wanted to demonstrate how the condemned were not numbers but human beings.
The case in which Banksy's artwork has become a performance, and certainly a scandal, is the case of Girl with Baloon which we have already talked about here . While the work was being auctioned off, a mechanism caused the canvas to be torn to shreds by a letter opener, making Banksy's protest against the art system a unique and unrepeatable moment.
Maurizio Cattelan, Comedian
In 2019,Maurizio Cattelan , a Paduan artist, made people talk about him again with an irreverent and "irreverent" gesture typical of his way of working; at the Art Basel in Miami Beach Cattelan hung a banana with scotch tape on the wall giving it the title Comedian. Another artist Datuna, one Saturday morning took the banana and ate it, transforming the work of art into a performance entitled Hungry Artist .
Pornhub and the "erotic" museum campaign
“Some people think museums are boring, but what if we told you they house a priceless porn collection?” this, the incipit of the campaign by pornhub entitled Classic Nudes to show the “sexual” side of works of art, animating them in adult videos with explicit content; this campaign, according to what was declared by the lawyer Luca di Carlo (lawyer of pornhub) ran out, remained online for a precise period of time and then canceled itself, despite many speaking of formal notice. But there was a complaint, that of Ilona Staler, aka Cicciolina, who denounced the Uffizi for exhibiting the Made in Heaven series accusing them of exploiting the image.
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