SB1 - Investigating Quotes Task 1

Considering the artist's social context, David Shrigley's quote seems fitting to the flux in which the artist operates; "In his studio the artist has no social responsibility. But when the artist displays his work the situation changes". My first concern with this quote is that the volume of visual language undoubtedly differs from situation to situation. Artwork seems to demand social validation and in this sense, the artist seems to assert power when they leave the non-judged realm of their studio. The flux the artist enters however is one of duty to meet expectations, versus duty to challenge expectations. Shrigley's term 'social responsibility' suggests a duty of care and sensitivity to the audience in a struggle against a duty to shock, establishing the greater struggle between acceptability and uniqueness. The definition of social, provided by www.dictionary.com, states that the subject is characterized by relations, or is suited to polite or fashionable society.  This definition reveals the artists obligation to tippy-toe around controversial issues. More specifially, the definition of polite refers to a subject that is refined or cultured. Since the context and audience molds this definition of polite, the audience is relied on to initiate the 'responsibility'.

 

Considering Marcus Harvey's 'Myra', the artist seems to assert dual responsibilities; to initiate a sensation, but then to react to that sensation. While in his studio, Harvey may have felt a social responsibility to expose the horror of the moors murders as a duty to the victims, in doing so he also asserted a social responsibility to take the work away, and conceal it in a duty to protect his audience from the sensation it evoked.

 Alternatively, the trangressive nature of Chris Ofili's 'The Holy Virgin Mary' challenges Shrigley's 'social responsibility' as it explicitly mocks conventional religious imagery. Ofili's purpose may have been to offer an extreme counter to the religious imagery we are familiar with which depicts Mary as a clean, very feminine figure, and instead portray her as a vulgar figure. It could be argued that Ofili rejected social responsibility in creating such a transgressive image and in displaying the work, Ofili submits his idea of socially responsible, a duty to challenge preconceptions and disrupt the polite.