1

"We painters take the same licenses as poets and madmen". With these words,
Renaissance painter Veronese claimed artistic freedom in front of the Inquisition for
his painting depicting The Last Supper.
1
Nowadays society acknowledges the artists
freedom of expression, even if sometimes there are questions about art being ethical
or legal. It is undeniable that artists may blur many boundaries, sometimes even
offending the audiences sensitivity. On the other hand, contemporary civil society
generally does not want to endorse any form of censorship; therefore it is commonly
accepted that some contemporary art is meant to create discomfort in order to realize
its goal. This essay will try to analyse whether contemporary transgressive art must be
approved unconditionally in order to support the virtue of its mission or whether there
are some limits that neither art has the moral right to overcome. The first section of
this paper will define contemporary transgressive art. The second part will discuss
ethical issues concerning Hirsts work, in particular in relation to animals rights. In
the final part, the essay will focus on children nudity as a major example of an ethical
debate involving a highly sensitive moral dilemma.

Aesthetic transgression can be defined as any act of violation presented
under the alibi of art.
2

Since when Duchamp exhibited a urinal as a ready-made sculpture in 1917,
the art world has never been the same. Indeed Duchamps Fountain challenged the
nature of art itself, exploring the notion of aesthetic taste. His work led to the current
acknowledgement that contemporary art practice is based on the idea more than the
object of art per se.
3
Since then, the concept of art has pushed many boundaries of
society and has questioned many conventional moral beliefs. This has indisputably
expanded the freedom of artistic manifestation.
4
On the other hand, contemporary art
has often become subject of controversy for being too excessive.
In ancient Greece, Dionysian rituals which were at the origin of Greek
tragedy were meant to have cathartic effect on the audience, therefore Aristotle in
his Poetics endorsed the function of tragedy - and art in general- for its ultimate

1
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/inquisition.htm
2
Cashell, 2009. Aftershock, p 1
3
Downey, 2008. Selling used cars, carpets and art, in Chong and Robertson (ed.),
The Art Business, Routledge, p 58
4
Cashell, 2009. Aftershock, p 1
2
purifying effect from passions and fears. Similarly, some art critics have defended the
obscene performances of artist Paul McCarthy because in the same cathartic way
they enable the public to experience violent regression without being directly
involved.
5
But according to Freeland
6
, this assumption is not correct because,
differently from ancient Greek context, modern society does not share a unifying
belief system according to which transgressive art can claim a general socio-cultural
value.
7

Jake Chapman in his documentary Artshock: Is bad art for bad people has an
interesting approach, suggesting that post-holocaust society suffers from a global
traumatic neurosis, due to the atrocities witnessed during the two world wars.
Therefore he claims that extreme culture tries to shock society out of its paralysing
hysteria by cruelly confronting it with transgressive imagery.
8

Indeed in the last century art has involved urine, explicit sex and masturbation
in front of a live camera; it has also depicted blood, violence and death. Contemporary
productions have often traversed the borders of pornography or pathology in the name
of art.
9
Certainly new medias enable new forms and vehicles for art. Moreover, as
aforementioned, art can consist of a simple idea. This led to a revolution in the
relationship between art and aesthetics.
According to Cashell, transgressive art seeks to invalidate the principles of
institutional aesthetics. In facts, aesthetics theory has been radically influenced by
Kants Critique of Judgment. Since then, the objective form of perception appropriate
to the rational appreciation of artistic beauty is dissociated from all emotional, sexual
or moral feeling. This disinterested approach to aesthetic contemplation has become
generally understood in the philosophy of art as a specific modality of perception,
suppressing any moral responses. Therefore, Cashell argues that transgressive art
forces us to recognize and re-evaluate the ethical values that the art itself is
questioning.
In this context, it is necessary to recall the exhibition Sensation: Young British
Artists from the Saatchi Collection (1997) for the extraordinary media frenzy and
ethical debate it raised. The exhibition first took place in London at the Royal

5
Cashell, p 3
6
Freeland, But is this art?
7
Freeland
8
Chapman. Aftershock
9
Kloss, http://www.cafebabel.co.uk/article/23855/borderline-art-on-the-scales.html
3
Academy of Art, then it toured to Berlin and New York, where it was highly criticized
by the mayor Rudolph Giuliani. He referred to Ofilis The Holy Virgin Mary as sick
stuff.
10
The artist re-interpreted the Christian icon as a black woman and the artwork
contained elephant dung and pornography photography. The mayor threatened to
withdraw city funding of the Brooklyn Museum but failed in this act of censorship.
Ofili argued against this reception of his work: The Church is not made up of one
person but a whole congregation, and they should be able to interact with art without
being told what to thinkThis is all about controlweve seen it before in history.
Sadly, I thought weve moved on.
11

The exhibition included other extremely controversial artworks, such as Myra,
an image of children murderer Myra Hindley by Marcus Harvey. Despite protests by
victims family, The Mothers Against Murder and Aggression association and Mira
Hindley herself, the painting was not excluded by the show. In a press conference on
16 September 1997, David Gordon, Secretary of the Royal Academy commented on
the controversial portrait: "The majority view inside the Academy was that millions
and millions of images of Myra Hindley have been reproduced in newspapers and
magazines. Books have been written about the murders. Television programs have
been made. Hindleys image is in the public domain; part of our consciousness; an
awful part of our recent social history; a legitimate subject for journalism - and for
art."
12

Other notorious works displayed were Tracey Emin's tent titled Everyone I
Have Ever Slept With 19631995); Marc Quinn's self-portrait (a frozen head made
from pints of his own blood); Sarah Lucas's explicitly sexual images and sculptures;
Damien Hirst's shark suspended in formaldehyde titled The Physical Impossibility of
Death in the Mind of Someone Living. Hirsts work is emblematic to embrace a
discussion about art and ethics, particularly involving the contravention of the moral
rights of animals.
13





10
Bellingham, Ethics and the art market, in The Art Business, p 190
11
Vogel, 1999 Holding fast to his inspirations; an artist tries to keep his cool in the
face of angry criticism, New York Times, 28 september.
12
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensation_(art_exhibition)
13
Cashell, Aftershock
4
Hirst and animal rights protection: a moral dilemma


HIrst, Mother and child (divided), 1993

Hirsts work with animals began in 1990 with A thousand years, a vitrine with
a cows head, maggots, flies and an electric insect killer. Later, in Mother and Child
Divided (1993) two animals - an adult cow and a calf - were sectioned in the sagittal
dimension and displayed in glass and steel tanks of formaldehyde solution, ensuring
the exhibition of internal organs. Away from the flock (1994) featured a whole sheep
in a vitrine of formaldehyde. Sheep distorted into anthropomorphic postures were
included in The Death of God (2006) and In the Name of the Father, while in 1995 he
sectioned two Fresian cattle for sequential display in twelve separate tanks for Some
Comfort Gained from the Inherent Lies in Everything. He has also worked extensively
with insects: one of several was In and Out of Love (1991), featuring newly hatched
butterflies glued on a series of canvas. The installation was recently recreated in a
Tate Modern windowless room for the Artists Retrospective (2012). Butterflies
represent ephemerality of life and they make spectators reflect upon death. However,
Hirsts work has attracted significant negative attention from various animals rights
organizations. A spokesman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
said: Damien Hirsts quest to be edgy is as boring as it is callous. It does not matter
5
whether Hirst killed the animals himself or sat by while thousands of them were
massacred for his own unjustifiable amusement.
14

Analyzing the issue from an ethical perspective, first of all it is necessary to
define whether animals have any rights. According to Warnock, the concept of Rights
only applies to civil agents capable of reasoning about justice and rights; therefore
only humans can form a civil society within which the concept of rights and duties
arise
15
. On the other hand, Singer argues that the problem of moral rights comes into
focus with the issue of pain.
16
As there is convincing evidence that all mammals and
most vertebrates are capable of suffering, it can be maintained that inflicting pain on
those capable of suffering is morally wrong.
17
Therefore, moving on from a
disinterested aesthetic perspective, it can be argued that these works are disturbing,
unethical and immoral. On the other hand, Hirst transforms an immoral practice into
a meta-ethical artistic phenomenon that finally, having shocked us to its moral
wrongs, causes us reflexively to re-evaluate prevailing human attitudes to animals by
displaying these wrongs clearly to investigation.
18


Children nudity in the Arts
Having dealt with ethical issues concerning Hirsts work and animals rights, a
similar approach will be now used to focus on childrens protection, which is a much
more sensitive issue. Children nudity has always been frequent in western art, often
in the form of putti or cherubim. Yet contemporary issues concerning paedophilia and
child pornography have affected how children images are displayed in contemporary
art. There are many laws that punish the indecent representation of children both in
the UK and internationally. At a European level, the Council of Europe Convention
on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse
(Lanzarote Convention, 2007) punishes the producing, distributing as well as the
possessing of child pornography, but it has not been ratified by the UK yet. At a
national level, the UK has the Obscene Publications Act (1959), the Indecent Displays
(Control) Act (1981) and the common law offence of outraging public decency. The

14
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/9606498/Damien-Hirst-
condemned-for-killing-9000-butterflies-in-Tate-show.html
15
Warnock 1998, An intelligent persons guide to ethics
16
Singer, All animals are equal, p 222
17
Singer
18
Cashell, p 199
6
most relevant and potentially difficult legislation, however, is the Protection of
Children Act (1978), which makes it an offence to possess and display indecent
photographs or pseudo-photographs of a child under the age of 16.
19
The difficult
question concerns the definition of indecent itself: this is a concept like obscene
that is defined by the cultural value that society attributes to it. At the same time, its
meaning changes in relation to geography and time. Therefore, one might wonder
whether art transgressive art in particular can claim an exception to the
enforcement of the law and depict what society consider obscene without any legal
consequences.

Prince, Spiritual America (1983)
A controversial debate arose when Tate removed Richard Princes Spiritual
America from Pop Life: Art in a Material World in 2009. The work depicted Brooke
Shield, a young girl whose shiny naked body rises from a dense mist in a small
bathroom.
With rising investment in idealised beauty, celebrity and heightened desire for exposure in
the modern age, Brooke Shields is presented as an unknowing victim. Her youthful innocence and
airbrushed appearance renders her a static aesthetic object, as unnatural poses of the flanking
statues. The pawn of a pushy mother who kick-started her daughters modelling career at 11 months
and agreed the terms of this particular shoot, the child star strikes a tragic figure in capitalisms
destructive scale of achievement. Other details further entrench this seedy story, including Shields
defeat in a court case to buy back the negatives. And so Prince reveals the destruction lurking beneath

19
Mc Clean
7
the sheen through another borrowing. The title, Spiritual America, refers to a photograph by Alfred
Stieglitz of 1923 of a gelded horse, originally employed as a symbol of cultural absence in America.
20


The controversial nature of the image was considered before opening the
exhibition, therefore there was a warning for the public before the entrance.
Nonetheless Tates directors had been warned against an eventual prosecution by
London polices obscene publications unit and told that conviction would lead
automatically to their names being included on the sex offenders register.
21


Another case involved photographer Nan Goldin. Over the last twenty years,
she has assembled a collection of photographs of children, from newborn babies to
teenagers. In these photographs, she continues to explore many of the same themes
that run throughout her work: sexuality and self-reflection, eroticism and genders
contraposition, time passing and its effects on subjects.
22

A controversy arose concerning Klara and
Eddy Belly Dancing (1998), a photograph of two
little sisters who are performing a dance for the
artist: one of them is dancing and wrapped in
costume fabric, while the other one is naked, lying
on her back underneath her sister. Tyneside police
seized the picture from BALTIC Centre for
Contemporary Art, after complaints from the public.
The work was part of a collection of Goldins work
loaned to BALTIC by Sir Elton John for the
exhibition. Although the Crown Prosecution
Service (CPS) eventually declared the work not
to be indecent and returned it, its removal and the surrounding debate, led John to
request the closure of the exhibition.
23



20
Breese, 2009, Richard Princes picture of Brooke Shields removed from Pop Life:
Art in a material world, in This is Tomorrow, Contemporary Art Magazine, available
at http://www.thisistomorrow.info/viewArticle.aspx?artId=120
21
Mc Clean
22
http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/features/fineman/fineman12-12-96.asp
23
http://www.thefileroom.org/documents/dyn/DisplayCase.cfm/id/1310
Klara and Eddy Belly Dancing(1998)
8

Probably the most debated artworks depicting children are those by Sally
Mann. She is an internationally renowned photographer best known for her large
black and white picture of her own children. Her works are included in the permanent
collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Museum of Fine Arts, in Boston, the
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of New York City
among many others. Her recent exhibition in The Family and the Land at the
Photographers Gallery, London (JuneSeptember 2010) has reopened a debate
concerning her work. Although some authors assert that these photographs show her
children naked, yet are wholly innocent and depicted without any sexual overtones
24
,
this cannot considered true. Immediate Family this was the original name of the
show exhibiting all the pictures portraying her children explores different aspects of
childhood, including its sensuous - even disturbing - sides. Woodward writes:
The pictures dramatize burgeoning sexuality, while implying the more for- bidden
topics of incest and child abuse. Manns laconic captions lend a parental concern,
honed with a feminist edge. Some of the poses seem violence with an esthetes
dispassion, for bringing out the subtle texture of blood and bruises without offering a
clear political statement along the way.

Indeed in Popsicle Drips, the subject is her sons naked torso. His lower abdomen is
stained with some liquid that without the title - could recall blood. The full frontal
nudity, together with the drips, makes the image highly provocative.
25
Similarly
provocative is Jessie at five, where the naked child assumes a pose of a much more
sexually mature girl, wearing a pearl necklace, lipstick and blush.


24
Mc Clean
25
Osbourn, Sally Manns Immediate Family: the unflinching and unafraid childhood
9

Mann, Popsicle Drips(1985) Mann, Jessie at five (1987)


The quality and artistic value of Manns work is not questioned in this essay,
yet it raises some ethical issues, for her being the childrens mother. For instance, she
claimed to protect her children from all harm, but one might wonder whether she has
knowingly put them at risk by releasing these kind of provocative pictures, while
exploiting their image.
Another controversial point is the possibility for children to give their free
consent for controversial portraits, especially when the artist is their parent. In this
context, Baylis stated that "What adults understand as the sexuality of children is
always defined by the adult world; in this view, childhood is not fixed but culturally
produced".
26
However, one might argue that these sensual images do not emerge
from the natural behavior of the subjects but they are shaped by the taste and fantasies
of the photographer. Therefore, one might question whether it is morally right for a
mother to produce such unnaturally sensuous images of her children. Furthermore, is
it ethically correct for a mother to exploit her childrens image for arts sake (and for
profit, as well)?

This essay embraces Cashells aforementioned opinion, stating that a work of
art can be immoral and not necessarily suffer a diminished aesthetic value as a
consequence. Denying that these works are morally problematic does not help in
solving an ethical debate. Yet the acknowledgment of the ethical and moral problems

26
Osbourn
10
related to such works is an act of intellectual honesty, which is necessary in order to
vindicate the significance of this art.
Transgressive art in general involve moral issues regarding the possibility to
offend its audiences sensibility. However, being this the exact purpose of this kind of
Art, this paper argue that this is how this artworks are morally significant. Moreover,
adopting a relativistic point of view, it can be maintained that the audience might
react in very dissimilar ways, depending on their culture, education, age and gender.
There is not any absolute value that can prevent this art from being exhibited on this
basis.
On the other hand, Hirsts and Manns works raise another set of issues: they
harm their subjects during the process of making the art itself. They abuse the
subjects protection rights (not to be harmed for the animals and not to be exposed
for the children). Therefore this is not an ethical dilemma that can be solved by
simply endorsing freedom of artistic expression. A more pragmatic approach to this
question might recognize that this kind of Art has immediate negative effects on the
subjects that are involved. This paper is not aimed at finding a solution for this
ethical debate. However, it can be argued that recognizing that Art can in fact harm its
subjects would be a major step in the ethical dispute.





11
REFERENCES
Bellingham, 2008. Ethics and the art market, in Chong and Robertson (ed.), The
Art Business, Routledge

Breese, 2009, Richard Princes picture of Brooke Shields removed from Pop Life:
Art in a material world, in This is Tomorrow, Contemporary Art Magazine, available
at http://www.thisistomorrow.info/viewArticle.aspx?artId=120

Cashell, 2009. Aftershock, Tauris and co., London

Downey, 2008. Selling used cars, carpets and art, in Chong and Robertson (ed.),
The Art Business, Routledge

Fineman, 1996. The Nan Goldin story, Artnet Magazine, available at
http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/features/fineman/fineman12-12-96.asp

Freeland, 2001, But is this art?, Oxford University Press

Nikkha, 2012, Damien Hirst condemned for killing 9,000 butterflies in Tate show,
The Telegraph, available at
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/9606498/Damien-Hirst-condemned-
for-killing-9000-butterflies-in-Tate-show.html

Kloss, 2008, Borderline? Art on the scales, Caf Babel The European Magazine,
http://www.cafebabel.co.uk/article/23855/borderline-art-on-the-scales.html

Mc Clean, 2010, The Last Taboo, Frieze Blog, available at
http://blog.frieze.com/the-last-taboo/

Osbourn, 2006 SALLY MANN:Sally Manns Immediate Family: The Unflinching
and Unafraid Childhood, American Suburb X: available at
http://www.americansuburbx.com/2009/11/theory-sally-manns-immediate-
family.html

Singer, All animals are equal in Regan and Singer (ed.), Animal Rights and
Human Obligations, New Jersey, 1989

Unknown, 2013. Brought before the Inquisition 1573, available at
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/inquisition.htm

Unknown, Nan Goldin photograph seized, available at
http://www.thefileroom.org/documents/dyn/DisplayCase.cfm/id/1310

Vogel, 1999 Holding fast to his inspirations; an artist tries to keep his cool in the
face of angry criticism, New York Times, 28 september.

Warnock 1998, An intelligent persons guide to ethics, Duckworth Overlook

Woodward, Richard B. The Disturbing Photography of Sally Mann. The New York
Times Magazine. 27 Sept. 1992