View Full Version : The World They're Set to Inherit
yeahwho
07-24-2006, 08:59 AM
Controversial art show "End Times" has set the blogs on hyperdrive because of it's use of children crying as a metaphor for the World we're leaving behind.
STEAL a toddler's lollipop and he's bound to start bawling, was photographer Jill Greenberg's thinking. So that's just what Greenberg did to illicit tears from the 27 or so 2- and 3-year-olds featured in her latest exhibition, "End Times," recently at the Paul Kopeikin Gallery in Los Angeles. The children's cherubic faces, illuminated against a blue-white studio backdrop, suggest abject betrayal far beyond the loss of a Tootsie Pop; sometimes tears spill onto naked shoulders and bellies.
The work depicts how children would feel if they knew the state of the world they're set to inherit, explained Greenberg, whose own daughter is featured in the show. "Our government is so corrupt, with all the cronyism and corporate lobbyists," she said. "I just feel that our world is being ruined. And the environment — when I was pregnant, I kept thinking that I'd love to have a tuna fish sandwich, but I couldn't because we've ruined our oceans."
Here are some of the photos (http://www.calendarlive.com/galleriesandmuseums/la-et-kids24jul24-pg,0,2119282.photogallery?coll=la-home-headlines&index=1)
and this is the story (http://www.calendarlive.com/galleriesandmuseums/la-et-kids24jul24,0,5097096.story?coll=la-home-headlines)
I have to say I have some mixed feelings about the exhibit but it is brilliant, I'm definately thinking about the world we're leaving behind.
I give it a (y) 's up!
wanton wench
07-24-2006, 09:49 AM
while the pictures definitely convey a powerful message about our world, i'm a bit disturbed by them. not because of the message but the fact that someone would make all these children cry.
Robert Nesta Marley said it best "dont let the children cry"
beastieangel01
07-24-2006, 04:59 PM
yeah I have mixed feelings about this one.
I understand what message they are trying to get across, and it does that well. However, at the same time, I feel like these children are way to innocent and it's cruel to do that to them even if it IS just candy.
beastieangel01
07-24-2006, 05:11 PM
I want to follow this up since I just started having a discussion about it with someone. I didn't read the article at all and my friend just did so that just brings up some things. The fact that people are treating it as such a horrible thing is interesting.
Like I said, I feel like these children are way to innocent and it's cruel to do that to them even if it IS just candy, I wouldn't be able to undertake such a project myself. However, I'm not saying that it's the worst thing in the world either. People bringing up child molesters in order to relate it somehow in regards to this art is completely laughable.
SobaViolence
07-24-2006, 08:03 PM
it's for the sake of art.
to convey a sense of misery and unbeknownst tragedy
next time you vote, will you please think of the children!
or just recycle.
kaiser soze
07-24-2006, 08:05 PM
the children will get over their lollipop being snatched from them, but they may not be able to get the future they will live in
those pictures have so much character, toddlers express themselves through the visceral, crying is a natural part of their communication
be thankful these children are alive....thousands of them are dying daily from the world they live in now!
Schmeltz
07-25-2006, 04:42 AM
the children will get over their lollipop being snatched from them, but they may not be able to get the future they will live in
I think this is an insightful thought that sums up the whole discussion. A very necessary and important part of our social development is the shock and disappointment that we confront as children. It takes many forms, from discovering that there is no Santa Claus to discovering that our parents must be sexual beings as well as moral arbiters. These sorts of revelations, along with the profound emotional reactions they precipitate, are important steps in our development as psychologically sound individuals. But to reconcile the current state of the world with some sense of social normalcy - this is a profoundly devestating leap, one made more and more surreal every time I turn on the fucking news. I think the equation of a child's horrified disappointment at a relatively innocent transgression, with a thinking person's dismay at the atrocious state of world conditions, is a very telling and relevant comment. By far the most horrifying implication, to me, is the notion that our collective experience will put us through even worse lessons before we learn to provide our own solutions to the ultimate dilemmas - as bad as the history of the past century has been, suppose it gets even worse before our societies mature to the point where we are able to provide a collective solution to quite conceivably insoluble woes?
To consider myself as an intellectual child, in the company of other intellectual children, attempting to do something about the monumental fuckups of my parents, is utterly terrifying. I only hope there is something we can do about the mess these assholes are leaving us. Otherwise, it might get unalterably worse and there might not be a way to make it better even if we try for ten thousand years.
ms.peachy
07-25-2006, 05:38 AM
I dunno. I get that stealing a lollipop to make a kid cry not the greatest crime ever committed, but it still does seem a bit exploitive. I understand the artist's point, and it is an important one, but overall the exhibition concept seems a bit cheap and simplistic to me. It's like that episode of the Simpsons when Marge's painting is in a competition, and the other painting being judged is a unicorn in front of a nuclear reactor and the word "Why?".
ms.peachy
07-25-2006, 05:40 AM
To consider myself as an intellectual child, in the company of other intellectual children, attempting to do something about the monumental fuckups of my parents, is utterly terrifying.
Oh please, like the world was in such a great state when your parents got it. :rolleyes:
It's like that episode of the Simpsons when Marge's painting is in a competition, and the other painting being judged is a unicorn in front of a nuclear reactor and the word "Why?".
yeah, exactly. it was lame when bush trotted the children onstage to promote his stem cell policy, and this is kinda lame too.
people people, come on people now, people people come on be people now
yeahwho
07-25-2006, 12:54 PM
I do agree with the above lameness as far as a set of photos, I would never buy or own them. I do have alot of photography and an eye for good art, the brilliance of Jill Greenberg's art is the buttons it's pushed. The far right bloggers have actually legitimized her work through criticism to the front page of 3 of planet earths leading newspapers and countless websites!
LATimes writer Steven Barrie-Anthony sums up his story with this observation,
It's true that things are not entirely as they seem; the images were enhanced during postproduction, Greenberg said, to make the children appear more upset than they really were. She used Photoshop to darken furrows in brows, shine tears until they glistened.
In the end, "This is more a story about blogging than about photography," said Stephen White, formerly a gallery owner and currently a private dealer and collector in Studio City. "It's about a generation that's so caught up in itself that everything it says it thinks is significant, even though it's not saying anything at all.
"People in the photography world, anyone who is sophisticated about photography, knows that this is not offensive," he said. "Taking away a lollipop is not child abuse. There's no irreparable harm. I'm just not sure there's any significance to the photographs, either."
There is significance in this much free publicity, huge signiificance.
Qdrop (http://www.beastieboys.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=68940) could make a bundle on his pictures. ;)
Schmeltz
07-25-2006, 10:38 PM
It's true that things are not entirely as they seem; the images were enhanced during postproduction
So what? The artist is not under an objective obligation to provide a realistic portrait of a subject, she is attempting to make a highly politicized point through a contrived and manipulated image. I don't see why she shouldn't be allowed to alter her medium in any way she chooses.
Oh please, like the world was in such a great state when your parents got it.
Point well made.
yeahwho
07-26-2006, 10:57 AM
So what? The artist is not under an objective obligation to provide a realistic portrait of a subject, she is attempting to make a highly politicized point through a contrived and manipulated image. I don't see why she shouldn't be allowed to alter her medium in any way she chooses.
The writer was pointing out that Jill Greenberg's technique for tears was minimized, not her art. He wasn't trying to be a critic, just an observer.
I do like the pictures, but the actual untouched AP photos of children living in Shock and Awe Iraq carry a much larger punch, or the US goverment censored photos of caskets covered with American flags flying home.
There are certain elements and factions of people who live in the United States that want to cover up and minimize war, I do not call these people citizens or patriots.
Schmeltz
07-26-2006, 07:58 PM
Oh, I conflated the gallery owner's statement with the point of the article. Whoops.
yeahwho
07-26-2006, 11:20 PM
Oh, I conflated the gallery owner's statement with the point of the article. Whoops.
Ha. No room for conflating on the BBMB, save that for elevators and dinner parties.
The Notorious LOL
07-27-2006, 01:03 AM
"I just feel that our world is being ruined. And the environment — when I was pregnant, I kept thinking that I'd love to have a tuna fish sandwich, but I couldn't because we've ruined our oceans."
I wonder when that happened, exactly. Last I checked Tuna Fish is purchased and eaten regularly by me.
ms.peachy
07-27-2006, 02:04 AM
I wonder when that happened, exactly. Last I checked Tuna Fish is purchased and eaten regularly by me.
The recommendation for pregnant women is to not eat very much tuna, I think it's no more than one serving a week (and even that's kind of pushing it), because of the mercury levels from pollution. Since tuna are big fish, they eat a lot of small fish. Mercury and other heavy metals don't leave the animals' bodies through excretion, just gets stored, so bigger fish have higher concentrations of mercury from all of the small fish they have eaten. Which is bad because mercury can cross the placenta and cause damage to the developing brain of the baby.
Now you know.
The Notorious LOL
07-27-2006, 02:21 AM
meh, they say the same shit about alcohol like if a woman drinks at any point during her pregnancy shes gonna have this waterhead FAS kid.
ms.peachy
07-27-2006, 02:39 AM
meh, they say the same shit about alcohol like if a woman drinks at any point during her pregnancy shes gonna have this waterhead FAS kid.
No, it's not quite the same thing. With alcohol, the recommendation is not to drink because they can't really identify how much is a "safe" amount for a woman to drink, because it's going to vary vastly from woman to woman depending on their weight, bmi, genetic history, etc etc how fast/efficiently they can metabolise and oxidise the alcohol in their system, whereas mercury is an indiscriminate toxin and has a cumulative effect over time. In other words, two very different women could have the same amount of alcohol and the effects will be very different; the same two women could ingest the same amount of mercury and the effects would be the same.
Trust me, I just been through all this, ya know?
The Notorious LOL
07-27-2006, 03:00 AM
well aside from all that this art show is lame.
Drederick Tatum
07-27-2006, 04:54 AM
children are such pussies.
is it wrong that I laughed at most of those photos?
yeahwho
07-27-2006, 10:57 AM
children are such pussies.
is it wrong that I laughed at most of those photos?
(y)
If a guy can't find a little happiness and laughter in "Art" then I say, whats the point of picking up a paint brush.
Fucking Bob Saget
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