August 29, 2008: Crucifrog

Story from here.

Having grown up Catholic myself and having family who still are, I fail to see how this is offensive.

I wish some Christians would stop trying to take ownership of a historical form of capital punishment. If they stop trying to make graven images representative of god then artists would no longer see them as valid images to be used in art.

Yebbut, we're talkin' about the Vatican. Is there anything that doesn't trigger offence?

I've been expecting a letter from them for the last year and a half.

Sorry HLJ, I can't seem to get the first draft through comittee.

The article doesn't say what the beer and egg are supposed to mean (if anything). Something German, maybe?

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Originally Posted by dar512 The article doesn't say what the beer and egg are supposed to mean (if anything). Something German, maybe?

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Originally Posted by barefoot serpent as long as the frog is raw.

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Originally Posted by dar512 The article doesn't say what the beer and egg are supposed to mean (if anything). Something German, maybe?

This could be a perfect plot for a new Muppet Movie. Fozie Bear could play John, the beloved. Miss Piggy would be Mary Magdelene of course. Someone call Hollywood!

I don't care about the blashemy angle here, but i do have a problem with this being considered art. come on, at some point we need to step up and say, "no this stupid half assed attempt at wit is not art, now go get a fucking job and quit applying for grants!"

SG, I agree with you on one point - Jesus was not the only guy who was crucified, duh. I guess it's all about the *intention* - did he intend to be blasphemous? Was it symbolically referring to Jesus or to some generic other fellow who got nailed up there?

In other words, would it have the same meaning if it was a frog strapped to an electric chair?

My guess is no...so maybe I don't agree with you entirely, I still think it's blasphemous. Still kind of funny though.

Lookout: Agree with you too. It's like something you'd find in a cheesy souvenir shop, with the tourist trap's name screenprinted on the cross.

"I got nailed in...[insert location]"

I bet it'd sell!

I'm not really sure what blasphemous means, and I'm not about to go looking it up, just in case they're watching me.

I think it means you can't crucifry a Hindu frog

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Originally Posted by lookout123 I don't care about the blashemy angle here, but i do have a problem with this being considered art. come on, at some point we need to step up and say, "no this stupid half assed attempt at wit is not art, now go get a fucking job and quit applying for grants!"

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Originally Posted by Juniper "I got nailed in...[insert location]" I bet it'd sell!

I chuckled at that, too.

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Originally Posted by Juniper ~snip~ Lookout: Agree with you too. It's like something you'd find in a cheesy souvenir shop, with the tourist trap's name screenprinted on the cross. "I got nailed in...[insert location]" I bet it'd sell!

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Originally Posted by dar512 Now that's funny.

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Originally Posted by lookout123 I don't care about the blashemy angle here, but i do have a problem with this being considered art. come on, at some point we need to step up and say, "no this stupid half assed attempt at wit is not art, now go get a fucking job and quit applying for grants!"

I've got to agree that something should be done about crap being called art. Red Green said it best. "If I can do it, it's not art."

Whether or not you can do it, is less relevant than whether or not you would have thought of it.

It doesn't do anything for me. Nor did the Piss Christ. But...sometimes art is a rebellion against its own conventions. Can you think of anything more diametrically opposed to renaissance religious art than this Frog, or Piss Christ? Though Piss Christ is certainly a striking image and carries with it a sense of weight because of the ground it treads upon.

Not my cup of tea, but I would be uncomfortable about saying it isn't art when I do not know enough about the artist's intentions.

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Originally Posted by Brianna Completely agree. That "Piss Christ" thing wasn't offensive to me in a religious way (hey, I can't think of anything that is) but putting a plastic crucifixion in a cup of urine, taking a pic and calling it ART? but, just so you know where I'm coming from, I didn't think Duchamp's Fountain was art OR Tracey Emin's My Bed. Used tampons on a mattress doesn't really do it for me. Though, I have liked some of the other things she's done...

I have no idea whatthe artist intended but for all I know he could have been commenting on the deification of popular culture and self-gratification.

Dada...I don' like it.

I'm allowed to not like things.

And as far as the artist's intention...well, Piss Christ I certainly DO recall, so if the artists intention was to disturb, he did disturb and disgust me (for I don't swallow every artists...um...bullshit about what they did when they got high and "created" something) Some of it is scam, don't you think? I also recall Guernica----it's very disturbing but to mine eyes, it's truly art.

Not to get too off the subject, Ibram, but did you ever read The Purloined Poe? with Lacan and Derrida, a "psychoanalytic reading."

well, that book reminds me of dada art. It's like, WTF? Perhaps I am too provincial to "get" it---but I knows what I likes and I don't like hocus pocus parading as art. If I get a sink, throw it on a table and call it art, is it art?

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Originally Posted by HungLikeJesus I'm not really sure what blasphemous means, and I'm not about to go looking it up, just in case they're watching me.

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Originally Posted by Brianna If I get a sink, throw it on a table and call it art, is it art?

The problem for me with this piece is that it's...clumsy. I can see what the parts are supposed to say--you have the frog splayed out like a biology specimen, all victim-like; egg is on the one hand like life or food, beer is on the other like pleasure or vice, crucifix is FU to religion and/or signifies torture...but it lacks cohesiveness. And a sense of elegance, which successful art has. It's just bad art.

I agree with the cheesy frog not being art.

My mom was an artist and always took me to modern art exhibitions- remember funk art? But when I was 16 I came to NYC by myself and was in the Museum of Modern Art looking at painted I-beams when I decided that less was less and it wasn't art anyway. Went off to look at the Monets and Picasso's Guernica instead, because that was art.

Martin Kippenberger must have had a reason for making this frog look like something a teenager made from Fimo, because he had real talent.

I'm not saying I like it (I liked Piss Christ, I thought it looked beautiful and was very thought provoking) but it is the work of an artist. Painting below by Martin Kippenberger courtesy of The Saatchi Gallery.

Art:

Genius, Dana! I hadn't seen that bit-----hilarious!


To me, that is indeed art!