Controversial Art

Chris Ofili, The Holy Virgin Mary 1996

Controversial art is beneficial for many reasons.
For one, it opens our delicate little minds to the idea that there are things out there that we never knew or could conceive about. For instance, I was raised Catholic and was taught the idea of The Virgin Mary being a white woman, and Jesus being a white man. Now, there have been ideas thrown around through things such as movies or the radio about talk of a "black Jesus". Now although I had heard of this idea, I had never thought of The Virgin Mary as being a black woman. Not that this idea is wrong in any way: please don't misunderstand my ignorance for disbelief or hatred of any kind. I was just raised with certain beliefs and taught not to challenge them. This painting was very interesting to me because it did challenge what was ground into my innocent little mind from the time I was a baby: the idea that the Virgin Mary could be a black woman. As far as the mayor of New York, and the same man that was willing to pull funding from the Brooklyn Museum of Art for hosting The Holy Virgin Mary, he was appalled by the painting. The exact painting, in fact, that he had never even seen. There was discussion of elephant dung being thrown at the portrait by avid Catholics (which turned out to be false: what actually occurred was the artist used the elephant dung because in his African culture, elephant dung was part of the earth, so, in fact, it was not a sign of disrespect, but rather a sign of reverence for him to include this material in his painting) and these same people being opposed and offended by the painting.
Continuing on with my original point: another reason why controversial art is beneficial is because it goes outside the box. It stands out. It is different and unique and sometimes crude. It gives us a reason to turn our heads at these types of work, because, unlike regular art it is controversial. It gives us another plane, another level of art that was not touched had it not been different than regular art.
And moving on to my last point of controversial art: it sparks conversations and discussions between two people. While some of these talks may be heated and eventually turn into arguments, they allow us to broaden our minds (if we are open enough for them!) and really analyze a new type of art. A category in itself, controversial art forces us to stare at things we might not be comfortable with in an effort to understand it.
I do not believe that the world would be a better place if all art conformed to predetermined standards. The reason being that art is an expression of oneself. One should be allowed to release whatever feelings or emotions that person has into a piece of art. America is supposed to be about the freedom of expression, and what kind of country are we if we give artists predetermined standards, or limits to their creativity?
Before I did section three of this course, I found myself a more conservative person when it came to art. I didn’t really believe that one should be what I thought was “crude” when it came to creating something that in my mind was supposed to be beautiful. Now that I am a little more educated on the subject, I realize that art doesn’t have to be beautiful to be amazing. It doesn’t have to be conservative to have a deeper meaning. We can appreciate and love a piece of art for what it is, and not be so closed-minded as to what an artist should or should not create. I now realize that art is an expression of oneself and may mean many different things, no matter what it looks like. It is our job as the viewer to analyze the painting for its true meaning, not just the face value.