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A review by gregbrown
The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning by Maggie Nelson
2.0
Disappointing.
Despite pursuing multiple avenues to explore cruelty in art, seems to sidestep basic issues of what counts as consent (and whether a thing really is possible for some acts). Instead we get a muddled, piece-wise groping against it as Nelson again runs into it on a case-by-case basis.
When you're simulating cruelty on film, what are the bounds for when it becomes immorally real to the actors? The audience? At what point are we just doing crime or aggression and coating it in a veneer of "art," like the cited case of one artist taking a TV host hostage as an artistic statement?
It also falls into he trap of favoring the avant-garde because it takes an arty stance and is designed to generate art discourse around the piece, even when the text itself is less rich than most "lower art." For example, while she refers to it glancingly in one paragraph, the Jackass films alone are richer texts than most of the stuff she discusses here, and more capable of mining our collective responses! Or devoting paragraphs to a kaleidoscopic art film called "I-Be Area" when Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! is tackling a similar aesthetic to much more sprawling ends.
Nelson is a good writer and the material varied enough that it isn't a total disaster, but woof.
Despite pursuing multiple avenues to explore cruelty in art, seems to sidestep basic issues of what counts as consent (and whether a thing really is possible for some acts). Instead we get a muddled, piece-wise groping against it as Nelson again runs into it on a case-by-case basis.
When you're simulating cruelty on film, what are the bounds for when it becomes immorally real to the actors? The audience? At what point are we just doing crime or aggression and coating it in a veneer of "art," like the cited case of one artist taking a TV host hostage as an artistic statement?
It also falls into he trap of favoring the avant-garde because it takes an arty stance and is designed to generate art discourse around the piece, even when the text itself is less rich than most "lower art." For example, while she refers to it glancingly in one paragraph, the Jackass films alone are richer texts than most of the stuff she discusses here, and more capable of mining our collective responses! Or devoting paragraphs to a kaleidoscopic art film called "I-Be Area" when Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! is tackling a similar aesthetic to much more sprawling ends.
Nelson is a good writer and the material varied enough that it isn't a total disaster, but woof.