Playful or deadly serious, the creations of some contemporary artists have gained notoriety for an ability to amuse, puzzle, shock or anger viewers. Shining a mirror on the world around them, they often raise both moral and political questions. Chosen for the controversial or contested nature of their work, the ten artists below have helped to re-define what is considered art and will be remembered for many years to come.
Jake and Dinos Chapman
Shocking, grotesque and offensive are all words that have been used to describe the creations of British artists Jake and Dinos Chapman. Yetthese responses to their works rarely look beyond surface impressions to consider the purpose behind them. Collaborating since 1991, the Chapman brothers have been producing art that deliberately shocks and provokes viewers to question the society in which they live. Their works that deal with torture, war and Nazism reflect the difficulty of representing atrocities, thus turning their attempts into inane constructions. The brothers have attracted media attention by making controversial statements to the press and buying a set of Francisco Goya’s ‘Disasters of War’ prints before altering them with silly faces (‘Insult to Injury’, 2003).
Andres Serrano
American photographer Andres Serrano is renowned for using bodily fluids and faeces in his work. The photograph ‘Piss Christ’ (1987) sparked outrage amongst Christians for depicting a small plastic crucifix submerged in the artist’s urine. His 2011 exhibition of this work at a gallery in Avignon resulted in an angry response from French Catholic fundamentalists, which included hate mail and abusive telephone calls. This led to 1,000 people marching through the streets to protest outside the gallery and the subsequent vandalism of the photograph. Serrano is also known for his work concerning the homeless, such as a collection of 200 signs he purchased from them (‘Sign of the Times’, 2013) and the photographic series entitled ‘Residents of New York’ (2014).Damien Hirst
A fascination with death is present in many of Damien Hirst’s creations, from dead animals in tanks of formaldehyde to cabinets of medicines and a diamond-encrusted skull. Hirst draws attention to the fragility of life and the closeness of mortality for all living beings. He also controversially demonstrates the cycle of nature with ‘live sculptures’ like ‘A Thousand Years’, where flies hatch from maggots and feed on a rotting cow’s head, or die via an insect-o-cutor. Criticism has been aimed at the way the Young British Artists and contemporaries use assistants to produce works, such as Hirst’s repetitive dot paintings. As one of the UK’s wealthiest artists, Hirst has attracted further criticism for turning art works into financially driven commodities.
David Černý
Czech sculptor, David Černý first attracted public attention when he was arrested in 1991 for painting a Soviet tank pink, which acted as a war memorial in Prague. He has since used the city as a location for many of his controversial sculptures, such as a vast purple hand with an extended raised middle finger (‘Gesture’, 2013) and a gold statue urinating from the top of the National Theatre (‘Nation to Itself’, 2002) that was later cancelled by the venue. Most contested was his model of Saddam Hussein suspended in a tank of formaldehyde (‘Shark’, 2005). A Belgian town as well as a Polish city banned the display of this parody of one of Damien Hirst’s most famous works.
Jeff Koons
From shiny balloon animals to giant topiary sculptures, the work of American artist Jeff Koons has often been contested and dismissed as ‘kitsch’. He is particularly renowned for his bold public sculptures, such as the 43-foot-tall ‘Puppy’ (1992), a floral topiary piece installed at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. Treating mass-produced consumer products as items of art, Koon’s work appears to continue the traditions of Pop artists in a Neo-pop fashion. He has attracted some criticism for claiming that his creations have no underlying meaning and for manufacturing them in an Andy Warhol-style factory, using a colour-by-numbers method to aid employees.Marco Evaristti
Chilean-born architecture graduate Marco Evaristti made headlines in 2000 with an exhibition at Denmark’s Trapholt Museum, consisting of live goldfish in blenders, which led to the museum director being charged with, but later acquitted of, animal cruelty. Controversy was not new to Evaristti who, in 1995, drew attention to the number of daily road casualties in Bangkok via paintings that used materials and blood gathered at the scenes of accidents. Evaristti’s large-scale projects include painting the tip of a Greenland iceberg with 3,000 litres of red paint to highlight environmental concerns. One of his most unsettling works was a model of the gate to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, made of gold from the teeth of Jews who died in such camps.
Marina Abramović
Since the 1970s, Marina Abramović, has pioneered Performance Art through making endurance and pain the key elements of her work. Abramović first rose to fame by pushing the limits of body and mind through performances such as ‘Lips of Thomas’ (1975), where she explored her feelings about Christianity and Communism through the acts of whipping herself, lying on a bed of ice, eating a kilogram of honey and carving a star into her stomach. She often questions the role of the audience, challenging them to participate, inviting them to stare silently into her eyes for an unspecified amount of time (‘The Artist is Present’, 2010). Abramović also forces the audience to make ethical judgements, resulting in her removal from the aforementioned ice bed.Maurizio Cattelan
The creations of Maurizio Cattelan reveal the absurdity of aspects of the contemporary art scene, making a mockery of its artists and institutions. Yet his jokes, such as leasing his Venice Biennale space to an advertising company (‘Working Is a Bad Job’, 1993), are subsequently endorsed through their acceptance in the art world. Cattelan has also made vast sums of money from the sale of works like ‘La Nona Ora’ (The Ninth Hour, 1999), depicting Pope John Paul II being hit by a meteor. Said sculpture upset Polish Catholics, leading to vandalism of a version on display at Warsaw’s Zacheta Gallery. In 2010, Cattelan co-founded the magazine Toilet Paper, featuring surreal images created around themes like love or greed.Santiago Sierra
Capitalism, exploitation of workers and immigrant poverty are all topics explored by Santiago Sierra. At the 2003 Venice Biennale, he blockaded the entrance to the Spanish Pavilion with bricks, only allowing entry to visitors with Spanish passports. By replicating employment scenarios, as well as paying his participants the minimum wage, Sierra also highlights the toughness and inequality of Capitalist work practices. Sierra has even questioned the nature of employment in art institutions by paying a museum watchman to live for 365 hours behind a wall at MoMA PS1. In another project, ‘House in Mud’ (2005), he filled Kestner Gesellschaft museum with 400 tons of mud, reflecting the 1930s creation of a lake in Hanover using the unemployed as a cheap labour force.Tracey Emin
In 1999, the Turner Prize-nominated ‘My Bed’ turned Tracey Emin into a household name, inviting the public’s to a display of her unmade bed with stains and used condoms. Two years earlier, her installation of a tent lined with names, entitled ‘Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995’, had featured among the works of the Young British Artists at Charles Saatchi’s famous exhibition Sensation. These were the beginnings of a reputation for very personal works exploring topics like her relationships, lifestyle and upbringing. Although installations are among Emin’s most notorious works, the Royal Academician’s extensive repertoire includes photography, drawing, painting, sculpture, neon and fabric art. Monoprints with autobiographical informal drawings and miss-spelt text have also become trademark Emin pieces.
By Rebecca Steel
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