But is it Art?

    The above artwork was a temporary installation seen in an empty store in Avignon, France. I don't know the name of the artist, but the use of empty shops by artists on a temporary basis while the shop is un-Let is a good policy for Landlords, artists and the high-street – all of which benefit from visible activity.

 Is what is being displayed here 'Art'? It is certainly engaging, shocking and provoked considerable attention in the street, however, in Tolstoy's essay, 'What is Art?', shock tactics are not enough for the work to be considered 'Art'. What is being displayed has to communicate something more, it needs in some way to alter our perception. The use of dead animals in art is not new, the dead shark in Hurst's 'the impossibility of death in the mind of someone living', for example, but the above installation unnerves us in a way that Hurst's work doesn't. It appears to have a similar quality to some of the 'primitive art' that used to be displayed in The Museum of Mankind (London), a quality that could be seen in the 'nkisi nkondi' nail fetish sculptures 'that served as a powerful guarantor of justice'. I believe that this work does communicate something more and we can understand this if we question what is distasteful about the installation.

If the deer had been hanging in a butcher's shop window, dangling from a hook in it's hind legs, would we still be shocked? Saddened maybe, shocked? I doubt it. But maybe we should be more shocked at seeing an animal in that pose, rather than seeing it reclining on a sofa. The reason the installation becomes shocking is because it endows the dead deer with humanness. We see it as part of our world, in a familiar pose, inhabiting the world we inhabit and that human world includes the right to be treated in a dignified way. The artwork therefore becomes a political act that questions how humanity treats animals – the human face presenting the poor creature as one of us. This fits in to Robert Irwin's definition of art as 'a continuous expansion of our perceptual awareness and a continuous expansion of our awareness of the world around us'.

  In an act that re-draws the demarcation lines between art and Society, instead of leaving storefronts empty, artists need to adopt Gorilla tactics and engage the current economic situation to convince Landlords to allow the temporary use of empty shops as exhibition space. As Banksy says in his book 'Wall and Piece', there are many good artists hiding away in their rooms, they need to get out there and show people what they can do.

Alex King is an architect and his design 'Santiago Townhouse' won the British Homes Awards in 2011 - Alex King Design / Designalexable, examples of his latest work can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yGQhlRz8mc

1 'But is it Art?' title taken from book of the same name by Cynthia Freeland

2 Leo Tolstoy essay 'What is Art?' - published in 1896, is freely available on the Web.

3 The term 'Primitive Art' was originally 'coined' by Clive Bell.

4 Banksy – 'Wall & Piece' buy it on Amazon. ISBN 1844137872.