Chapter 16

Shock Art And Art Shows

Many of us have heard the term Shock Art, which is

also known as conceptual art, avant-garde, or very

contemporary art.  We've all come in contact with an

outrageous object someone else was calling art and we were

calling someone's trash. The majority of us will view these

works as strange and curious, wondering who would want to

create or buy such artwork.

Conceptual art is a very small fringe part of the art

world as a whole, which often produces pieces no one in the

art industry understands.  Yet a series of upside down

urinals cost $75,000 a piece in a Soho gallery. At an art

exhibition in Madrid, a dead horse in the middle of the floor

was selling for several hundred thousand dollars. It's my

opinion the art community as a whole, and particularly the

conceptual art community, is way more interested in the

reaction caused by art and the shock value of it as opposed

to producing works of a more inspiring nature. CNN news

gets a reaction from people; this doesn't mean I

want to make it a permanent part of my life.

This art is more intention than design, which means

the artist has thought through their art with the intention of

getting a controversial reaction, which draws notice to their

name.  Artists hope to make themselves stand out and

become well know in order to establish a reputation and sell

more of their work.

The art world considers this as a way for new artists

to make their mark. The unsung motto seems to be "the

stranger the better." When artist set this as their goal,

you will find they work on weirder and more disgusting ways

of cultivating a reaction.  Many artists take it upon