Provoking is asking for a response. It is impossible to avoid this if the expression of art involves a slaughtered pig in the title role and a lot of blood. Publications in newspapers definitely contribute to this.
This past Monday, the most recent appearance of the Austrian artist Hermann Nitsch in the newspaper will – for the time being – be the last one. He had been in the news quite often in the weeks preceding his performance of Saturday last week. Before his performance at the Incubate Festival in Tilburg, his expression of art had already been the topic of animated debates. Photographs with a lot of blood then resulted in disapproving comments. The response to the article and the photograph in Monday’s newspaper – and posted on the website – confirmed once more that not everyone liked the project. Terms used were in keeping: disgusting, unheard-of, dirty, sick, shocking. The use of the slaughtered pig, the bloody picture and the cross were the targets of the critics. And it was the opinion of the readers who reacted that the newspaper should not have shown them.
The image was not nice, but should the editors therefore decide not to publish? Such a decision should at least be well-considered.
Nitsch’s expression of art is not totally new, but he continues to be talked about.
He was the guest of honor at the festival in Tilburg, and for this reason only, a newspaper should cover the story. The question is how this was to be done. If it was extensively shown in prepublications what the “exhibition” with the slaughtered animal looked like, then one may definitely wonder if it was necessary to do it all over again, and so prominently. The description of the happening looked more like an interpretation of the atmosphere, and critical questions about this expression of art were missing. In view of all the prior commotion, such questions would have been fitting.
Further explanations, especially around the “why” of such an exhibition, would have been useful.
That the exhibition may be seen as a complaint about how our society is functioning, for example, was one aspect a female reader had not perceived. And there was more to explain.
“Imagine this is your daughter,” was one reader’s comment about the picture on the front page of Wednesday’s newspaper. She was protesting with others in The Hague. She was carrying a sign with the text “I pay my doctorate with my anus”. This should have been better explained in the caption. The student protest took place in different ways. One group of female students were dressed as hookers to make it known that they were forced into prostitution to be able to pay for their studies. If one knows the background, such a statement on a banner becomes less trivial.
