# The MOST offensive piece of art ever. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 2, 2012, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-offensive-piece-of-art-ever/639669 "2012-11-02T15:00:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-offensive-piece-of-art-ever/639669/21 "2012-11-02T19:29:59Z")
> [@I\_Made\_French\_Toast\_For\_You](#): > > I don’t think I’ve ever been outright offended by a legitimate piece of art, but the work of Jake and Dinos Chapman comes very close. So, kudos, I guess? > > [F\*ck Face (NSFW)](http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/aipe/imgs/chapman/CHAPMANfuckfaceCHA0003.jpg) > [Zygotic Acceleration, Biogenetic, De-Sublimated Libidinal Model (NSFW)](http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/aipe/imgs/chapman/CHAPMANzygoticaccelerationCHA0006.jpg) Man “Fuck Face” really speaks to me. I have this desire to go out and just start fucking little kids.\* \*That is the message I’m supposed to take away from it isn’t it? How cool and fun it’d be to fuck little kids? ---
**Author:** ![I\_Made\_French\_Toast\_For\_You](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/858c86/32.png) [@I\_Made\_French\_Toast\_For\_You](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Made_French_Toast_For_You)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-offensive-piece-of-art-ever/639669/22 "2012-11-02T19:54:37Z")
> [@corkboard](#): > > Is it art? I guess so. But is it necessary? I think so, as much as any art is necessary. _Zygotic_ combines old-fashioned surrealism and grotesquerie with modern issues like consumerism and genetic engineering. Almost 20 years old, and it still seems relevant. > [@Drunky\_Smurf](#): > > Man “Fuck Face” really speaks to me. I have this desire to go out and just start fucking little kids.\* > > \*That is the message I’m supposed to take away from it isn’t it? How cool and fun it’d be to fuck little kids? Where you see a child, the artists might see an ambiguous creature with both juvenile and adult characteristics. Where you see implied pedophilia, the artists might see a figure of sexual empowerment. It’s very easy to look at _F_ck Face\* and be offended/cry child abuse – I think the artists want you to question those too easy reactions. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-offensive-piece-of-art-ever/639669/23 "2012-11-02T20:33:21Z")
> [@I\_Made\_French\_Toast\_For\_You](#): > > I don’t think I’ve ever been outright offended by a legitimate piece of art, but the work of Jake and Dinos Chapman comes very close. So, kudos, I guess? > > [F\*ck Face (NSFW)](http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/aipe/imgs/chapman/CHAPMANfuckfaceCHA0003.jpg) > [Zygotic Acceleration, Biogenetic, De-Sublimated Libidinal Model (NSFW)](http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/aipe/imgs/chapman/CHAPMANzygoticaccelerationCHA0006.jpg) I don’t find either of those offensive. Just some weird combination of hilarious and disturbing, like a good black comedy. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-offensive-piece-of-art-ever/639669/24 "2012-11-02T20:44:51Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > However, the Portland Art Museum presently has a piece that pretty graphically shows pedophilia in action. Is this something from the Ancient Greek collection? Because I think that’s qualitatively different from modern art. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-offensive-piece-of-art-ever/639669/25 "2012-11-02T21:15:11Z")
It is architecture that pushes me over the edge. I have an irrational hatred for Frank Lloyd Wright buildings for example and find them quite offensive in general. However, there is one piece of architecture that is legitimately offensive in both function and design. The [Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health](http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/10353/frank-gehry-the-cleveland-clinic-lou-ruvo-center-for-brain-health.html) designed by Frank Gehre is not only hideous in the exterior with a less than welcoming image for a hospital, it is also quite inappropriate because it features an intentionally confusing interior with few straight lines. This is a hospital that treats people with Alzheimer’s and other serious brain diseases. Gehre claimed his unconventional design was supposed to be therapeutic for patients in some bizarre way but it does the exact opposite of course. ---
**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-offensive-piece-of-art-ever/639669/26 "2012-11-02T21:29:18Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > However, there is one piece of architecture that is legitimately offensive in both function and design. The [Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health](http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/10353/frank-gehry-the-cleveland-clinic-lou-ruvo-center-for-brain-health.html) designed by Frank Gehre is not only hideous in the exterior with a less than welcoming image for a hospital, it is also quite inappropriate because it features an intentionally confusing interior with few straight lines. Gwah? Yeah, that’s sort of pretty but really the wrong place for it. I’m thinking of something that’s not exactly art, but was genuinely intended to be culturally relevant, and yet is so horrifically offensive and blasphemous I don’t think it could ever be safely displayed anywhere, and yet can’t conveniently be destroyed: [An entire copy of the Koran written at the direction of Saddam Hussein in his own blood (SFW)](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/19/saddam-legacy-quran-iraqi-government) ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-offensive-piece-of-art-ever/639669/27 "2012-11-02T21:48:20Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Is this something from the Ancient Greek collection? Because I think that’s qualitatively different from modern art. No. It’s a stand-alone piece of modern crap. The Body Beautiful collection has naked Greek statues, an inexplicable case full of penises, and one copy of a satyr’s rape of a nymph (which doesn’t really depict rape). But it’s mostly full of amphoras, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-offensive-piece-of-art-ever/639669/28 "2012-11-02T22:25:55Z")
> [@Oedipus](#): > > My art class has made me realize how little I find things truly offensive. Obviously, some things are just offensive to my eyes because it is such BAD art. > > [Case in point.](http://fineartamerica.com/contestlogos/logo1-most-offensive-paintings.jpg) I’m not even sure how this is supposed to be offensive. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-offensive-piece-of-art-ever/639669/29 "2012-11-02T23:02:03Z")
I haven’t been offended by any of it. A lot it is crap, but I was not offended. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2012, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-offensive-piece-of-art-ever/639669/30 "2012-11-03T00:29:24Z")
> [@Typo\_Negative](#): > > I haven’t been offended by any of it. A lot it is crap, but I was not offended. I liked a few of the examples. Now I feel dirty:( ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2012, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-offensive-piece-of-art-ever/639669/31 "2012-11-03T01:26:43Z")
Perhaps offensive is too strong a word, but I think that Mapplethorpe’s self-portrait with the whip is basically decadent, self-indulgent onanism masquerading as art. It’s “message” seems to be: “I am Gay. I love shoving things up my ass. And if you don’t like it, eat shit and die.” ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2012, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-offensive-piece-of-art-ever/639669/32 "2012-11-03T01:49:24Z")
I am really, really squicked by many of the works of Balthasar Klossowski de Role, also known by the name Balthus. You may look him up on Wikipedia under that name, but I cannot link his Wikipedia page because at least one of the art pieces shown in the main body of the article is triggering, and depicts either child sexuality, or child sexual abuse. I have my own opinion which it is. I originally encountered his work with seeing an image of one of his tamer pieces, _Therese on a Bench Seat_. It depicts a pre-pubescent girl posed on a bench seat, and is SFW and I’ll link it [here](http://cdn2.all-art.org/DICTIONARY_of_Art/b/balthus/3/Untitled-17.jpg). For whatever reason, I got a creepy vibe from it, and so thought to try to find some context for the image that would deflate that gut feeling. Alas, the Wikipedia article ended up confirming my gut feeling and has left me with a very sick feeling. I don’t care to draw any more elaborate, nor larger conclusions. But I don’t care for that artist. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2012, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-offensive-piece-of-art-ever/639669/33 "2012-11-03T02:42:58Z")
The [Monument to President Arnulfo Arias](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/MonumentoArnulfoArias.JPG) of Panama is exceptional as bad public art even for Panama. Especially so, since Arias was (literally) a fascist and admirer of Hitler. He was president three times, and deposed each time. He was elected two other times, but had the election stolen from him. [More photos](http://epiac1216.wordpress.com/2009/10/10/monument-to-a-controversial-panamanian-political-leader/). ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2012, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-offensive-piece-of-art-ever/639669/34 "2012-11-03T02:48:42Z")
> [@Oedipus](#): > > Thats what I’m saying. It doesn’t morally offend me. It just offends my eyeballs. lol > > [Piss Chist is pretty bad…](http://misfitpolitics.co/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/pisschrist.jpg) I was interested that well-known art critic and popularizer Sister Wendy Beckett [defended _Piss Christ_ as a work of art](http://frontrow.dmagazine.com/2011/04/a-nun-defends-serrano%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Cpiss-christ%E2%80%9D-which-was-attacked-on-sunday/); not a very good one, but also not necessarily blasphemous. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2012, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-offensive-piece-of-art-ever/639669/35 "2012-11-03T03:48:28Z")
> [@I\_Made\_French\_Toast\_For\_You](#): > > It’s very easy to look at _F_ck Face\* and be offended/cry child abuse – I think the artists want you to question those too easy reactions. Or - just a thought - they might be twisted litttle fucks who need to be repeatedly slapped until they find productive work. Just a thought. And probably the film of them being slapped would be better art. > [@Shagnasty](#): > > However, there is one piece of architecture that is legitimately offensive in both function and design. The Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health designed by Frank Gehre is not only hideous in the exterior with a less than welcoming image for a hospital, it is also quite inappropriate because it features an intentionally confusing interior with few straight lines. This is a hospital that treats people with Alzheimer’s and other serious brain diseases. Gehre claimed his unconventional design was supposed to be therapeutic for patients in some bizarre way but it does the exact opposite of course. God yes. Gehry’s a self-absorbed ass who couldn’t design a good building if his life depended on it. His entire career is making crap and somehow persuading people he’s not a complete hack. He’s kind of like I. M. Pei snorted a bunch of coke. And Pei frankly sucked balls as often as he did something brilliant. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2012, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-offensive-piece-of-art-ever/639669/36 "2012-11-03T03:50:25Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > No. It’s a stand-alone piece of modern crap. The Body Beautiful collection has naked Greek statues, an inexplicable case full of penises, and one copy of a satyr’s rape of a nymph (which doesn’t really depict rape). But it’s mostly full of amphoras, etc. In fact, it’s [this piece](http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.lalouver.com/resource/kienholz/room5/large/The-Bear-Chair-v.2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.lalouver.com/html/kienholz/kienholz26.html&h=425&w=345&sz=17&tbnid=uE2HgtnOyc8uzM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=73&zoom=1&usg=__gpWjnIDzEWINIT7Ahf00EqpPSoo=&docid=SiG7cXlxJTusGM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=M5SUUNGGDuPkiAKJhIHgCw&ved=0CCUQ9QEwAQ&dur=466) by Keinholz: girl tied under a chair, bear on the chair with his penis pointed at the girl. ---
**Author:** ![Jamicat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c67d28/32.png) [@Jamicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jamicat)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2012, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-offensive-piece-of-art-ever/639669/37 "2012-11-03T05:55:27Z")
> [@Oedipus](#): > > My art class has made me realize how little I find things truly offensive. Obviously, some things are just offensive to my eyes because it is such BAD art. > > [Case in point.](http://fineartamerica.com/contestlogos/logo1-most-offensive-paintings.jpg) > > However, nothing that the other students posted TRULY offended me. So, without further adieu, I beg of you to post the trashiest, most offensive piece of art you can find. Goatse and other rule 34s are discouraged, seeing that this is supposed to be about “real” art. These things have to be at least able to go in a gallery. Sorry. > > Hopefully we can find what the most offensive, revolting art piece is. > > (BTW…if this is more Cafe Society, feel free to move it there.) Frank Zappa and Tina Fey? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2012, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-offensive-piece-of-art-ever/639669/38 "2012-11-03T06:46:50Z")
Yeah, I haven’t found any of the art mentioned so far to be offensive. Some of it is just too bizarre to take serious. I couldn’t help but laugh at The Bear Chair. Wasn’t there an “artist” several years ago who was going to leave a live dog in an art gallery to starve to death? (IIRC he was stopped before that could happen.) Now something like that is offensive. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2012, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-offensive-piece-of-art-ever/639669/39 "2012-11-03T07:01:30Z")
Nearly anything by [this guy](http://www.thomaskinkade.com/magi/servlet/com.asucon.ebiz.catalog.web.tk.CatalogServlet?catalogAction=Product&productId=69593&menuNdx=0.5) makes me nauseous ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2012, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-offensive-piece-of-art-ever/639669/40 "2012-11-03T13:18:06Z")
> [@For You](#): > > Nearly anything by [this guy](http://www.thomaskinkade.com/magi/servlet/com.asucon.ebiz.catalog.web.tk.CatalogServlet?catalogAction=Product&productId=69593&menuNdx=0.5) makes me nauseous Beaten to it. As an artist, this work is offense to me. Piss Christ - meh. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-offensive-piece-of-art-ever/639669.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-offensive-piece-of-art-ever/639669.md?page=3)