So, in order to discuss the top ten controversial artworks, let’s first gather a basic understanding of what controversial art is.
Whatever it is in life you like, no matter what, there will always be elements of it that cross the line between what is permissible and what is not. This is particularly, and most often true in the case of art. Art has never been a venue for limitations; instead, artists look for the quickest ways to communicate their thoughts or messages through their work. Contemporary art has taken this a step further, giving birth to a new genre known as divisive art. So, what makes art so divisive?
There is no particular way to define this phenomenon, and there are no predetermined signs of it. Generally, it refers to a range of transgressive artworks that may include discreditable or even offensive words/subjects. Is it justifiable to expose indecent and scurrilous images, even though they are often true? This is the crux of the debate.
Controversial artworks are meant to demonstrate how absurd certain concepts or even life itself can be. Marcel Duchamp, a forefather of Conceptual Sculpture, once displayed a porcelain urinal at an exhibition and dubbed it “Fountain.” He shook art world on the interpretation and sense of art by making such a bold leap.
Art can be an effective tool for addressing progressive and critical problems that are often controversial within culture. Regardless, it is a vital art form that has the freedom to live, whether you like it or not.
Controversial artists, perhaps by definition, like to taunt their fans. Few people get a lot better than most. There are still those who bravely go against the ruling artistic conventions of the day, or those who represent subjects that are considered forbidden, regardless of the era. These works of art have often been banned, destroyed, or publicly mocked. They have, though, left an indelible impression on art history, paving the way for freedom of speech and inspiration over the decades. The following is a list of ten of the most controversial works of art in history. Irronically or not, some of these are now regarded as some of history’s finest works of art.
1. Marcel Duchamp – Fountain, 1917
Fountain, perhaps the most divisive piece of the twentieth century, is the quintessential ‘readymade,’ an ordinary thing that is transformed into art because the creator decides it is art. Duchamp presented a urinal to the newly formed Society of Independent Artists in 1917. Fountain was rejected by the Society, who said it should not be deemed an artwork. Duchamp’s Fountain sparked a slew of critical questions, including “what defines a work of art?” and “what part do art museums play in judging and qualifying art?” These are the kinds of issues that have shaped the course of art from the twentieth century to the present.
2. Pablo Picasso – Guernica, 1937
Guernica, a massive 1937 mural by Pablo Picasso depicting the massacre of a Basque town in 1937, has since become a symbol for every city ever bombed. It is one of the most influential artistic statements about fascism, and it has sparked debate over the years because of its loud, critical message. Picasso declined to have it shown in Spain until the country’s justice had been restored, and artists petitioned to have it banned from the MoMa in 1967 as a demonstration against the Vietnam War. At the United Nations in 2003, a tapestry version of Guernica was covered up.
All Hidden Symbols & Meanings In Picasso’s Guernica
3. The Guitar Lesson – Balthus, 1934
The guitar in question is lying on the floor, as the instructor grabs her teenage student’s hair and touches her (dangerously close to her bare vagina) as if she were an instrument to be played. When it was seen as part of Balthus’ first show in Paris, this disturbing depiction of paedophilia sparked a sensation. No one has ventured to place it on display since 1977 because it is both shocking and divisive. It has been shared between museums and collectors, but it has never been displayed. This would have enraged the late Balthus, who said that his work could only be seen and not written about.
4. Marcus Harvey – Myra, 1995
Myra Hindley was a serial killer in the 1960s who murdered five children aged 10 to 17. Marcus Harvey, a young British artist, painted Myra, a massive adaptation of Myra Hindley’s mugshot, in 1995. It was included in the Royal Academy of Art’s Sensation exhibition of Young British Artists in 1997. In protest of the work’s inclusion in the exhibition, four members of the Royal Academy resigned. One of the murdered children’s mother objected to the notorious artwork’s display. On the opening day of the show, two artists vandalised the artwork with ink and eggs.
5. Domestikator – Joep van Lieshout, 2015
Joep van Lieshout of Atelier van Lieshout, a Dutch musician, was met with resistance from the Louvre in Paris. Domestikator, his large-scale sculpture, was supposed to be seen there in 2017. The sculpture, which seems to depict a man having sex with a four-legged insect, was deemed too sexually suggestive by Louvre president Jean-Luc Martinez to be exhibited in his museum. After that, the Centre Pompidou moved in and gave its front square as an exhibition space. The controversial artwork, according to Van Lieshout, is about the domestication process. He says he’s attempting to launch a dialogue with the sculpture about humanity’s propensity to control nature.
6. Michelangelo, – The Last Judgement, 1536–1541
Michelangelo returned to the Vatican about 25 years after painting the Sistine Chapel roof to concentrate on a fresco that would be discussed for decades. The Counter-Reformation Catholic church reacted angrily to his portrayal of Christ’s Second Coming in “The Last Judgement,” on which he served from 1536 to 1541. Religious leaders spoke out against the fresco for a variety of reasons, including Michelangelo’s painting technique (beardless and in the Classic style of pagan mythology). The painting’s 300 figures, all-male and mostly naked, were the most surprising of all. Parts of cloth and flora were then sprayed over the offending anatomy in a step known as a fig-leaf campaign, some of which were later removed as part of a 20th-century renovation.
7. Caravaggio – St. Matthew and the Angel, 1602
Given that he died in exile after being convicted of murder, the life of Baroque painter Caravaggio may be more controversial than most of his art. His unconventionally humanistic approach to his religious commissions, on the other hand, drew a lot of attention back then. Caravaggio flipped tradition by using a poor peasant as a model for the saint in the now-lost painting “St. Matthew and the Angel,” made for the Contarelli Chapel in Rome. But it was St. Matthew’s filthy feet, which illusionistically seemed to jut from a canvas (a recurring optical trick for the artist), and the image’s implication that he was illiterate, as though being read to by an angel, that enraged critics the most.
8. Robert Rauschenberg – Erased De Kooning, 1953
Robert Rauschenberg’s “Erased De Kooning” foreshadowed Banksy’s self-destructive art in several respects. In the case of the 1953 painting, though, the artist determined that the original artwork would be significant in and of itself. “It wasn’t art yet because I just deleted my own drawings,” Rauschenberg told SFMoMA in 1999. So he enlisted the help of Willem de Kooning, the mercurial abstract expressionist of the time, who, after some persuasion, sent the younger artist a painting combining grease pencil art and charcoal, which took Rauschenberg two months to remove. It took a decade for news of the piece to spread, and when it did, it was received with a combination of delight and surprise. (Was the master usurped by a young genius?) De Kooning, for one, was not amused, later telling a reporter that he thought the proposal was “corny” at first, and that he resented the fact that such a personal relationship between artists had been broadcast to the public.
9. Yoko Ono – Cut Piece, 1964
Performance art was also forced toward provocation and even threat as it developed as an experimental trend in the postwar years. Yoko Ono encouraged the crowd to take a pair of scissors and cut off a piece of her clothes as she remained motionless and still in her 1964 show “Cut Piece.” She later recalled, “People were so surprised that they didn’t ask about it.”
10. Ai Weiwei – Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, 1995
Ai Weiwei, a Chinese artist and activist, is one of art’s most controversial figures, and his work often challenges notions of meaning and use. With “Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn,” a work he called a “cultural readymade,” the artist nodded to Duchamp in 1995. The job entailed dropping a 2,000-year-old ritual urn and thereby crushing it, as the title suggests. The ship was not only valuable in terms of money (Ai paid several hundred thousand dollars for it), but it was also a powerful emblem of Chinese culture. Some criticised the artist’s deliberate desecration of a historic artefact as immoral, to which the artist responded by citing Mao Zedong. “the only way of building a new world is by destroying the old one.” People argue whether Ai is using authentic antiquities or fakes, so he paints a similar vessel with the Coca-Cola logo or dazzling candy colours. In any case, his controversial body of work has sparked other incidents of vandalism, such as when a tourist to an Ai show in Miami shattered a painted vessel in an illicit act of defiance that echoed Ai’s own.
