- Oh, hey, you know artwork is supposed to be
compelling and emotional,
it's supposed to make you feel things,
but sometimes it's just weird, creepy, or indescribable.
Here are the 10 most controversial artworks of all time.
Number 10 is Marcel Duchamp, Fountain.
Marcel Duchamp's Fountain is technically
a porcelain Bedfordshire model urinal,
minus the plumbing of course,
which is why it's considered one of the most iconic
and controversial pieces of art in history.
It was created in April of 1917 after he bought the urinal
from a plumbing supplier in New York City.
He brought it back to his studio, placed it wall side down,
and signed in R. Mutt 1917.
Fountain is considered to be one of his ready made works,
which were items that were built for practical use,
but as an artist, Duchamp represented them as art.
That year, Duchamp anonymously submitted the work,
along with the six dollar fee,
to the Society of Independent Artists first exhibition,
who said that they'd accept any artwork.
But, they themselves caused just as much of an uproar
as Fountain did when they refused it and called it not art.
A series of replicas were made in 1964,
but the original vanished before it was ever publicly shown.
I can see how this is controversial,
I mean, it's a urinal upside down,
this is up there with people who have a white canvas
and be like there's a black dot,
it's artwork, 10,000 dollars.
Number nine are Guerrilla Girls,
Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into The Met.
Well, this one's a mouthful.
The Guerrilla Girls were formed in 1985 by seven women,
and are still made up of feminist activist artists
who hide their identities by wearing guerrilla masks,
all while fighting racism and sexism in the art world.
Because, as we all know, there's no better way
to be taken seriously than to play King Kong.
Their very first protests were in response
to an international survey of art
put on the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Only 13 of the 165 shown were women,
and even fewer were artists of color.
In 1989, they turned their protests into a poster campaign
where they plastered all over New York asking
do women have to be naked to get into the Met?
The poster featured a nude female painted by Jean Ingress,
but wearing a guerrilla mask of course,
and, the fact that only five percent
of the artists in the Met were female,
but 85 percent of nude figures were women.
The posters were updated in 1989, 1995, and 2012,
but honestly not much has changed as of 2012,
as it is down to four percent female artists shown,
and 73 percent nude.
I'm 100 percent for equality,
but I think a lot of the reason that women
are used is because men's bodies are more utilitarian,
you know what I mean?
We evolved from needing to go out,
club things over the head and drag it back
to the cave for food, you know what I'm saying?
Plus the fur and what not, nah.
Number eight is John Wayne Gacy.
John Wayne Gacy is one of the worst
serial killers in American history,
having killed at least 33 boys and young men.
After he was caught in 1978,
the media nicknamed him the killer clown because he would
actually dress up as his alter ego, Pogo the clown,
for birthday parties and parades.
No wonder people are afraid of clowns,
but I guess he missed the good old days,
because while on death row, he painted hundreds of pictures,
including self portraits dressed as Pogo.
Who's got the pain?
As disturbing as it sounds, there's actually a market
for murderer memorabilia and artwork.
After he was executed in 1994, a bunch of his paintings
were burnt in a bonfire that was attended
by his victims' families.
But in 2011, the Arts Factory in Las Vegas
got ahold of 74 of Gacy's paintings,
and put on a show and sale of his work.
The gallery planned to send
the proceeds to a victim's charity,
but the National Center for Victims of Crime
said that they were glorifying Gacy,
and they didn't want any of the money.
To be honest, I see both sides of the argument here,
it's kind of a tough one.
Kind of a juggling act, if you will.
Get it? He was a clown. Moving on.
Number seven is Chris Ofili, The Holy Virgin Mary.
Chris Ofili was born in Manchester, England, in 1968,
and is known for his collages made up of layers
of different materials, including elephant dung.
What a crappy job.
Ofili used poo in his 1996 painting,
The Holy Virgin Mary,
which was part of the exhibition's sensation.
The work is eight feet tall and six feet wide,
and is propped up on two balls of dung,
and depicts a black virgin Mary in a style
that was inspired by Ofili's Nigerian heritage,
and his time spent in Zimbabwe.
The image is made from his usual assortment of mixed media,
including angels that are cut out from pornographic images,
and Mary's exposed breast made of dung.
Oh my God, can this get weirder?
The controversy started when it got to New York City,
and Mayor Rudy Giuliani called it sick and disrespectful
to the virgin Mary and the church.
Attempts were made to damage the work,
and Giuliani even brought a lawsuit
against the Brooklyn Museum and tried to withdraw
their funding and have them evicted.
Again, this one's kind of a tough one,
because artwork is supposed to be compelling and engaging,
sometimes controversial, but poo on the virgin Mary,
no, that guy might be going to hell.
Number six is Guillermo Vargas, Exposicion No. I.
Guillermo Vargas was born in 1975 in San Jose, Costa Rica,
and uses a lot of different mediums in his work,
from painting to live performance.
His exhibition Exposicion No. I wasn't any different,
but the exhibition caused international outrage when Vargas
used a stray dog, named it Natividad in the show.
While the gallery was open,
Natividad was left without food or water,
and tied up underneath a sign made of dog biscuits
that spelled out you are what you eat.
Over a million people signed a petition against him
after there were claims that the dog starved to death.
The gallery claimed that the dog was properly fed,
and was only tied up for a few hours
before it escaped after the first day.
Vargas pointed out that no one intervened
to help the dog in the gallery,
and that they would've ignored the stray on the street.
Again, this guy does make a good point,
I'm very confused by a lot of these,
these people are very good at arguing,
I just feel bad for the dog.
Number five is Orlan, The Reincarnation of Saint Orlan.
French artist Orlan was born in 1947 as Mireille Porte,
and is known for what she called canal art.
I can only imagine what this is gonna be.
Her work can sometimes be seen as bizarre performance art,
but in The Reincarnation of Saint Orlan,
she took the whole concept of putting herself
into her work to, let's just say a whole nother level.
Orlan started the project in 1990
by undergoing a series of plastic surgeries.
The goal of going under the knife was to transform
into the ideal woman that had been depicted by male artists,
by literally sculpting her face to resemble
the woman in famous paintings and sculptures.
To really take part in the performance,
she was dressed in specially made designer outfits,
and was awake during the surgeries,
and would listen to classical music.
Is it just me, or does something about this
just scream Hannibal Lecter?
Put on the classical music, Clarisse.
The surgeries were also filmed and broadcast
to galleries in New York and Paris.
By the end of all of the surgeries,
Orlan's face was like a collage of features from Venus,
Diana, Europa, Psyche, and Mona Lisa.
Number four is Edouard Manet, Luncheon On The Grass.
Impressionism is one of the most celebrated
art movements in history.
But that wasn't the case when it first showed up
in Paris salons in the 1860s.
The painting that caused some of the biggest upset
was Edouard Manet's Luncheon On The Grass.
Manet was known in the Paris art scene as a realist painter,
and compared to some of the impressionist works
that look more like a blur of colors,
Luncheon sticks to a pretty realist style.
But it wasn't his distorted proportions
that cause the most drama.
It was because he put a nude woman, presumably a prostitute,
brightly lit on full display in a park between two dapper,
fully dressed men, instead of hidden in a dark studio.
When he submitted it to the Paris salon in 1863,
it was immediately rejected,
and when it was finally shown along with other
impressionist artists, the public was completely shocked,
and spent most of their time laughing at it.
This one I could see, I do understand why people
laughed at it, look at her face,
she's like you know what I'm doing here.
Number three is Marina Abramovic, Rhythm 0.
Marina Abramovic was born in 1946 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia,
and is known for engaging with audiences
and putting herself in vulnerable situations.
But in Rhythm 0, she went from vulnerable
to physical danger real quick.
The six hour performance was put on in 1974
at the Studio Mora in Naples.
The table was laid with 72 objects, including an apple,
cake, lipstick, flowers, a feather, but as well as nails,
a scalpel, a hammer, and a gun, as well as a single bullet.
Abramovic presented herself as an object,
and allowed the audience to interact with her
or the objects however they wanted.
It started innocent enough,
but it didn't take long for visitors to cut off her clothes,
and started to cut her, and even become sexually aggressive.
But unbelievably, she stayed committed to the performance,
even when one person loaded the gun and put it to her head.
That's dedication to the art,
I would've been out at that point.
Other members of the public intervened,
but not before the darkest animal side
of humanity was exposed.
Number two is Damien Hirst, Natural History.
Damien Hirst was born in 1965 in Bristol, England,
and is one of the most successful members
of the Young British Artist Group of the 1990s.
Hirst is known for using dead and live butterflies
in his work, but it was his series Natural History
that intended to create a zoo of dead animals
that really pissed people off.
The first work in 1992, The Physical Impossibility of Death
in the Mind of Someone Living,
was a dead tiger shark suspended in formaldehyde.
And you didn't think these could get weirder,
you were wrong.
Critics and animal rights groups argued that it wasn't art,
but cruel and simple, relying on its shock value.
Other works in the series had other dead animals
in formaldehyde like Mother and Child Divided,
which was a cow and calf cut in half
and displayed in separate vitrines.
The works sold for millions, unbelievably,
but despite his fame and fortune,
Hirst has been accused of plagiarism,
and even admitted to not creating his own stuff,
leaving the actual work to many of his assistants.
And number one is Michelangelo,
The Last Judgment, The Sistine Chapel.
Michelangelo was born in 1475 and is still considered
one of the greatest master painters in history.
But that doesn't mean he didn't
cause any trouble back in the day.
Michelangelo is best known for painting
the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City.
The most iconic of them is The Last Judgment,
which he started in 1536,
25 years after he'd finished the rest of the chapel.
The massive fresco has over 300 figures
and covers the entire alter.
When it was finally finished in 1541,
there was almost immediate outcry from members
of the church, who thought it was obscene and disrespectful,
and put art before religion.
That's because he not included mythological figures,
but they were all pretty much naked,
even the saints, Jesus, and Mary.
Pope Paul III was a supporter of the arts,
and didn't really mind, but after Michelangelo died in 1564,
all the nude bits were painted over.
But it was eventually restored between 1980 and 1994.
Well, I'm just glad we live in a time
where we're not afraid of peoples' jiggly bits anymore,
we're all just meat sacks people, nothing to be afraid of.
Thank you guys so much for watching this,
it feels really good to be back on camera once again.
I appreciate all the feedback you guys gave me
saying that you want me back in these videos, so I'm back.
On the right, you'll find two of my most recent videos
that you can press or click right now
if you wanna watch some more.
And as always, I will see you back in the next video
with my face and all, have a great day guys.