Last month I interviewed photographer Alan Pogue, a man who creates photo documentaries relating to political strife around the world. One of the things he said stuck out to me. From the story:The tastemakers in Manhattan prefer the kinky, psychologically twisted and the unreal to photos that examine how the world works. "No one’s connected to anything, no cause is being advanced," he says. "It’s art about art—very alienated. And alienation becomes a commodity."German artist Gregor Schneider is looking for a terminally ill volunteer to spend his or her final hours in an art gallery “with the public admiring the way the light plays on the flesh of a person gasping for the last breath.”Costa Rican artist Guillermo Vargas may or may not have starved a street mutt to death in an art gallery to make a point about poverty.Then there’s Yale student Aliza Shvarts who says she repeatedly artificially inseminated herself and then induced miscarriages once a month for nine months. She filmed herself having the “miscarriages” in her tub, and intended to display the video. Some are calling this a hoax, too, though Shvarts so far maintains that it’s true.
Gross Artists
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