Dade County And The Arts - In Defense of Ugliness

  • Thursday, October 8, 2015
  • Derek Williams
"Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X " Francis Bacon 1953
"Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X " Francis Bacon 1953

Growing up here in the Southeast, one of the things I heard over and over again whenever someone was being smartalecky, rude, off-color, or otherwise impolite, was that that person was “just being ugly.” I don't know if that is a particularly Southern take, or if it is a style of dismissiveness present in other parts of the country (or the world).

What seemed to be true in such situations is that the “ugliness,” whether intended as a quip  or just a bit of sharp wit, always seemed to contain some element of covert truth.

I think that is a telling set of relationships. I think politeness, manners and etiquette, are important. I think truth is more important. Call me old-fashioned. Sometimes truth is ugly. Following this line of reasoning, there is not only a place for ugliness, but a place for ugly art. I'd go so far as to say they are sometimes necessary. Mind you, I'm not saying “bad art.” I mean art which is repelling, distasteful...ugly, for lack of a better word. Anti-aesthetic is perhaps the best word.

From Francis Bacon to David Lynch, from Tool to Matthew Barney, there is a lot of ugly art out there. This is just a very small handful of high point notables. Works by such persons are not beautiful in any sort of traditional sense most of the time. Yet, they all draw from forebears with distinctly well-established senses of aesthetic beauty.

Bacon is a particularly interesting case and he's much more recognizable than most people think. One of his works, Figure with Meat, was featured as part of the background in the museum scene in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman. This was one of Bacon's representations of Pope Innocent X, his Screaming Pope. Bacon's oeuvre features images of butchered animals and disjointed and dark, ghostly or corpselike figures. Not pretty. Not at all. His popes are also a reversal of pictorial reverence. This regard in religious figurative representation goes back to the dawn of human civilization. Not pretty, but after Velazquez, Bacon's popes are important. Why? Because churches and religious institutions have been some of the most influential commissioners of representative art in history. In our age, just a few short decades past, an artist was able to create directly critical works and not be subject to reprisals by church officials or their agents. Times have changed since the Crusades and the Inquisition, to name but a few dark chapters in Catholic history.

Maynard James Keenan, frontman for memorable bands like Tool, A Perfect Circle, and Puscifer, has been at once credited for his memorable vocals and lyrics, and criticized for the harsh and ugly content of some of his band's songs. This is hard stuff to listen to sometimes if you have even a dram of sensitivity. It is also powerful art. Having been a fan of Keenan's projects for years, I have followed his narrative ruminations on subjects like alcohol abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, and end time paranoia. Keenan also freely examines many positives in the same works, singing about self-discovery, the sanctity and celebration of life, understanding, and letting go of wounds. These songs are a maze of therapeutic beauties and horrors, and about as honest songwriting as I have ever encountered; focused, unflinching and thorough. That does not begin to address the strong foundations of virtuosic music over which the vocal explorations lay. Pretty? Maybe about a third of the time.

Not to do disservice to Barney and Lynch, but I am already well over my word count and can cite chapter and verse for not only their works and the works I have touched on, but many, many others. I'll leave those names here as a teaser and a prompt for your own explorations. The point is, within a few examples, we can see there are important processes and examinations to be delved into with artwork that makes us uncomfortable, that repels us, which challenges our conventional narratives. I say all of this not to say all good art is ugly. Instead, I offer the notion that, in our polite Southern society, it might help us to be a little more understanding, a little less superficial, if we can have a little more capacity to stomach those messages which are unpleasant and which break us out of our comfortable media and opinion bubbles.

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Derek Williams is an intermedia tech and multidisciplinary artist from Chattanooga.

 

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