Art vs public opinion
The King Charles painting causes a stir
About a decade before Lady Gaga donned a meat dress at the 2010 Video Music Awards, a similar dress made the news at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa in 2007.
Called the Meat Dress it created a scandal that was on par with the British reaction to red King Charles painting in the news this week.
Titled Vanitas: Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorectic, its creator Jana Sterbak stitched 50 pounds of raw beef together into a wearable dress. It was labelled in the news as a “decadent and perverse waste of taxpayers’ money.”
For days cartoonists got involved drawing different cartoons poking fun of what was obviously to average people as the art world gone wrong. It lent itself to every joke imaginable by Canadian editorial cartoonists. I think every cartoonist had their own meat dress cartoon. Every cartoonist except one- me.
I loved Vanitas: Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorectic. I thought it was brilliant. It was simple and spoke volumes about societies treatment of women. So I didn’t draw a single cartoon that was critical of it.
Fast forward to now.
I like the new King Charles painting. In fact I love it.
And I think King Charles is brave to choose such a controversial artist to paint one of his official portraits.
While I didn’t draw a cartoon poking fun of the meat dress, I think I will with the Charles painting. I just won’t be critical of it like I know many cartoonists are going to be in the coming days.
Art is supposed to challenge you. It’s not meant to just decorate your walls.
Hear, hear! An iconographic reading of the painting by someone better versed in British military and royal history than I would be illuminating, I'm sure. What stands out to me are the face and the butterfly, the only clear images in the work, unwashed by the multi-faceted red stain wash that covers the rest of the work. What does that clarity mean? And what does the red stain wash mean? Art IS meant to challenge us, as you say, and this piece is challenging us in the best way. Quick and facetious responses are unavoidable. Measured ones will lead to understanding and appreciation. Yeo is a great artist. I really like this piece, too. Thank you for sharing your thoughts about it.
Initially I was distracted & disturbed by the sheer amount red - a colour I guess I instinctively associate with evil, bloodthirsty tyrants, but after understanding that the tunic is actually red, it really drew me in and I do find it an honest and moving portrait.
Appreciate what you said about the Flesh Dress and society’s treatment of women.
Sadly, I remember the flesh dress more for the controversy it created, rather than anything about the art work itself, which again speaks volumes about how meaning can get lost in controversy.