The heroes of this book are cleaners, policemen and prostitutes. Presidents, dictators and revolutionaries. And, of course, artists. Artifacts that have been burned, dismembered, drowned or eaten are encountered. Paintings made by a donkey, a digger or a motorcycle. Art critic Jan H. Vitvar invites readers on an entertaining and adventurous journey through the history of visual culture, showing that our understanding of art often leads through fatal misunderstandings.
The sponsor of London's Tate Britain couldn't bear to look at the scattered bed at the Turner Prize finalists' show and instead made the bed. It was, in fact, a conceptual work by Tracey Emin. When the artist re-scattered her bed with discarded panties and a used condom, she won the competition. Roman Týc, a member of the Czech band Ztohoven, went back to jail for a month because he insisted that dolls in unusual positions at traffic lights were art. History knows countless cases where our habitual perception has clashed sharply with artistic expression. But the curious situations that usually occur in such cases are of great explanatory value. They offer a tear in the veil of meaning through which we can take a fresh look not only at art, but also at ourselves.
Czech edition