From eating fetuses, making paintings out of human blood, to killing thousands of animals to preserve them in chemicals. These “criminals” aren’t your typical murderers and insane asylum patients, but artists. Not to confuse them as past artists, but current artists, who did these crimes for the name of art. Art is a controversial topic, a topic made up of thousands of opinions of what constructs it or not, but it has come to our attention that the norm has shifted views, but where do we draw the line? Many think art should be worthy of such a title if it does not affect another party, negatively. Do the listed actions affect a party negatively?  

We’re aware of many odd artists who’ve done some questionable things, but Zhu Yu takes the crown. Zhu Yu was an artist and in 1991 he began doing a series of artworks, which consisted of: eating stillborn children, decomposing and disembodied corpses, and even a patch of his own skin. His most known piece is, “Eating People,” a recording of him eating a stillborn fetus, which was stolen from a medical school. His explanation lacks reason, which leaves many denying this piece the title art. However, it goes without saying, stealing is a crime. Willingly cutting your skin is not. Another piece titled, “Skin Graft,” depicts a slice of cut pork with his grafted skin placed on top. This is certainly odd but nonetheless, art, illustrating his attitude toward animal cruelty (“Zhu Yu: China’s Baby-Eating Shock Artist Goes Hyperreal”). 

Ruby “Juice” Martinez is a 29-year-old artist, whose work shares similarities to what Zhu Yu did in “Skin Graft.” She creates paintings, with her blood being the paint. Her work became sensational due to this. Ruby stated, relinking with her old hobby being “oddball” paintings, led her to develop this unique technique. This technique could be seen coming out of a crime series show, but overall harmless. No matter how odd it may seem, we cannot deny the ultimate strength it would take to complete one of her artworks (“Bodily Fluids on Canvas: El Paso Artist Uses Blood to Make Art”).

This is unlike Damien Hirst, whose art can be seen as lazy in many aspects. Damien Hirst is a well-known artist due to his controversial artwork. His top two artworks that are talked about the most are “For the Love of God” and “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living.” “For the Love of God” is a diamond skull, the skull belonging to a 35-year-old man in the 18th century (“Damien Hirst’s Most Controversial Works”). This piece is estimated to be worth about $100 million. While the other artwork is a tiger shark submerged in formaldehyde, which was caught on Hervey Bay in Queensland, Australia (en.wikipedia.org). Damien has many artworks of animals in tanks filled with preservatives, which cause outbreaks between peers, discussing whether it’s art or not. Many argue that it shouldn’t matter if it were slaughtered since 11,416 sharks die in an hour. This argument is flawed because it adds more reason to why it’s wrong and as many of you know, eating is a necessity, artwork is not.

Art is made up of thousands of opinions, what you call art might not be what someone considers to be art. At the end of the day, what you consider art is what really matters as it not only reflects on your own unique taste but what type of values you hold dear. Where would you draw the line and why?