Aftershock

Accused by the tabloid press of setting out to 'shock', controversial artworks are vigorously defended by art critics, who frequently downplay their disturbing emotional impact. This is the first book to subject contemporary art to a rigorous ethical exploration. It argues that, in favouring conceptual rather than emotional reactions, commentators actually fail to engage with the work they promote. Scrutinising notorious works by artists including Damien Hirst, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Richard Billingham, Marc Quinn, Sally Mann, Marcus Harvey, Hans Bellmer, Paul McCarthy, Tierney Gearon, and Tracey Emin, "Aftershock" insists on the importance of visceral, emotional and 'ethical' responses. Far from clouding our judgement, Cashell argues, shame, outrage or revulsion are the very emotions that such works set out to evoke. While also questioning the catch-all notion of 'transgression', this illuminating and controversial book neither jumps indiscriminately to the defence of shocking artworks nor dismisses them out of hand.

Kieran Cashell is Lecturer in Critical and Contextual Studies at the School of Art and Design, Limerick Institute of Technology.

CONTENTS
Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
The Incompatibility of Aesthetics and Contemporary Art
Transgression: the War against Disinterestedness
The Ethics of Transgressive Art
1 Everyone Hates a Tourist
The Ethical Analysis of Contemporary Art
Disinterestedness and Cultural Tourism
The Ethical Evaluation of Art: Autonomism versus Moralism
A Difficult Case: Marc Quinn and Alison Lapper
Transgressive Art Meets the Autonomist-Moralist Model
Quinn and Lapper Revisited: A Contextualist Analysis
Conclusion
2 Carte Blanche
Marcus Harvey's Myra
Preliminary Approaches to the Ethical Analysis of Myra
'Suffer Little Children': The Facts of the Case
Myra: Portrait of a Serial Killer
Postmodernism and the Absence of the Referent Thesis
Contextualist Ethical Analysis of Myra
Myra and Merited Response Theory
Conclusion
3 Atrocity Exhibition
Aesthetic Defences of the Work of Jake & Dinos Chapman
The Canonic Defence and the Chapmans' Disasters of War
The Transgressive Defence of Transgressive Art
Hans Bellmer, Bataille and Authentic Transgression
The Trivial Pursuit of Psychoanalysis
Evaluation of the Aesthetic Defences of Transgressive Art
Acknowledging the Immorality of the Chapmans' Work
Contextual Ethical Evaluation of Zygotic Acceleration
Conclusion
4 Fearless Speech
Tracey Emin's Ethics of the Self
'With Myself Always Myself Never Forgetting': The Structure of Ethical Subjectivity
Exposure without Reserve: Emotional Response and its Moral Significance
Shame: An Existential Analysis
Concluding Ethical Evaluation: Tracey Emin's Fearless Speech
5 Horrorshow
The Transvaluation of Morality in the work of Damien Hirst
Obscene Objects of Pleasurable Fascination
Non-Human Animals and Ethical Inclusion
Attending to the Other of the Animal: Art and the Ethics of Care
Exquisite Corpse: Death and the Sublime
Cognitive Immoralism
The Artistic Transvaluation of Morality
Aftershock: Tragic Sympathy and Meta-Ethical Significance
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index