It’s not only in antique times that the funny, oddball stuff on the edge of titillating and disturbing was just another side of life (see Roberta’s post). Today we see gore and death daily, granted somewhat distanced by the media in which we see it, but none-the-less we see it. The small-world super-communication capabilities that keep us glued to the tube and the blogs give us the particular (the house fire three blocks away, across the city, in the ‘burbs, in Pittsburgh, even in Santa Monica) and the global all at once (you can’t escape fire, tsunami, gunshots wherever you live) (image, Paul Swenbeck installation from 2004 “Scarab” show at Project Room.).
In a way, being in touch with the dark side of what’s happening all around the globe helps keep us in balance, penetrates our bourgeois cocoons and reminds us that we cannot control life and death, acts of nature (or God or whatever you want to call it), and ultimately our fellow humans.
If grotesque and goth art helps us work out those issues, well I suppose it’s going to be around forever.
