Ethics

 In one of our classes, we were able to look at an artist that created a piece that sparked controversy. We were able to hold a discussion about this painting and see the different views each person had about it. It was evident that some of the people in the class, including myself, were offended by the painting but  some were not bothered. This shows how differently art can be perceived in different eyes. 

I support freedom of expression and how each artist can create a piece that will be interpreted differently by many people. However, topics that are of sensitive matter have to be handled delicately as people might be offended by it. Topics such as religion, race, gender and war are no topics to be taken lightly when portrayed in paintings or talked about. The artist should be considerate of his following and ensure that the painting will not offend people. 

Many artists have painted art pieces with such topics but they were successfully able to portray the struggles faced by black people, people in war, homosexual people and raise awareness. Time and consideration should be taken before such paintings as they are extremely sensitive subjects to touch upon. 

An artist from Cyprus sparked a lot of controversy recently, as he released a series of paintings that were very offensive to people. Some people were not bothered by it as they feel like his art is 'unique and different' from the rest. However, some people including priests were very offended to the extend that they felt the need to send him death threats. 

In this blog post, I will be talking about George Gavriel, the Cypriot painter.

Biography: George Gavriel was born in Kokinotrimithia, Cyprus in 1959. He showed interest in art from a very young age as he started painting his favourite books, sketches and portraits of his classmates. After completing his military service, he went to the Fine Arts Academy Surikov in Moscow with a scholarship. He worked in an art shop under professor Klavdia Alexandrovna Tutivol. He graduated in 1987, receiving the master of fine arts diploma and returned to Cyprus to teach art in schools.

Anti-Systemic Art (2020)

Mercedes - Benz (2020)

In these paintings, Gavriel portrays the Archbishop of Cyprus and how disrespected he is by many people in Cyprus. Specifically in the second drawing, he portrays how humble Jesus is by riding a donkey and spreading his wisdom to other people. Behind Jesus, you can see the Archbishop riding inside a luxury car, having drivers take him to places for him to preach about what Jesus said. You can clearly see the contrast between how humble he portrays Jesus to be and how arrogant he portrays the Archbishop to be. Jesus is looking at the Archbishop with a disappointed look on his face, whereas the Archbishop does not even bother to look at him as he is so distracted by all the luxuries he has. This piece sparked a controversy amongst many people in Cyprus.

Many people believe that this piece of work is accurate and a good representation of the situation. However, other people argue that this is simply disrespecting the Archbishop and the ministry. 

A statement issued by the Ministry also noted: “Neither freedom of expression nor freedom of artistic creation can, when it comes to an educator, especially in school, justify insulting public sentiment and the promotion of messages that cultivate a sense of contempt or possibly a climate of intolerance in the student community”.

Archbishop Chrysostomos III joined in the discussion on Thursday, that the teacher had “failed” as an educator in his eyes

The king is naked (2020)

In this painting, he portrays the president of Cyprus with a crown on his head, holding a bottle of whiskey. This painting is called ´the king is naked´. This art piece is related to a story called 'The emperors new clothes'. This is a story about an emperor that was dressed in an expensive 'outfit'. Everyone was cheering the emperor about the outfit he was wearing, however, the 'outfit' did not really exist as he was naked. This shows how clueless the emperor was. Gavriel connected the two stories and made the president of Cyprus naked with a bottle of whiskey in hand. The moral of this painting is that people are afraid to criticize someone because the perceived wisdom of the masses is that the person is important and good. 

The motives of this artist were purely political as he wanted to express his views on this matter. He uses art as a form of expressing the truth behind political or honourable figures. These art pieces are a few of the many that he created which sparked controversy. In conclusion, I need to make sure that my designs do not offend anyone by carefully considering and researching all aspects in my design.

References:

Teacher under fire for irrelevant art work (17/09/20) Available at: https://www.financialmirror.com/2020/09/17/teacher-under-fire-for-irreverent-artwork/ (Accessed: 24/01/21).