The greatest and most disturbing artist ever! - Page 2

What Franco said.

You know, it's funny, the exact same thing has been said by conservatives whenever something new came along that pushed the limit. It has been said about Elvis, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, the first time you could see a naked breast on screen, the first time a white man kissed a black woman on screen, horror movies, rock music, the list is endless. I respect that this stuff is not to your liking and it is perfectly OK to say so but the "just plain fucking wrong" statement won't cut it I'm afraid.

By all means make this movie! But seriously, as long as it's not real it's OK with me. I get upset when real animals are killed for a movie, like for example in the Italian cannibal flicks of the 70ies and 80ies, but I'd have no problem watching what you described as long as I know it's all just SFX and nobody was hurt for real.

As for the whole "kiddie porn" thing, you may be interested to learn that the US Supreme Court has ruled about two years ago that fictional child pornography, i.e. drawings, animation, writings etc., are perfectly legal and only the actual, real abuse of children is a criminal offense.

So how is that any different from "regular" pornography? Other than that in anime/manga nobody gets hurt or humiliated for real, which very much happens in live action pornogrpahy.

So nasty and misogynistic porno is OK but nasty and misogynistic hentai isn't?

There may not be a lot of live action porn flicks that feature guttings and amputations but that's only because of budget constraints. Personally I think your averagy scat/piss/puke porno is much more vile than anything Uziga has ever drawn and I strongly doubt that anyone whould "star" in something like that because he/she thinks it's fun and feels good. They may be technically consenting but I'm sure if you'd look into it more deeply you'd find out they need the money for whatever reason, probably drug addiction judging by how they look and by the occasionally visible needle marks ...

That depends on where you live. You are right, (simulated) rape and violent S/M stuff is indeed illegal in countries like the UK or Germany but it's legal in Japan (duh!) and Brazil ...

Um, maybe that's because it's a friggin CG gallery?!? If you want context go buy his mangas and read them. Some of the stories aren't half bad, actually. The illustrations in his gallery are mostly of characters that appear in his manga or stuff he did for magazine covers and such. He also recently did a CD cover for some death metal band ... Fitting, no? Come to think of it, is anyone familiar with the cover artwork that's on the CANNIBAL CORPSE CDs? The style is different but it's remarkably similar to Uziga in terms of content - and predates his stuff by many years ...

http://tombofthemutilated.ipbhost.co.../Butchered.php

I did not, in any way shape or form, claim that Uziga was starting a worldwide trend, fad or anything! You read something into my post that simply isn't there! What I meant to say is that he is pushing the envelope, crossing over into taboo territory, just like Elvis did with his performances or like the horror films of the late 60ies and 70ies did, much to the shock of the establishment. I chose the examples I did in order to illustrate how common it is to label these new forms of art/entertainment as "sick", "wrong" and "damaging to the youth" or society as a whole. It has always been this way and will always be.

Good to hear I'm not the only one who digs BLAME! by the way. That's easily my favourite manga and surprisingly close to the stuff I frequently dream about ... If you haven't already, make sure to also check out Tsutomu Nihei's prequel NOISE, which is set a few thousand years before BLAME! and explains quite a bit (but also adds new mysteries). There's also a new artbook with Nihei's illustrations available that covers everything from his manga series to illustrations he did for THE MATRIX, WOLVERINE and HELLBOY ...

And thanks for pointing out Beksinski! I hadn't heard of him and I like what I see. A lot!

This brings us back to the subject of reality versus fantasy, which has already been covered to great extent in this thread. Child pornography is real, real people are abused, real lifes are destroyed. Therefore it is a crime. What Uziga does is stricly fantasy, he does nothing except putting these images to paper and making them public. Noboy is abused, exploited or otherwise harmed by these pictures. Therefore they are legal and should be legal because as disturbing and shocking they may be they are still a form of artistic expression. You cannot just lump "kiddie porn" and Uziga's drawings into the same category only because you find them both reprehensible. It's a bit more complicated than that.

You have not even read the story, just my amateurish summary. What, you disagree with me so vehemently but you trust my summary enough to pass judgement on the story? Will the irony never stop?

I don't blame you for asking. The question is an obvious one because Uziga's pictures are indeed often of sexualized torture and murder. I can only speak of myself and a few friends when I say that no, I sure as hell don't masturbate to this stuff and it does nothing whatsoever for me as far as sexual arousal is concerned. As I have said before, I like this stuff because I find it disturbing and it creeps me out. The fact that these pictures show fetishized violence doesn't make them erotic in my eyes but more disturbing.

Are there people out there who get off on this stuff? Very likely so but you can bet that there are people who masturbate to slasher flicks as well. Take Argento for example, especially in a movie like TENEBRE, which has many, many scenes of highly eroticised murders of beautiful women. At times Argento's movies remind me of softcore porn only with bloody murders instead of that other kind of penetration. Argento, much like Uziga in this thred, has been accused of glorifying violence and of misogynous tendencies all the way through his career but he's been doing his stuff for 30 years now and people have started to accept it. In fact many hold his movies in the highest regard and I don't blame them because they are great. But many of the blames heaped on Uziga and his work could (and have) been thrown at Argento's body of work as well. It's just that Uziga is the new kid on the block and working in the medium of manga, which is very new to US and Western audiences and not very well respected (you only have to read this thread to find many examples). So please don't respond to this by telling me that Argento is a god an Uziga is a fucking talentless hack. That's beside the point. They both combine violence and eroticism. That in and of itself cannot be a crime. It's provocative, yes, no doubt about that, but it is the privilege of art to provoke and push boundries. Shock is as valid a technique as any other when it comes to that.

I don't see Uziga as someone who does this primarily to turn people one and I don't think that the majority of his audience sees his work as arousing pornography. Everyone I have talked to about this views his (and that of other, similar artists) work as grotesque (the Japanese term for this kind of manga is guro which is derived from the Japanese pronounciation of the English word grotesque - gurotesuqe) and I, like many other people - and many of the people on this board one should think - like grotesque stuff, because I enjoy being disturbed and freaked out. That's why we're horror fans after all.

We have been talking about Tsutomu Nihei's BLAME and NOISE somehwere in the thread so I might as well provide a link where people can get them:

http://www.omanga.net/?cid=blame

This is a fan-translation and the download is free. Neither BLAME nor NOISE have been licensed for the US so it is legal (for now) to download and read this fan-version.

BLAME and NOISE are in no way like the Uziga stuff that started this thread. It's basically a cyberpunk story set in an impossibly far removed future in a world that looks like it has been designed by H.R. Giger and M.C. Escher. Easily my favourite piece of comic book / manga storytelling.

I second what Franco said there ... Right from the beginning of this thread it has surprised me how visciously Uziga has been attacked. I expected some shocked and disgusted reactions but not to this extent.

But the more I think about it and the more I read the posts here I get the feeling that it isn't the theme or content of these pictures that provokes these reactions but much rather that they come from Japan and specifically through the medium of manga. From the comments in this thread ("manga is trash", "nip fetishes", "let's nuke Japan again") I get the impression that many of the people who get so worked up about Uziga hate manga to begin with and this merely gives them a welcome opportunity to let off steam. I may be wrong - in fact I hope I am - but my guess is that if Uziga drew the kinds of things he does in an old fashioned oilpaint or watercolor or carcoal style people here would be much less harsh with their criticism.