Remember when I went to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art last month? There was one piece of art that caught my complete attention. I love vintage stuff, so my first impression was how nice! Look at these old-fashioned objects. Then as I looked closer, I was like--hey--those are bloody surgical instruments in that bedpan down there. Oh, wait a minute. What is this about? My friend went to the wall and the card read: THE ILLEGAL OPERATION, 1962. Deep breath. Oh.
Artscenecal describes the piece:
At the same time Kienholz doesn't simply make voyeurs of us. He communicates empathy and culpability so that we become both victim and perpetrator if we remain passive. During the 1960s, when many people were campaigning for legalized abortion (remember that it was not legalized until 1973), Kienholz created The Illegal Operation, in which a woman's body, represented by a sagging burlap sack filled with cement, is trussed to the back of a shopping cart, complete with an oozing gash in the midriff area. Filthy buckets, pots, and bedpans filled with rusted and stained surgical instruments sit on a ragged knit rug. Its circular design draws one into the horror of the scene. About the piece, Kienholz declared, "I'm not sure what art is--you know, art, capital A-R-T--and I don't even care a hell of a lot about what art is, but if there is such a thing as art, and if I have even made a piece of art, The Illegal Operation would be it. . .We bleed off it."
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