This one very well might get me in hot water. I apologize in advance for the distress this article may cause some.
(A number of years ago, some of this information came out. And I investigated it then. I found it to be true. Just a few weeks ago, an investigative journalist compiled all of this previous evidence, and verified many other sources.)
The Myth of Transgression as Artistic Value.
Art has always possessed the power to challenge, provoke, and transform. But somewhere along the way, we've confused artistic courage with personal destructiveness, creative rebellion with actual harm.
The myth that transgression, particularly in one's personal conduct, serves as a credential for artistic authenticity has become one of the most pernicious and damaging beliefs in contemporary culture. It's time to call this what it is: a convenient excuse that allows destructive individuals to harm others while claiming artistic immunity, and a toxic ideology that damages both individual artists and society as a whole.
The False Prophets of Transgression
Consider William S. Burroughs, the poster child for transgression-as-art. Here was a man who shot and killed his wife Joan Vollmer in 1951, claimed it was an accident during a drunken "William Tell" game, and then leveraged his family's wealth to escape meaningful consequences.
The man who got away with it because of family wealth, and popularity over bug powder poems. 🙄
Rather than being ostracized for this act of violence, Burroughs was elevated to literary sainthood, his murder of an innocent woman reframed as somehow essential to his artistic development.
To this day, I have yet to hear a single one of his fans bring up that he shot his wife, they all gloss over it. His drug addiction, funded by trust fund money, was seen by bohemian americana and da romantic rebellion rather than privileged self-indulgence. His "dangerous" lifestyle was pure performance, subsidized by his families’ wealth that ensured he never faced real consequences for his actions.
Or take A*** G***, a “visionary” artist whose early artistic career in the 70's included having sex with corpses, which has been recently revisited by another investigative journalist. The Necrophilia was an act he later described as foundational to his artistic vision.
This wasn't boundary-pushing art; it was necrophilia with a press release. Yet rather than being dismissed as the actions of a disturbed individual, such behavior gets intellectualized, theorized, and ultimately celebrated as artistic bravery. Even after the man was told by spirit (his own words) to stop messing with bodies for art, he's still insisted on murdering a live rat in front of his audience to illustrate the passing of life force. Taking an innocent life for selfish reasons, as if his choice illuminated some mystical process people don’t get to witness?
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