May an Artist Be a Criminal? A Few Questions Without Answers
Marcin Giżycki
mgizycki@hotmail.comPolish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7525-0205
Abstract
Should we boycott important films only because their authors have been accused of some misconduct? Are we to exclude works of artists who at some point sympathized with criminal regimes? Are we to remove monuments from public spaces because they served a wrong cause, even if they occupy an important place in the history of art? Should the value of a work of art be judged in the light of its creator’s life? The author asks these and similar questions and leaves them unanswered. He evokes, though, Roland Barthes’ idea that once completed, the work detaches itself from the author and starts its own life.
Keywords:
Roman Polański, Caravaggio, Benvenuto Cellini, Sergei Eisenstein, Bartolomeo Colleoni, monuments, socialist realism, totalitarianismReferences
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Authors
Marcin Giżyckimgizycki@hotmail.com
Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7525-0205
Film and art historian, critic, filmmaker. Professor at the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology in Warsaw (Poland). Senior Lecturer at Rhode Island School of Design in Providence (USA). Artistic Director of “Animator” – International Animated Film Festival in Poznań (Poland). Former editor-in-chief of Animafilm – the ASIFA quarterly. He has published eight books and around 400 articles on film and art in Polish and foreign publications. He has also made a number of documentary, live action, experimental, and animated films in Poland and the USA. In 2016 he received the Award for Outstanding Contribution to Animation Studies at “Animafest”, the World Festival of Animated Film in Zagreb (Croatia).
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Copyright (c) 2021 Marcin Giżycki
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