Aesthetic vertigo and the jurisprudence of disgust

Abstract

This article engages with the intersection of law, legitimation and aesthetics by examining the controversies surrounding the exhibition in 1997 of two artworks: Piss Christ by Andres Serrano, and Myra by Marcus Harvey. The article is less concerned with issues such as freedom of expression or the rights of display, which by now are wellknown in debates on censorship and the arts; rather, its focus is on the consequences for an artwork's exhibition when it is deemed to be 'disgusting'. The judgment of the two selected artworks as disgusting is traced in public discourse, through newspaper reports, public protest, and in socio-legal responses to the artwork such as a civil suit for possible o..