Wow.
I am at a loss for words.

What an idiot. He calls a great tragedy art?

what is art?
something meaningful - tick
emotion charging - tick

what else? also he didn't call it art, he compared the two.

I'm sorry, how does Damien Hirst qualify as an expert on art?

Exactly my point, PV.

It may be seen as art, but it might have been an artful conspiracy. Here's a link to "Loose Change" on the strange nature of the attack and its link to increased governmental power in the aftermath. Kinda like the FDR Pearl Harbor conspiracy but with a lot more interesting evidence... http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3719259008768610598#

Well he is right, it could be seen as "art".

Art is supposed to be a symbol, to show and create emotion, and it isn't always pretty.

Well, rarely does art cause direct suffering.
And I don't see why killers need to be congratulated.

Sure it can be art--much in the same way that violent spousal abuse is art--but he states, "So on one level they kind of need congratulating," which is wrong. They deserve no congratulations. (It would be like congratulating hellalt for the artistry in his trolling.)

Art is something that is created to be apreciated. so in a sense the apreciation is that people fear its creator.

and i really don't give a shit whether or not they blew up those towers and what you gus think of it because GET OVER IT!!!! THEY HAVE BOMBINGS EVERYDAY IN THOSE COUNTRIES AND THEY HAVE CONSTANT WARFARE!!!!!!!!! SHUT UP!!!!!

Babies die from parental neglect every day, so we should just get over it and shut up.

If you really believe that denis, you're a fucking retard. I have no idea who Damien Hirst is, but if he believes mass murder is art then he's a fucking retard too.

no its not art if you don't think it is.

for exmple is this art
http://sarahwilson.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/wassily_kandinsky01.jpg
or this
http://www.danish-furniture.com/images/hans-wegner-folding-chair.jpg
so what make this different
http://www.horror-movies.ca/AdvHTML_Upload/Saw5.jpg
and this
http://truth11.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/9-11.jpg
the last two both inspire fear in a person? were thought up by a group of people

I don't care what he said i'm stating my opinion on the fact that people died and its bad but move on... and that it can be interprted as art. or at least a masterpiece

I don't want to get into a debate on art, mostly because art seems to be run by the sort of people who think that link to a lawn chair is art, but saying that a terrorist attack can be considered a work of art is revolting. As stupid as putting a folding chair in a gallery and saying it's art is, nobody died while doing it.

Is the Holocaust art? Is an abortion art? A rape? Skirts made by serial killers out of their victim's skin? Would a nuclear war be art? It's this sort of postmodern bullshit that makes normal people want to have nothing to do with artists or the art world.

"what is art?
something meaningful - tick
emotion charging - tick"

Dolphins are not art.

I was going to comment, but Invictus' last post says all that needs to be said.

I stopped reading when someone tried to cite Loose Change as anything but a farcical attempt to make a buck, but I guess using his logic sodomizing Mr. Hirst with a rapid porcupine is also "art".

rabid. Whatever ;)

art
1 the use of the imagination to express ideas or feelings

OK, then I guess we should consider the work of a highly trained assasin or a sniper's kill from nearly a half mile out as art. How about torture? Is that art?

Art can be graphic and should be thoght provoking. It maybe beautiful or ugly, but it should never involve real harm or death in it's creation.

A photograph of a killing field or a mass grave may be art. But the creation of said field or grave by actually killing the people is anything BUT art.

Likewise, the photographs of some of the first responders fighting to save innocent people and honoring their fallen comrades is art, but the act of killing the innocent people and first responders trying to save them is anything but art.

@Draugnar
What art "should" be is not the issue here. We commonly use the term "martial art" and the Chinese philosopher I took my user name from is famous for his book "The Art of War". Clearly what is considered "art" can include "real harm" or "death". Not to say whether 9/11 is or isn't art but we can't exclude something from being art merely because of it's violent or harmful nature.

But the marial arts don't celebrate the killing, they celebrate and honor the form, the fluid movement. and Sun Tzu's Art of War is about the art of the tactics, not the carnage that they may leave in their wake.

In that case you may consider the attacks on the twin tower an use of the art of terrorism.

or assymetric warfare if you want to consider it that way.

That said, Sun Tzu never used the word art cause he was chinese. He may have used a word which was translated into Art in english. This of course reminds us that art is used in a variety of ways in the english language...

oh, and as i don't know what damien hirst meant, and this is clearly a different interpretation to the one i began understanding the comment, i'm going to drop that line of reasoning.

The ideal of the terrorist act could be art. (It will be and has been in the form of film.) The act itself was not.

"Is the Holocaust art? Is an abortion art? A rape? Skirts made by serial killers out of their victim's skin? Would a nuclear war be art? It's this sort of postmodern bullshit that makes normal people want to have nothing to do with artists or the art world."

Agreed...Im sure he wouldn't have said anything like this if his family/ friends had been killed, 9/ 11 or the July bombings in London.

Mind you, with him chosping off this horseshit someone might want to look at the shite he produces to entertain people!

@BigZombieDude
Yes, I agree completely that Damien Hirst's are pure sensationalism but that isn't the point. So far the only arguments I have seen here against violent acts being considered art are emotional appeals. The way we feel about things does not change what they are. I would like to see some philosophical arguments about the meaning of the word "art". People here have mentioned the Holocaust, abortions and other terrible acts. It seems to me that one key difference is that these are not expressions intended to communicate ideas.

I would argue that something can only be art if the person executing the act considers it art. I'm sure the terrorists bastards who planned it and the idiot fanatics on the plane who thought they were getting all those virgins in heaven didn't even have the idea of it being an art form come into their minds. Therefore, their acts were not art, but pure violence. I also don't think the sniper is thinking about his job being an art when he takes out a target from a quarter mile out. Calling that a work of art would also be incorrect. There can be art to the practice, but the individual actions not be works of art. The martial artists isn't creating a work of art when he kills as that use of the word art has a very different meaning. In that case, art means more "the practice of perfecting ones skill, craft, or trade". But a work of art is something else entirely.