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"Green Harms" as Art Crime, Art Criticism as Environmental Dissent

NCJ Number
237395
Journal
Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice Volume: 27 Issue: 4 Dated: November 2011 Pages: 465-499
Author(s)
Avi Brisman
Date Published
November 2011
Length
35 pages
Annotation
This article examines the focus of criminologists and art crime scholars and the relationship between art and crime.
Abstract
This article argues that the focus of many criminologists and art crime scholars is too often rather narrow, and promotes a more expansive notion of "art crime" one that centers not on crime, but on the relationship between art and crime. More specifically, this article argues for an approach to "art crime" that contemplates "socially injurious acts" or omissions involving art that are not defined as "crime" or proscribed by civil or criminal statutes. Employing this "harm-based" approach, this article examines the responses to Damian Hirst's The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Livinga piece consisting of a 14-ft tiger shark (caught by a fisherman commissioned to do so) immersed in formaldehyde in a vitrine of glass and steelto demonstrate how art criticism can be employed as a tool for dissent, especially in cases involving art that causes ecological or environmental harms. (Published Abstract)