A statement concerning artistic expression and other things

I am a great believer in the Freedom of the Individual. I shun from and stand against any ideals, movements, regimes, groups etc. that attempt to suppress this freedom. This means that I do not support or approve any kind of discrimination based on race, nationality or other such characteristics.

Niko Skorpio monogram

This is my monogram. It is composed primarily out of my initials (NS), with a number of personally meaningful stylistic additions and modifications.

Half Born in Half Light

This is the cover art for my album Half Born in Half Light.

I remain reluctant to attempt to explain my art. I think art should speak for itself and each person should be the judge when it comes to the potential value a piece of artwork may or may not have for him or her. Furthermore, I find it impossible to explain my art in ways that would make it immediately understandable by other people.

Having said that, I want to let everybody know that neither of the images above have anything to do with political movements or ideologies. They, and the artist himself are especially removed from any totalitarian ideals which suppress the freedom of the individual.

This should be immediately clear to anybody with a functioning pair of eyes and half a brain to process the information it receives. Why do I, then, feel the need to make such statements in the first place? Well, I didn’t expect it myself. Here’s the background:

Some Place Else bought some ad space in a British alternative music magazine. The advertisement contained, among other things, the front cover image of my new album Half Born in Half Light (see above). To our great surprise and disappointment, the editor of the magazine refused to publish the ad on the basis that he was “concerned someone would interpret the artwork as being too close to a nazi swastika”. Needless to say it was me who found himself confused, not to mention insulted by such allegation. Despite my feelings, we still needed to advertise the album (and other Some Place Else releases, of course). To meet the deadlines and the editor’s approval, we made a “censored” version of the ad. Such an artistic compromise insults and disappoints me even more, but “well, it’s just a bloody ad” said one of the voices in the back of my head.

censored ad

original version

He was concerned someone would interpret the artwork as being too close to a nazi swastika …I keep on thinking, how far flung is that, really? The editor in question is certainly an intelligent and educated person, just as I’m sure are their audience as well. Yet I find myself thinking whether he underestimates the intelligence of their readers and subscribers. That’s none of my business of course, it just makes me wonder…

It is already a great shame that such a primal, archaic symbol as the swastika is hopelessly stained by sad events that happened in the past century. But when we begin to reject art based on the suspicion that someone, somewhere might possibly confuse it with a symbol that in recent times has been shown to us Westerners as a mark of “all things evil in humanity”, I can only ask how severely has all the political correctness fucked us all up? I’m sorry but it’s beginning to remind me of Nazi Germany’s suppression of abstract and avant-garde art as “degenerate”! Do we have a little Hitler in each of us, making us self-suppress our freedom of expression?

To conclude, I have no hard feelings whatsoever toward the magazine or editor in question. Instead, such incidents as this make me worry about the general consensus on how art is perceived and what is (and is not) allowed in artistic context.

Niko Skorpio
August 2008 ev

PS. When I say I’m a great believer of the freedom of the individual, it contains the notion that with freedom comes responsibility; to practise one’s freedoms in ways that don’t prevent others to practise theirs.