Art That Kills

In his new book “Art That Kills: A Panoramic Portrait of Aesthetic Terrorism 1984-2001″, George Petros has done a great job giving readers insights into some of most important iconoclastic artists, publishers, magazines and movements of our time. “Art That Kills” contains rare photos, letters, and interviews with people on the fringe of society like Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy, Jonathan Shaw, Joe Coleman, Adam Parfrey, Genisis P-Orridge, William S Burroughs, and the list goes on. The book is laid out in a continuous stream of thought, moving from topic to topic like a good conversation. You can open the book anywhere and find something interesting and thought provoking. Over all, it is an amazing slice of life expose of the major influences of todays current art scene. 

George Petros is a contributing editor of Juxtapoz and the senior editor of Propaganda. For a decade he edited Seconds, before which he put out EXIT. 

Art That Kills examines the point where art meets crime. The book documents a diabolical era, 1984-2001. It chronicles the evolution of a new aesthetic movement, a terrifying fringe of Underground Art where enlightenment and depravity combined. Murder, rape, torture, pedophilia, cannibalism, drugs, sedition, racism and blasphemy mixed with literature, history, politics, news, movies, TV, punk rock, philosophy and science. The book profiles a pantheon of dissidents and deviants, presents excerpts from their work, re-lives their crimes, and attempts to analyze an elusive era. The scene described herein is essentially the “second generation” of American Underground Art (the “first generation” ran from ‘66 through the 70s). All varieties of taboos and criminal advocacy found confluence, beyond “confrontation” or “shock.” Pure sadism drove it. Sexual psychosis flavored it. Frustration with politics, big business and mass entertainment fueled it.

Buy it on Amazon.