WHY WE NEED UGLINESS! An Essay on Ian Haig’s Work

People keep asking the same museum-shop question, the one that arrives wearing perfume and a lanyard: Why do you need to make such an ugly image? Why this horror? It’s a question that pretends to be moral but is superficial. It assumes beauty is the default setting and ugliness is an ethical deviation. It assumes images should soothe, decorate, and reassure us that the world (and our bodies) are…