The Irresistible Attraction to Horror: From Decapitated Heads to Art

Marcello Faletra's essay on Artribune explores humanity's enduring fascination with horror, using decapitated heads as a central motif. He cites CNN host Kathy Griffin's firing on May 31, 2017, for displaying a fake bloody head resembling Trump, linking it to historical and contemporary examples. In 2004, US Marines posed with Afghan heads; today, ISIS uses beheadings as mass media. In 1944, Life magazine published a photo of a woman thanking her sailor fiancé for sending a Japanese skull. Horatio Robley, a collector of Maori heads, was photographed in 1895 with 34 preserved heads, which he considered a professional duty. Over 100,000 heads are held in the UK alone; at Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum, they are the most sought-after objects, especially by children. In 1981, a 16-year-old Damien Hirst photographed himself next to a severed head at a Leeds morgue; in 2007, he created a diamond-encrusted skull. Faletra argues that art continues the spectacle of revenge and fear, citing Géricault who paid gravediggers to draw guillotined heads. The essay concludes that today's terror threat forces the West to terrorize itself, exemplified by 1,500 fans injuring themselves in Turin.