Last week I showed a sex painting and asked if pornography could be art.
Bring up the word pornography and one of the things that comes up in conversation is the topic of exploitation. Here for example is David’s answer to my question:
Karl, I only think of something as pornography if someone is being abused in creating it.
David’s comment makes me wonder why pornography has such a bad image, compared to say, chocolate, diamonds or coffee. Could it be because pornography has something to do with sex?
Richard in his comments last week had nothing good to say about pornography either:
If the singular purpose of a visual product is to cause sexual excitement then, in my view it is pornography and not art. But if it stimulates other senses as well, it is art.
Sunil presents a somewhat different view, changing the focus from the purpose of the work to the perceived purpose:
I think it really depends upon the perspective of the viewer. What is art to the artist could be pornography to a viewer and what is art to the viewer was really planned to be pornographic to the artist.
Either way, we have the implication that pornography is distinct from, and at best something not as good as, art. We could also consult Wikipedia, which more or less agrees with the comments above:
In general, “erotica” refers to portrayals of sexually arousing material that hold or aspire to artistic or historical merit, whereas “pornography” often connotes the prurient depiction of sexual acts, with little or no artistic value. The line between “erotica” and the term “pornography” (which is frequently considered a pejorative term) is often highly subjective. In practice, pornography can be defined merely as erotica that certain people perceive as “obscene”. The definition of what one considers obscene can differ between persons, cultures, and eras. This leaves legal actions by those who oppose pornography open to wide interpretation. It also provides lucrative employment for armies of lawyers, on several “sides.”
The consensus seems to be that pornography cannot be art, by definition.
For my part, I like the word ‘pornography,’ especially compared to the wishy-washy euphemism ‘erotica.’ Despite its negative connotations, there is something refreshingly frank about the word ‘pornography.’
Rather than pursue the question, “What’s wrong with pornography?” we could ask a different question, “What is so good about art?” Here we might have a bit of explaining to do.
For example, why is it that we worship this word ‘art’? Is ‘art’ the definition of all that is good? Do we think our work and our collections would be nothing without the label? Is ‘art’ the ultimate frame, without which every work is unfinished? Is ‘art’ so powerful that it can transform anything into a thing of value?
‘Pornography’ is a word that always causes concern. Maybe ‘art’ is the word we should really be worried about.
Karl, I did not mean to imply anything negative about the art of pornography (play with that phrase if you dare): I was merely trying to draw a line between art and pornography. As long as consenting adults are involved, I have no issues with pornography and see it as an important expression and tool in the world of human sexuality. Lilith must have approved of pornography, but then along came Eve and “original sin” and everything turned sour.
Richard,
I can almost hear someone saying, “Some of my best friends are pornographers…”
How can you draw a line between art and pornography and also refer to an “art of pornography”? That sounds like an art of not-art, which, excuse me if I appear limited in conceptually capacity, seems contradictory. Perhaps art is above ordinary reasoning?
This leaves legal actions by those who oppose pornography open to wide interpretation. It also provides lucrative employment for armies of lawyers, on several “sides.
Lawyers love pornography. The less well-defined the better.
Karl,
As far as “erotic” being a weaker word than “pornography…” Er, excuse me, but you’re either being intentionally provocative, or you’ve lost your marbles.
As you probably know, “pornography” combines two Greek words. “Porno” was the word used to describe not just a male prostitute but any particularly libidinous male who may or may not have dallied with other males. “Eros” was usually used for the kind of love that involved sex, but was also used to describe the love between parents and children (naturally, since children are conceived via sex). In many Greek texts however, you will find “eros” used rather than “philos” because “eros” was considered the the stronger word — emphatic love rather than strong friendship. Plato, however, consistently uses “philos” when he quite clearly is referring to unions which involved sex, so the Greeks were themselves rather ambivalent about the meanings. Traditionally, you put your arm around a philo, but you kissed your eronemos. Both words might get translated as “beloved.”
“Agape” was fairly rare and become truly popular only in the Christian era to describe divine love and the brotherhood of man, but the ancients used that word almost interchangeably with the others.
Leaving aside that bit of pedantry, it so happens that I’ve made several thousand dollars doing erotica. I stopped doing it because the nature of the work drew some real creepy creatures out from under the rotten logs where they live…
“So, do you ever do drawings of really young guys?”
Or, “Can you do one of me in bondage gear?”
No. And no.
There is a definite line between pornography and erotica. If you research the landmark court cases — as I have, particularly in California — you will find that porn is clearly determined by works which have solely and only “prurient” interest. If there exists even a small minority of people who do not regard the work as exclusively prurient, you can survive a lawsuit. You can lewdly and repulsively write about children having crude and violent sex, but you cannot graphically represent them pictorially no matter how lovingly, artistically, honestly, or tastefully conceived.
Given that I started when I was twelve, I find that very, very strange. There is this whole underground world that Americans just cover their eyes and plug their ears to.
Evidently, the people who take it upon themselves to police these matter are not very literate however.
And as far as any worship of art, you’re talking to the wrong cat. No human work is holy, and it is war, crime, and bad manners that are profane, not sex nor it representation.
By the way. Great picture. Erotic, yes. Pornographic? Not even.
How can you draw a line between art and pornography and also refer to an “art of pornography”?
You can use the word “art” in a lot of different ways. When you talk about “the art of x” (cooking, pornography, whatever) you’re usually referring to an activity involving skill. You aren’t necessarily talking about a fine art.
I’ve been reading an Umberto Eco essay entitled “On The Structure of Bad Taste”( from his book The Open Work) which deals with the difference between art and kitsch. It seems to be relevant to the discussion here.
According to Eco, there are (at least) two aspects to kitsch. First, kitsch is oriented towards effects, while art is oriented towards form. Second, kitsch aspires to be understood (falsely) as art. It seems to me that pornography satisfies the first standard but not the second. It aspires only to turn you on. Erotica, on the other hand is kitsch because it is pornography with artistic pretensions.
Karl’s paintings, of course, are neither.
Er, excuse me, but you’re either being intentionally provocative, or you’ve lost your marbles.
Rex, what do you expect from a cultural acorn?
Erotica, on the other hand is kitsch because it is pornography with artistic pretensions.
Arthur, you said what I was trying to say, but much better (as usual.)
What I like so much about the word pornography is that it is more or less by definition immunized from being art, from having artistic pretensions. This seems to me exactly why it is promising. Art has lost it way and even its meaning as a word. Erotica (historical origin of the word notwithstanding) combines the worst elements of art and pornography, and none of the better ones.
Lawyers LOVE pornography. The less well-defined the better.
David, if pornography became less well defined, it might loose the characteristic of being pornography altogether.
Really, what a tyranny of words we live with. If we had no word for art or pornography, wouldn’t everything be less rather than more confused?
Here is a word that we could use but are missing: a word for what art should be (and maybe what it once meant to people), but not what it is now. A word like that could change the world.
Erotica, on the other hand is kitsch because it is pornography with artistic pretensions.
That’s so naive I’m not even going to list any of a number of hundreds of contrary examples; instead, I’ll leave that as a needed exercise in critical thinking.
Karl,
I am wondering if you ask these questions because of some particular experience you have had with these pieces. Has someone called this work pornography? Or has it been criticized as “too” pornographic? I am wondering if the question comes from a place, other than being an intellectual query. What response to you get to these pieces?
I see the potential of this one being pornographic because the subject seems so young, like an adolescent boy playing with himself, possibly being watched by someone else without knowing it. There is an innocence to him that makes him vulnerable. My concern with porn is whether anyone gets exploited in the process, as David’s definition alluded to. If an image makes me wonder if someone got exploited, then it provokes some discomfort for me, but maybe that’s an interesting response to have in your mind.
I am interested in you addressing the work specifically in the context of these questions. Do you intend them to be pornographic? Or are you worried about the paintings being put in that corner. to me they don’t really run that risk, partly because of the stylized way you chose to portray the figures. But I would look for an artist statment or background info for answers to the specific context of the images. Obviously I would read these images really differently if I found out you had adolescent children posing for them! I know you didn’t by the way, just making a point about the context changing my attitude about whether they are porn…
As someone commented last year, A&P is sooo cerebral. It is refreshing that June, one of the high-powered intellects here, said yesterday on Angela’s post
…What I liked about your painting is the way the woman’s body curves and sinks into the pillow. Her hip curves up just a bit in a very sensuous way, and the curve is echoed in many other places, …
Leslie,
The male figure is part of a pair in which it is clear that he is adult. It never occurred to me to see him as adolescent before. That is an interesting result of putting the painting in another context. No one has ever seen him as a young boy before, but no one has ever seen this one painting in isolation before either. I do however refer to him as a “boy” but that is because this is the English word that Dutch people use to refer to a young man, when they speak English. It is a literal translation from Dutch which I find interesting.
No, I never had anyone calling work in my collection pornographic before, and I don’t seem to be having much luck now either.
I’ll leave that as a needed exercise in critical thinking.
Rex, you have to remember that when people use words, they use them to refer to what they are referring to, not what you are referring to. I’d bet you and Arthur don’t disagree quite so much as you think, but I’ll leave that as a needed exercise in critical thinking.
I’d bet you and Arthur don’t disagree quite so much as you think, but I’ll leave that as a needed exercise in critical thinking.
Hey. Good one!
Ha ha.
Before we get totally off track, let’s talk about the art issue. Here are two questions that are interesting, I think:
1) Is ‘art’ the ultimate frame, without which every work is unfinished?
2) Is ‘art’ so powerful that it can transform anything into a thing of value?
We have seen art as obfuscation, art as communication, art as “hey, look at this.” We have seen internet as frame. Maybe we should see art as frame…
As in, a frame called ‘art’ can transform a soiled drop cloth into a major museum piece. And it doesn’t even need a frame in the traditional sense.
Any comments on that?
Why yes Karl, I have a comment.
If I follow you here, it seems you are saying that ‘art’ is a frame, a big ugly one that you don’t like especially. It seems that you would like to be able to choose not to use this frame, which is a garish composite built over the millennia and decorated with neon more recently, but you are not sure of the alternative. It seems to me that you are grasping at the word pornography as an alternative frame — perhaps a distasteful one in some respects, but a sufficiently thin and meagre frame that it leaves room for your goals as an, um, well, your goals in painting.
Karl,
That is a pretty good characterization, I suppose. I know people are always trying to push the boundries of art, to make things that are not within the normal characterization of art and then stretch the definition to include those things. What if we had the opposite intention: is it even plausible to try to escape from the concept of ‘art’ and still try to make stuff that traditionally falls under the heading of ‘art’? Why would I even want to do that? Well, as you said, the whole ‘art’ concept is so gummed up, I don’t feel that it is something to necessarily be associated with. At least, not without some critical thinking. Why should I owe allegiance to some all encompassing concept of ‘art’ anyway? If you think about it, it is a fairly absurd state of affairs that we are in, this dependence on a single word. Just tossing the idea back and forth here gives me a feeling of freedom and fresh air — art without ‘art.’ I like it.
I hate to interrupt here :)
But I am confused:
“It seems to me that you are grasping at the word pornography as an alternative frame — perhaps a distasteful one in some respects, but a sufficiently thin and meagre frame that it leaves room for your goals as an, um, well, your goals in painting.”
Are you looking for a frame at all? It sounds like the “frames” are confining to you. I think porn is even more “gummed up” than art as a frame. You want a distasteful frame, why not “kitsch,” (one of my aspirations) or “decoration?” Why not go for broke with something like “smut?” Of course you’d have to be making very different art, I mean um paintings, for that frame!
‘Art’ is just fine as a frame as long as you don’t take it too seriously. You don’t have to be enslaved to it, just use it to do what you want to do anyways.
Leslie,
Pornography, kitsch, it sounds like these are parallel concepts for conceptual “frames” for paintings.
Smut, hmm, what are the Greek origins of that word? Seriously, I never thought of Smut as Frame, but it sounds interesting. I’ve heard the Ed once organized an exhibition on sleaze: “In fact, I once unwittingly offended Tracy by inviting her to exhibit in a group exhibition about sex and sleaze and politics, and didn’t understand why she didn’t want to be included.” You can read more about that (plus the New York take on art and porn) here.
I won’t try to answer the frame question now, or debate with Arthur here. I’ll take another shot next Monday.
Wow, here was a raging discussion on porn and I was away on travel… I read a lot of the comments and was fascinated by the amount of passion when it comes to subjects like this - and rightly so, as we begin to confront the pernicious effects of porn on our growing children… I again have the same comment that I had alluded to before about this subject… It really depends upon the ‘perceiver’. As I read somewhere before, a painting has minimum of two participants - the painter who wants to communicate and the onlooker who ‘hears’ the story communicated. In some cases the story told by the painting could be pornographic in nature but could be perceived by the onlooker as inherently satisfying and soothing. Sometimes the story heard by the onlooker may be completely inappropriate, lewd and pornographic when the painter wanted to communicate lofty ideals and just that (s)he chose pornography as the vehicle to convey the emotion.
I ask you to look at John Currin’s (http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/saltz/saltz12-18-06.asp) work as an example - some of his paintings blur the line between art and sex and even I am not too sure sometimes when I go back and look at some of his works.. I am not sure if he meant to titillate me or was just solidly making a point on the pervasive nature of the sexual image in our lives…
Great round of discussion you have provoked around this Karl…
I like thinking about issues in a specific way. Artists help me do that. I also like thinking about Currin. I like his position in relation to contemporary life/culture.
When I saw Currin’s show several years ago I was struck by his remarkable skill and his subtle sense of humor. Yes! We can be such buffoons and then… Bea Arthur/Maude!? Topless and so beautiful.
I can see the humor in Currin’s pictures
There’s a very interesting and most relevant piece by Justin Smith that I found on my favorite ideas blog, 3quarksdaily. Just one quote: “The difference between the poetic allusion, the insipid euphemism, and the blunt literal description, it seems to me, is strikingly similar to that between erotic art, idiotic softcore simulations, and porn.”
Steve,
Simply beautiful. That line is a keeper.
Steve,
Is that quote about the differences among three things, or the difference between two things? If the latter, which two of the three do we group together?
I recommend reading the piece, which is based on an insight about language and largely concerned with film. Here’s a longer quote, answering Karl’s question:
“The difference between the poetic allusion, the insipid euphemism, and the blunt literal description, it seems to me, is strikingly similar to that between erotic art, idiotic softcore simulations, and porn, a three-part distinction which in turn maps onto that between epic battle scenes, cartoonish blood-splattering violence, and snuff films. I would like to consider whether Danto’s insight about profane language might thus be useful for understanding images that fall into any of these genres.” … “It seems to me, in short, that just as certain words cannot be contained semantically within quotation marks, certain images cannot be kept morally behind the screens on which we watch them. They bleed out of the pixels meant to contain them, like ‘fuck’ bleeds out of its punctuational container.”