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Posted by cypher on April 10, 2007, 7:46 pm
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Normally the reviews I post on art are based not on my encyclopedic
knowledge of paintings and artists through reproduction - but on the
first hand feelings and thoughts I have had when confronted with the
art object. In the case of erotic art though I have not had that
pleasure very often. Only in 1999 in Barcelona did I actually see a
huge exhibition (jardi d'eros) devote to erotic and pornographic art
works - thematically divided it the ms like Masturbation,
Prostitution, Lesbianism, Sadism, Urology, Scatology, or Bestiality.
The show had work from Caresme, Boucher, Ingres, Rodin, Klimt,
Picasso, Picabia, Grosz, Schiele, Dali, and many many more. The show
is still one of the greatest and most thought provoking exhibitions on
art I have ever seen. Some might argue that the bracketing of 'erotic
art' as a separate category is misleading - since so many artist have
indulged in it. But I suppose that it is no more spurious than
exhibitions devoted exclusively to the still life, the landscape, the
portrait or the abstract.
My interest in erotic art stretches back to my youth. As early as
twelve year old - l looked with lust at the nudes of Correggio,
Cranach, Titian, Ingres, Courbet, Renoir, Klimt and Modigliani. But
it was only when I was sixteen that I started buying books devoted to
erotic/pornographic art. I can confess that these erotic drawings
provided my teenage self with much needed masturbatory release! But I
can also admit that even at sixteen I recognized the difference
between crass porn and sophisticated art.
Porn in my experience is not an intellectual experience - just an
annalist provoker of desire. Pornographic art on the other hand, in my
experience is usually not very arousing, but very thought provoking.
So I look at pornographic art not for sexual release, but rather
intellectual stimulation.
As a young boy, apart from seeing a half dozen Page-Three type
photographs of topless women and a furtive and all too quick glimpsee
of a Penthouse magazine - my knowledge of female anatomy, or the look
of sex was none existent. I had no sisters whom I could learn about
female nature, few female friends, and no older boy's who could pass
on pornographic images to me. Staying up late at night to watch
movies with sex scenes was my only source of sexual information. But
of course this too was far from the gynecological detail I required. I
had to be content with suggestive plots, a glimps of a barest or a
flash of a pubic mound. I was like a befuddled astronomer seeking to
map the dark side of the moon - driven with a compulsive need to see
and understand and thus end my fear of women and bewildered sexual
ignorance. It was only when I was sixteen that I had the courage,
married to desperation to buy books on erotic photographs from the
early twentieth century and erotic drawings of the masters. It was
this early dependency on artistic interpretations of the sexualised
body which shaped my strange view of them. For example I noticed that
the vast majority of erotic artists drew the vagina and erect penis in
what even I recognized as a naive and simplistic manner. I also
recognized that most erotic depictions of sex lacked the heightened
realist skills which my desire demanded. Most erotic artist were in
fact not very skilled or talented. When at eighteen I finally saw my
first pornographic images in American hard core magazines (vagina's
splayed open, intercourse, blow-jobs, men eating women out, and
sometimes female sodomy) it was like snorting a long fat line of
Cocaine. Porn for me now is a habitual and rather jaded experience. It
is pure recreation - not a profound search for the truth to my
existence.
As a middle aged man - I look now with some fear to the youth -
worried that their present day soaking in porn on the Internet might
lead boys to become aggressive misogynists and girls to become
masochistic sex objects. I have absolutely no idea what effects seeing
so much depraved and perverted porn will do to their sense of
themselves or life. I do know that they will be looking at many images
beyond their youthful comprehension which may damage their growth into
mature adulthood. The thing is, porn used to be about pleasure - a
celebration of lust. But today much of the porn on the net is a freak
show, a circus act and a horror flick - appealing to young men's int
rest in slasher films, extreme reality TV humiliation and on line
executions. Perhaps I am acting too much like a grumpy old man. Maybe
all this Internet porn will have no effect of society at large - much
in the same way that previous pornographic revolutions had no effect
on hypocrisy and shame.
The division between erotic art works that are deemed acceptable and
pornographic works which are reviled and banned from public venues has
long been a subject of intense debate. An argument not helped by the
canniness of many artists through out history who have cleverly
produced semi-adventurous work which steps slightly outside the norm
but not so far as to receive universal condemnation.
For me the greatest difference between an art work of sex produced by
an artist and that produced by commercial pornographers - is the
degree of thought, skill, feeling and complexity the artist brings to
the art work. But another equally important factor is the element of
the deferred reality of the art work. Photography, film, video and the
Internet, does not represent an idea of sex - it represents the actual
event, documented like a sports event. The drawn, sculpted and painted
pornographic art work though is an interpretation of sex that usually
is a product of the artists mind or an intimate relationship with a
model. But even when the model is used - their representation lacks
the scientific reality of the photograph. As such these erotic art
works are the stuff not only of arousal but also contemplation and
thought.
The common place notion that the erotic or pornographic cannot be art
is based on historical ignorance not reality. Any study of art history
world wide quickly revels that nearly every single civilization
produced erotic art works. But such a study also reveals that no
matter how much erotic art might flourish in a particular period - it
is just as quickly attacked, banned, hidden or even destroyed by later
more religiously or politically inspired censorship, and destruction.
Such destruction was largely symbolic in terms of works of literature
and to a lesser extent - etchings and lithographs (since the sheer
number of such copies prevent a total obliteration of its history) but
catastrophic in terms of unique art works like Greece vases, Roman
fresco's, Hindu sculptures in Indian temples, the Renaissance oil
paintings of intercourse by Giulio Romano - a star pupil of Raphael or
a drawing by Schiele ripped up in front of him in court by the judge.
Moreover countless fuck-doodles and erotic watercolours and oil
sketches by countless artists have been destroyed after their deaths
by relatives fearful that these 'aberrant' works would destroy their
relatives reputations (today these works might in fact have
resurrected a few lost reputations). Frankly given this history of
self-censorship, familial censorship, political attack and religious
condemnation it is a miracle that any erotic art works survive at all.
The history of erotic art proves two things, firstly that every great
artist brings their own unique take on sexuality. That can be both a
blessing and a curse, since sometimes despite the skill or wit of an
artist - their personality and sexual preferences can alienate viewers
who do not share their feeling about sex or fetishes. Secondly that
certain sexual practices have had universal int rest to artists and
their patrons.
To a connoisseur critic like Kenneth Clark, the main criticism of
erotic art is its inferiority as art - compared with the masterful
work of the old masters. But such an argument to my mind is utterly
spurious. The level of skill, wit and subtlety of the Fresno's in
Pompeii, the sculptures of Hindu art, the pillow books of Japan, the
watercolours of George Grosz, and the drawings of Dali to my mind are
just as great as most of the higher forms found in the visual canon.
To my mind all erotic and pornographic art works are socio-political.
Artists making erotic art do so knowing full well that they will face
social debate, opprobrium and even political censorship if they then
take the step to exhibit such work. Those who attack such work - do so
on a socio-political or religious basis. Not because they are whiter
than white themselves, but rather as a flight from sexual truth and a
refusal to allow anything that contradicts their vision of social life
and manners existing in the public forum of city life.
As I have mentioned above, today on the Internet every possible kind
of sexual deviation and perversion is catered for - but the erotic or
artistic vision is almost invisible. A quick survey of Internet daily
porn galleries will quickly reveal just how dark, sinister,
misogynistic and abusive many men's sexual feeling towards women are.
However I would argue that what you are seeing is passive-aggressive
propaganda for male supremacy in a world increasingly dominated by
women - devoid of fear or sensitivity. But by implication such work
also reveals the tortured and perverted nature of many men's
sexuality. No such implications are needed when looking at erotic art
- you have in one condescend image both a representation of the male
artists' desires and also a clue to his fears. On the Internet many
porn sites are anonymous, staged in far away countries and its male
controllers and actors are hidden - they are beyond scrunity, public
reproach or investigation. The pornographic artist on the other hand
is as much on view as his muse - he cannot escape responsibility for
his work. This I believe gives the artist's work a moral dimension and
subjective vulnerability - unseen in commercial porn. If you want to
check out my erotic/pornographic art check it out at www.thepanicartist.com
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