Is it ART or is it PORN?

[View Blog]

 

 

 

I received this rejection letter in the mail yesterday, and have been thinking quite a bit on this point. My art obviously aims at pushing boundaries here, and if anything i am surprised it has taken this long to receive such a letter. So in a sense, i am probably more glad than not that this came; for i think it is overdue.

 

Where are our boundaries for this as a society as a whole?

What is the point of no return where something acceptable as art becomes pornography?

 

What i think is even more interesting though, is the fact that the person who sent me this makes it quite clear that they would have liked me to change my art to suit their likings. Shouldn't we be encouraging artists to pursue self-discovery? Isn't there more than enough conformity in our lives as it is? Should we be pushing for conformity in the artistic realm as well?

 

i will end my post with a quote from Chuck Palahniuk's Choke:

 

WHATEVER LIGHTING THE PHOTOGRAPHER USED was harsh and made bad shadows on the
cement-block wall behind them. Just a painted wall in somebody's basement. The mon-
key looked tired and patchy with mange. The guy was in lousy shape, pale with rolls
around his middle, but there he was, relaxed and bent over with his hands braced against
his knees and his poochy gut hanging down, his face looking back over his shoulder at
the camera, smiling away.
"Beatific" isn't the right word, but it's the first word that comes to mind.
What the little boy first loved about pornography wasn't the sex part. It wasn't the
pictures of beautiful people dorking each other, their heads thrown back, making those
fake orgasm faces. Not at first. He'd found all those pictures on the Internet even before
he knew what sex was. They had the Internet in every library. They had it at all the
schools.
The way you can move from city to city and always find a Catholic church, the same
Mass said everywhere, no matter what foster place the kid was sent, he could always find
the Internet. The truth was, if Christ had laughed on the cross, or spat on the Romans, if
he'd done anything more than just suffer, the kid would've liked church a lot more.
As it was, his favorite website was pretty much not sexy, at least not to him. You
could just go there, and there would be about a dozen photographs of this one dumpy guy
dressed as Tarzan with a goofy orangutan trained to poke what looked like roasted chest-
nuts up the guy's ass.
The guy's leopard-print loincloth is tossed to one side, the elastic waistband sunk into
his tubby waist.
The monkey's crouched there, ready with the next chestnut.
There's nothing sexy about it. Still, the counter showed more than a half million
people had been to see it.
"Pilgrimage" isn't the right word, but it's the first word that comes to mind.
The monkey and the chestnuts wasn't anything the kid could understand, but he sort
of admired the guy. The kid was stupid, but he knew this was something way beyond
him. The truth was, most people wouldn't even want a monkey to see them naked. They'd
be terrified about how their asshole might look, if it might look too red or baggy. There's
no way most people would ever have the nerve to bend over in front of a monkey, much
less a monkey and a camera and lights, and even then they'd have to do about a zillion sit-
ups first and go to a tanning booth and get their hair cut. After that, they'd spend hours
bent over in front of a mirror, trying to determine their best profile.
And then, even with just chestnuts, you'd have to stay somewhat relaxed.
Just the thought of auditioning monkeys was terrifying, the possibility of being
rejected by monkey after monkey. Sure, you can pay a person enough money and they'll
stick stuff into you or they'll take pictures. But a monkey. A monkey's going to be honest.
Your only hope would be to book this same orangutan, since it obviously didn't look
too picky. Either that or it was exceptionally well trained.
The point was, there'd be nothing to this if you were beautiful and sexy.
The point was, in a world where everybody had to look so pretty all the time, this
guy wasn't. The monkey wasn't. What they were doing wasn't.
The point was, it's not the sex part of pornography that hooked the stupid little boy. It
was the confidence. The courage. The complete lack of shame. The comfort and genuine
honesty. The up-front-ness of being able to just stand there and tell the world: Yeah, this
is how I chose to spend a free afternoon. Posing here with a monkey putting chestnuts up
my ass.
And I really don't care how I look. Or what you think.
So deal with it.

 

[DKeys]

Food Porn. Is it art or is it just fattening?

[De Villo Sloan]

[Plágium2000]

hi there!

Plágium2000 doesnt want really to intervene in the case of Tom Soy. still he has no IUMA nick so probably he'll never answer these comments refering his work. 

there is no time to waste upon this censorious act of shame... we can only suggest the re-reading of Hakim Bey who writes: 

If rulers refuse to consider poems as crimes, then someone must commit crimes that serve the function of poetry, or texts that possess the resonance of terrorism. At any cost re-connect poetry to the body. Not crimes against bodies, but against Ideas (& Ideas-in-things) which are deadly & suffocating. Not stupid libertinage but exemplary crimes, aesthetic crimes, crimes for love. In England some pornographic books are still banned. Pornography has a measurable physical effect on its readers. Like propaganda it sometimes changes lives because it uncovers true desires.

http://www.t0.or.at/hakimbey/taz/taz1b.htm

[1cgqtuoblpeqc]

Ana Mendieta

[1cgqtuoblpeqc]

here is one of the photos of ana mendieta which i used in my collage which i finished yesterday:

it is one of her rape scenes, and i'm not sure but i believe she used chicken blood in some of her performance art; so my guess is that is real blood.

[1cgqtuoblpeqc]

;-D thanks i will post them after i eat!

[1cgqtuoblpeqc]

don't forget the text on the side of the image as well, which also adds to the art aspect.

[1cgqtuoblpeqc]

thank you erni! i knew i could count on you and your inner encyclopeddah! ;-D

[Ruud Janssen]

Yes, removed a porno image that was placed on this blog.  Obviously there was no connection to art, and was meant to provoke. It did, and I got complaints. So it has been removed.

[1cgqtuoblpeqc]

ok, so i posted a comment here that must have gotten deleted by someone with the ability to do that!

what i was posting here was a digital art submission that certainly goes far further in pushing this boundary than my own. if you want to see it, i have posted it on my FREE ART blog here:

Press Esc to exit full screen mode