Porn as Art

Perhaps since Duchamp's 1917 "Fountain" the discussion of 'what is art?' has become obsolete. That is, of course, if we accept the notion that any given object becomes art if chosen and presented as such by the artist to a responsive public. Any argument about boundaries between art and non-art thus becomes trivial, as the realm of the creative act is placed not on the isolated mind of the artist -where specific intent and bounded rules can exist- but rather on the dynamic dialog between artist and public, where boundaries and systems of meaning are constantly changing and flow freely. That may be the grand contribution of Duchamp's challenge: not quite the notion that 'anything can be art', but rather the notion that there is no definite verdict on the matter, as it is subject to constant negotiation between artist and public as they interact.

The realization that the creative act cannot be understood as a monolithic concept is not a new idea. It echoes a long-held school of thought in Theory of Knowledge that postulates that nothing can be seen as the same bounded entity by different observers under changing contexts. In other words, that the abstraction of a well-defined entity is in fact an oversimplification of its true relativistic nature. Rather than fixed entities, abstract concepts like Art or Power are unstable and dynamically defined through constantly shifting relations. From here we can safely derive Foucault's notion of Power, or the rhizomatic reading of Identity championed by contemporary Gender Theorists, for example. And this, in fact, is no different from our day-to-day realization that nothing is really black or white.

A fine debate on what constitutes Art vs. Porn continues to take place, nonetheless, now more ardently than ever (let us blame the Internet and its intense impact on the diversification and resignification of visual Art/Porn for this). In her recent work Art/Porn, Kelly Dennis arrives at the unsurprising conclusion that art and pornography are much closer than we think, that there is no uncomplicated distinction between the two. Her argument decries the cynical tendency of the modern mind to employ a monolithic conception of Art in order to set it apart from Porn. This tendency appeals to the antithesis between sight and touch as it relates to the distinction between visual and visceral pleasure. According to Dennis, we have (in modern times) artificially confined such distinction to the realm of Art, while routinely transgressing it in the realm of Porn. We would thus tend to regard an ancient sculpture depicting Aphrodite as artful but remote, for example,

while a modern photograph depicting Aphrodite we would tend to consider realistic but pornographic.

Yet if we take a closer look at ancient artworks representing human sexuality in their proper context, we find that they too transgressed the barrier between sight and touch: the Aphrodite of Knidos, for example, was known to be molested by male viewers throughout the IVc BC. The divide between visual/visceral pleasure as a hallmark in distinguishing between Art/Porn is thus often a fiction constructed by our modern mind. Similarly, we think of ancient Shunga Japanese Woodblock prints as erotic works of art

while in context they were no less than graphically explicit booklets used by lovers to train themselves in the art of lovemaking.

If there is no monolithic conception of what constitutes a work of Art, and if there is no easy division of sight/touch that permits our telling Art from Porn, then why has the notion that we can distinguish between them prevailed? We have historically recurred to the most arbitrary set of unspoken rules in order to keep this notion alive, even as we adapt to novel kinds of visual media. For example, the realistic depiction of nudity in photographs can be art, specially if black and white, witch faces concealed and confined to women breasts

Vaginas can be fine, but they have to be closed and the more concealed the better

Ultimately the same has to apply to penises, but they better not be erect

Unless the eye behind the camera is Mapplethorpe...

In the same way, the depiction of sex itself is typically a no-go, but some modern representations of sexual interactions occasionally get through the guarded gates of the Art world

The matter of full-color depictions is much more arbitrary, perhaps due to the unsettling effect on the observer that the full chromatic experience of realistic nudity enforces (imagine the ancient Greek Aphrodites painted with accurate tonalities). In this uncharted territory, color collages have typically held the best bets for hanging in the Art galleries, specially if charged with social criticism and explanatory text

and irrevocably no child nudity whatsoever is tolerated (even if you are Brooke Shields and you are presented in the Tate Modern).

However these modern policies came to be remains a matter of mere historical accidents. Looking back on older artworks -as recently as two or three centuries ago- we unequivocally find the full range of depictions of human sexuality that we so jealously confine to the realm of Porn in present times. Full-color depictions, faces shown, open vaginas and erect penises penetrating them are routinely found in works of Art from Western and Eastern civilizations. And many of these include children involved in sexual interactions, as is the case of Bronzino's "Allegory with Venus and Cupid" of London's National Gallery fame

The frescoes from public baths in Pompeii are there

the Japanese Shunga prints are there

and so are the Mayan stone sculptures.

What are the differences that lead us to distinguish between the nature of the Roman frescoes or the Shunga prints and that of modern 'pornographic' depictions then? The subject and the objects of depiction are shared (if not the medium of visual representation), and once placed in the appropriate context the systems of meaning and the intent behind the creative act of the artist coincide. It would thus seem that the only difference is our reaction to the works themselves, governed by the different ways in which we perceive them within our contemporary context. In other words, it is our part in the creative act what negotiates a differential interpretation of intrinsically equivalent depictions of human sexuality. The notion of an Art/Porn divide is thus borne out of our exercising the right to resignification as the receiving public, and so its prevalence is strictly up to our response to the piece of work presented. Is it then possible that cultural conditioning might lead us to consistently opt for maintaining an Art/Porn divide as we assess modern versus ancient works?

Perhaps Freud would propose that the persistent notion of the divide relates to a necessary separation between our inner 'impure' instincts and the socially acceptable 'pure' tendencies that results essential to establishing normative communities as we know them (modeled after our interpretation of classic civilizations, for good measure). But this is hardly consistent with the increasing number of communities where the norm is regular access to 'pornographic' material, and the taboo is not interacting with it openly. Porn is, after all, a highly populous industry, filling one-fifth of all sites on the World Wide Web. Indeed, as we increase our awareness of the growing role of Porn as a powerful force of cultural redefinition, the realm of Porn has gained increasing attention by the very scholars we typically associate with the realm of Art. The year 2002 saw in New York the opening of the first Museum of Sex ever, which gave a permanent setting to the constant transgression of the limits between scholarly research on human sexuality and its exploration through pornographic media. A very dynamic Museum of Porn in Art emerged in 2004 in the heart of Zurich, and this year saw a bold exploration of The Porn Identity in Vienna's KunstHalle gallery. As the focus on Porn as a scholarly subject gains momentum, the seemingly fixed boundaries thought to exist between artistic and pornographic expression fall under growing scrutiny.

Ultimately, whether Porn is viewed as Art would be up to the unstable interactions between artist and receiving audience that take place through the work presented, through how it is experienced aesthetically and how it is interpreted thematically, (just as Duchamp's reasoning would predict). Perhaps we will see the day in which to the eye of most observers a graphically explicit color depiction of sex constitutes a work of Art in and off itself

but we can safely limit ourselves to the Classical Tradition for now