Art

I have a question for you, when does art stop becoming art and become say for example porn? When does art become offensive? Nudity has been used in art for many hundreds of years now wether it be painting, drawing or sculpture. From the start I have to say I do not have a problem with nudity in art. I have a piece called Lioness by David Charles hanging on one of my walls which features a naked woman. I have another print called Bondage Ballet 4 by John Tisbury.

There are a huge amount of people on a website called DievantArt who seem to think if they take a photo of a naked person it is called art. On a daily basis there are a huge amount of pictures of various body parts and women in sexual positions taken using poor quality cameras and mobile phones that people seem to think is art. It isn’t and never will be art. Some of you will be saying by now that art is in the beholder. True but just because someone takes a picture of a naked lady doesn’t make it art.

Ireland surprises me, it really does. Everytime I go there my interest in the arts tends to increase and develop. You may think that Ireland is a very conservative place and in some cases you may be right. Within the arts and particularly performance art they seem to be pushing the boundaries more and more.

My first real experience would be with a performance artist called Amanda Coogan who uses her body and nudity in her work. It isn’t sexual nudity but it does leave very little to the imagination. I respect her and her work even if sometimes I have to spend a while working out some of her pieces.

A few years ago I went to see a contemporary dance at the project arts centre in Dublin which featured the peformers stripping to their underwear towards the end of the performance. Again nothing wrong with this and in the context of the dance it made sense.

There is a piece called Barbed Hula by Sigalit Landau which is a two minute video of her using a barbed hula. Again this has full frontal nudity and as she is using barbed wire obvious injury. Is this art? Well Tracy Emin thought so. I would have to agree with her.

I was looking on the Project Arts centre website to see what they had on over the next few months and found another dance piece called The Work The work created by Emma Fitzgerald and Aine Stapleton. The difference with this dance is that it has full nudity in it and scenes of an explicit nature. I found a review of this work in the New York times and reading through it the scences of an explicit nature include masturbation. Below is a quote taken directly from the review by Roslyn Sulcas:

The Work The Work,” which ended on Saturday, is no exception, but takes things up a notch near the beginning when the women lie down and masturbate so mechanically and emotionlessly as to strip any eroticism from the act. Before and after, they move with indeterminate small gestures and bent-legged walks, often close to the whitewashed brick walls of the performance space

Reffering back to my original question which was when does art stop becoming art and becomes for example porn? Masturbation is a sexual act, you can strip away all the emotion, do something mechanically and try to remove all of the eroticism but it is still a sexual act.

Does this make this porn? It has full nudity and a sexual act it in so if we simplify things then the answer must be yes. However, if we look at the whole picture then I would have to say no it isn’t. You have to look at it within the context of the performance, is it being portraid as a sexual act within the context of the performance? No it isn’t, as the review says they have stripped all of the eroticism from the act. If it was porn then the New York Times wouldn’t be reviewing it, likewise the authorities and the Project Arts centre in Ireland wouldn’t be allowing the show to go ahead.

I have watched The Dog of all Creation which again has both dancers naked in it, my first reaction was why are they naked? It didn’t do anything to enhance their performance but then again it didn’t take away from the performance. It wasn’t sexual, it just seemed to be dance without barriers. You have to have a huge amount of confidence to do something like that infront of strangers and I really don’t think it would work for everyone.

Art is something that is constantly evolving, the boundaries should be pushed and tested by artists. Society itself will deem what is and what isn’t acceptable. Art is supposed to create a reaction and emotions, art should make you think and create debate.


www.projectartscentre.ie/
www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/arts/dance/25work.html?_r=1