Art vs. Porn

[Sailor Saturn]

Originally posted by Nippy:
<STRONG>@ SS, I think it would depend. Would you consider a woman with her legs spread wide apart in a frame at a portrait gallery to be artistic? Not only would the art world be in uproar but I think it's just seedy...</STRONG>

I would have to see the photo/painting/sculpture to know for sure. But, in response to your question, I ask you this: how is that any different than the sculpture I mentioned earlier that is in India. It is just one of 6 erotic scenes sculpted on the outside of the Kandarya Mahadeva Temple. The details of what the figures in the sculpture are doing are just as visible as what you described in your question. Also, what makes it different from the equally visible penis on Michealangelo's David, Donatello's David, and in Michealangelo's paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel; or the perfectly visible breasts on the Venus de Medici, Venus de Milo, and in Birth of Venus?

[Mr Sleep]

Originally posted by Nippy:
<STRONG>Again you are very perceptive Weasel, I believe this is the problem. Too many of us rely on societiesdecisions instead of looking at our own moral compass.</STRONG>

A problem with this notion of course is that some people lack the necessary moral compass, so they have to be guided by some organisation.

[Weasel]

Originally posted by Mr Sleep:
<STRONG>A problem with this notion of course is that some people lack the necessary moral compass, so they have to be guided by some organisation.</STRONG>

The circle goes around and around.

Subject: Weasel
Age: 30
Job: Communicator

Subject doesn't like child porn because he has an 9 year old child.

Is this moral? culture? Or is it both?

[Mr Sleep]

Originally posted by Weasel:
<STRONG>Subject doesn't like child porn because he has an 9 year old child.</STRONG>

Well when you put it like that, there should never, ever be child porn, i wouldn't care if it is considered art, it just shouldn't be.

[Delacroix]

I Think everybody found that there is a gradient beetween art x porn. And we love to put ours division lines beetween these gradients( as ephemeral convention). As the choise of a place to put the division line is influenced by lots of variables( time, culture, opinions,...), I 'll put my division line and defend my opinion. Knowing that whereever the division line is set, there will be chance of replica.

As the viewer of the "object"(art or porn), if I perceive the artist behind the object, then it is art, if I perceive sex appeal and nothing more, then it is porn. Meaning that his concept can change if the the viewer see two times the same "object". Meaning too that there is no general rule for my concept.

BTW:
What you think about Dadaism?

[Weasel]

Originally posted by Mr Sleep:
<STRONG>Well when you put it like that, there should never, ever be child porn, i wouldn't care if it is considered art, it just shouldn't be.</STRONG>

Oh I agree.

What I'm looking for is.....why. I believe it is wrong, but why?

Because a book says so?
Because a people believe so?
Because my heart tells me so?

[Aegis]

I honestly see no difference between "porn" and "art". There are people out there that have been arrested for jerking in an art gallery (Grunty :rolleyes ), looking at a nude painting. At the same type, things like playboy can be considered art by some people. I beleive it is a very fine line, and people tread it too often. It's all those activists, and over-concerned parents that make these things so taboo...

[Mr Sleep]

Originally posted by Weasel:
<STRONG>Oh I agree.

What I'm looking for is.....why. I believe it is wrong, but why?

Because a book says so?
Because a people believe so?
Because my heart tells me so?</STRONG>

Well personally the last one.

[Delacroix]

Originally posted by Mr Sleep:
<STRONG>Well personally the last one.</STRONG>

I think your heart have a culture too. And heart from diferent culture say diferent things.

It is cultural.(book and heart,...)

[ 10-11-2001: Message edited by: Ivan Cavallazzi ]

[Weasel]

Originally posted by Mr Sleep:
<STRONG>Well personally the last one.</STRONG>

A good heart goes a long way.

I will stop here...because my next question will lead further from the topic.

[Sailor Saturn]

Originally posted by Ivan Cavallazzi:
<STRONG>I think your heart have a culture too. And heart from diferent culture say diferent things.

It is cultural.(book and heart,...)</STRONG>

I disagree. Our hearts and our minds are often in conflict because our minds go by what they know while our hearts go by what they believe. Culture teaches us to believe such and such, yes. However, our hearts don't always agree with that and thus one of two things win out. Either our heart wins and we disagree with culture or our mind wins and we ignore what our heart tells us. I, for one, do the best I can to listen to what my heart tells me, but I do not ignore my mind either. Confused yet?

[Mr Sleep]

Originally posted by Weasel:
<STRONG>A good heart goes a long way.

I will stop here...because my next question will lead further from the topic.</STRONG>

You could always PM me if you wish to know my opinion

[Delacroix]

Originally posted by Sailor Saturn:
<STRONG>I disagree. Our hearts and our minds are often in conflict because our minds go by what they know while our hearts go by what they believe. Culture teaches us to believe such and such, yes. However, our hearts don't always agree with that and thus one of two things win out. Either our heart wins and we disagree with culture or our mind wins and we ignore what our heart tells us. I, for one, do the best I can to listen to what my heart tells me, but I do not ignore my mind either. Confused yet? </STRONG>

Hmm. I presume you say "heart" as a meaning of personal ethics and/or moral (lets avoid ethicsX moral talk). Your heart (persn. ethic) is influenced by culture. Otherwise diferents culture will be much more close each other. There are civilizations who don't have jealous beetween partners, child pornografy is aceptable, and so on. The "heart" wisdom are relative (the variables are: culture, time, space,...). The way you say our heart ( humans) are the same.

[Weasel]

Originally posted by Mr Sleep:
<STRONG>You could always PM me if you wish to know my opinion </STRONG>

Shhhhh... Not on the board.

I will think about it. Right now my mind is fill with a torrent of raging thoughts, cascading down a waterfall.

Time for a pill.

[Mr Sleep]

I would like to say that this conversation so far has been amicable, i hope that it does not take a turn for the worst. So far everyone has shown a level of maturity that is very nice to see, keep it up

[Mr Sleep]

Originally posted by Weasel:
<STRONG> Shhhhh... Not on the board.
</STRONG>

Sorry, i forgot

Well i am off for a bit anyhow, catch you later

[Sailor Saturn]

Originally posted by Ivan Cavallazzi:
<STRONG>Hmm. I presume you say "heart" as a meaning of personal ethics and/or moral (lets avoid ethicsX moral talk). Your heart (persn. ethic) is influenced by culture. Otherwise diferents culture will be much more close each other. There are civilizations who don't have jealous beetween partners, child pornografy is aceptable, and so on. The "heart" wisdom are relative (the variables are: culture, time, space,...). The way you say our heart ( humans) are the same.</STRONG>

I understand what you're saying, and I don't agree. I believe that everyone's heart is slightly different and is not relative to their culture. What their mind tells them is relative to their culture and knowledge, however. Some cultures won't let the citizens listen to their own hearts.

An "extreme" example would be Drizzt and the Drow of Menzoberanzen. The Drow are taught from birth, pretty much, that their way of life is the right way to live. Their minds override what their hearts tell them. Then there is someone like Drizzt who's heart speaks more loudly than the hearts of the other people and/or he is more open to listening to it; thus he is unable to accept what he is taught and listens to his heart instead of his mind.

[Mr Snow]

Originally posted by Mr Sleep:
<STRONG>I would like to say that this conversation so far has been amicable, i hope that it does not take a turn for the worst. So far everyone has shown a level of maturity that is very nice to see, keep it up </STRONG>

Then we are obviously not doing our job good enough

[VoodooDali]

I guess the real problem here is that in this age, maybe the question, "What is art?" is either impossible to answer or irrelevant. When my husband (who is a sculptor) met Carl Andre (one of the founders of "minimalism") and told him he was working with found objects, Carl Andre replied, "Everything is a found object."

This is from an essay I was reading by Christopher Witcombe:
"Duchamp, as an artist, declared that anything the artist produces is art. For the duration of the 20th century, this position has complicated and undermined how art is perceived but at the same time it has fostered a broader, more inclusive assessment of art.

According to William Rubin, director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, "there is no single definition of art." The art historian Robert Rosenblum believes that "the idea of defining art is so remote [today]" that he doesn't think "anyone would dare to do it."

Philippe de Montebello, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, states that there is "no consensus about anything today," and the art historian Thomas McEvilley agrees that today "more or less anything can be designated as art."

Arthur Danto, professor of philosophy at Columbia University and art critic of The Nation, believes that today "you can't say something's art or not art anymore. That's all finished." In his book, After the End of Art, Danto argues that after Andy Warhol exhibited simulacra of shipping cartons for Brillo boxes in 1964, anything could be art. Warhol made it no longer possible to distinguish something that is art from something that is not.

What has finished, however, is not artistic production, but a certain way of talking about art. Artists, whoever they are, continue to produce, but the viewers are no longer able to say whether it is art or not. But at the same time, viewers are no longer comfortable with dismissing it as art because it fails to fit what they think art should be (whatever that is).

We struggle with this because we have been taught that art is important and we're unwilling to face up to the recently revealed insight that art in fact has no "essence." When all is said and done, "art" remains significant to human beings and the idea that now anything can be art, and that no form of art is truer than any other, strikes us as unacceptable."

The last statement sums up for me why I feel uncomfortable with the "eye of the beholder" notion of defining art.

[Weasel]

Originally posted by Mr Sleep:
<STRONG>I would like to say that this conversation so far has been amicable, i hope that it does not take a turn for the worst. So far everyone has shown a level of maturity that is very nice to see, keep it up </STRONG>

And to think....I was involved in something like this!!!


Dark days are coming my friends....dark days.