[Hume]

In your opinion where is that the line is drawn where some ceases to become Art and then becomes Porn?

Do you find any parts of the human body offensive?

Do think there is artistic value in the Human body?


Myself. I reckon it's when 1 or more in the picture/movie are in positions where it is explicitly suggested that they are engaging in a form os sex. If not then then there is the possibility of it being Art if done with enough talent.

As to second two;
Yes.

You thoughts? Censorship as well enyone?

[Kalahinen]

Also you have to define the motive behind the 'piece of ass...' ..no, I mean 'piece of art'. Is it meant to excite sexually, disturb you or something else. So, is it porn if it's not meant to turn you on?

[Ashaman]

an other aspect of this is what is acceptable, take two images in a commercial at a local cinema in Norway was "baned" becors it contained two images from Jock Sturges, (google him to get a opinion about him) 15 min documentary about him: http://www.amadelio.com/vlog/.
the controversy her is that he is taking pictures of humans that are underage also, well do a google searche of this artist and watch the documentary it explains allot of it for me though.

[Kalahinen]

Recently here in Finland an artist was (and is still) accussed of displaying child porn in her modern artwork. The work of art was banned and taken away from the gallery by the police. A delicate matter, this.

[Darkwatch]

I just have to say it, the difference between porn and art is a government grant.

Joking asside it depends on the intention of the piece in question, usually one can tell, porn trying by no means to hide what it's doing. Though there are somethings that blur the line.

Though if one thinks on it the above joke is somewhat accurate, if the government grant is allocated through an artistic program (not a generalized cinematic one) then usually it can be considered art (by the artistic elite) since no government I'm aware of would directly grant pornography (at least not in North America) .
Though as to what the mass amount of people think, then we have a massive conundrum. If pornography is any visual media with nudity and the purpose of causing sexual arousal (not thought) than anything can be porn.


So I guess we either trust the "arteeeests" or trust the general population, or we go with the general ultra conservative Mother's against everything policy.


My definition is:
Any visual media that has explicit nudity, sexual activity and has the only purpose to cause sexual arousal with no framework to identify it otherwise.

As to the other two questions:

-No there are no offensive parts of the human body, but there are offensive things one can do with parts and functions of the human body. (The difference being that offense in my mind is an action not a physical thing.)

-Yes artistic merit can be found in the human form, though finding a way to focus simply on the art of the body is where the skill of the artist can be found.

[Obdigore]

Darkwatch pretty much summed up everything I was thinking after reading the first post, and probably better than anything I would have written.

I just want to add that in todays NAmerican society, censorship is a needed thing, and although there are ways around it, such as on the national geographic channel, if the culture as a whole was more grown up regarding the human body, sex, and waste disposal, I don't think this kind of censorship would be needed.

But, in this happy world with a grown up view of the human body and its functions, there would also be a grown up view of race, culture, religion, and many other things that people are childish about.

Do I like censorship regarding nudity of the human body, because it is nudity? No. Do I think it is needed in North America's current culture? Yes.

[Goaswerfraiejen]

Hume;278508 said:

In your opinion where is that the line is drawn where some ceases to become Art and then becomes Porn?

Very difficult question, and one without any kind of real answer. On the one hand, I doubt most of us would have a hard time saying that Naughty America does not produce art; on the other hand, canonical works like the Venus of Urbino or La Grande Odalisque are harder to categorize.

The most important thing to recognize is that nudity does not automatically equal porn. It may sometimes be difficult to acknowledge given the puritanical mores of certain regions and the Christian shame with the body, but there it is, and I think it’s imperative that we recognize it as a fact.

Once this is recognized, we can really get into the problem. Why is softcore porn softcore porn, whereas a painted nude is art? At first glance, we would say that their purpose distinguishes them; closer inspection of the art historical tradition, however, reveals that the tradition is far from “pristine”. Many a nude was commissioned for the sole purpose of the (male) patron’s pleasure, and he would keep it locked up in a vault or his private study, away from the public. If I remember correctly, such was the fate of the Venus of Urbino and one of Ingres’ Odalisques. These works often caused an uproar when the public first saw them.

So why are they art now, whereas Playboy isn’t in the business of making art? Before I give what I think is the best answer available, I want to make one last point: the fact that pornography is not art does not mean that pornography has no artistic elements, or that art is never pornographic (i.e., has elements of pornography).

Now that this much has been recognised, here’s my answer (it’s a mishmash of aesthetic theories from Schopenhauer to Danto, with stopovers in Heidegger and Langer): pornography is not art because it is not received as art by its audience. Pornography is not symbolic, but rather consists of signs. Accordingly, when you view a piece of pornography, you are aroused; it is very difficult to contemplate pornography from a disinterested point of view--indeed, pornography is almost always consumed as a means to an end rather than as an end in itself, and in this way it is not art.

Now, this does not mean that pornography cannot be made into art; on the contrary. Something as simple as changing its context from the private to the public (as with the artworks I mentioned above) could do the trick. Today, the shift is just as easily made by changing the medium from the photographic or digital to oil/acrylic/watercolour paints.

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Do you find any parts of the human body offensive?

No. Social taboos are just that--there’s nothing inherently wrong about any part of the human anatomy, functions, etc. In art, these things are used as symbols, and so social taboos are irrelevant.

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Do think there is artistic value in the Human body?

What do you mean? Art can be made with any subject matter or media at all; why would the human body be any different as either subject matter or medium?

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Myself. I reckon it's when 1 or more in the picture/movie are in positions where it is explicitly suggested that they are engaging in a form os sex. If not then then there is the possibility of it being Art if done with enough talent.

There are (at least) dozens of paintings, sculptures, etc. Depicting orgies that are (and were) canonically accepted as works of art. How would you deal with these counterexamples? Also, what does talent have to do with anything? Talent is a measure of good and bad art, not of art itself.

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You thoughts? Censorship as well enyone?

If it’s not obvious by now, I’ll spell it out: for me, anything goes.

Darkwatch;278905 said:

Joking asside it depends on the intention of the piece in question, usually one can tell, porn trying by no means to hide what it's doing. Though there are somethings that blur the line.

I disagree on this point simply because the artist’s intent is lost to us in almost the entire art historical canon. How could we presume to know what Michelangelo or Titian thought about each and every one of their works? Intention just can’t be generalized across history, and for that reason, I think it’s a bad criterion. It’s important to take into account if it’s there, but it’s hardly necessary or sufficient, in my opinion.

The other problem, from my point of view, is that intention places the emphasis on the artist rather than the work’s viewers. A work of art does not just belong to the artist; the artist sets it free, shows it to a public. Without that public, it is not fully actualized as a work of art--it’s a lump of stuff to which the artist bears a special relationship. If a work is not or cannot be contemplated aesthetically (for lack of a better word), then we can’t really call it art. Indeed, ultimately, it’s not the artist who has the final say, institutionally, about whether or not he (or she, obviously) has created art, or even if it’s any good.

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Though if one thinks on it the above joke is somewhat accurate, if the government grant is allocated through an artistic program (not a generalized cinematic one) then usually it can be considered art (by the artistic elite) since no government I'm aware of would directly grant pornography (at least not in North America) .

If anyone is interested in this, you should read Dickie and Danto, who both promote (different) institutional theories of art.

Kalahinen;278891 said:

Recently here in Finland an artist was (and is still) accussed of displaying child porn in her modern artwork. The work of art was banned and taken away from the gallery by the police. A delicate matter, this.

There’s an American photographer whose name escapes me at the moment who took photos of her children as they were growing up (in various poses, etc.--she never posed them, but they would pose themselves). Sometimes they were naked--so she was accused of peddling child porn for a while. I’ll think of her name eventually. In the meantime, suffice it to say that they’re great photographs.

[Aimless]

My definition is fuzzy, and depends very much on what I interpret as the intention of the creator. A porn photographer or director, despite viewing his craft as an art, probably intends his product to be porn of some sort. Something depicting individuals engaging in overtly sexual activities for the express purpose of sexually arousing (or enabling the sexual arousal of) the viewer. The art lies in accomplishing that in the "best" way, with the materials and tools available, but the product, to me, is porn.

I don't find any part of the human body offensive. I do, however, see the human form as being exceptionally valuable/useful from an artistic perspective simply because of everything we put into that form... I think it is inherently a more potent subject of art than, for example, a gerbil.

[councilor]

I quote nobby Nobbs (or was it sgt Colon?):

"If there is a vase present, then it's art."
or something to that effect.

[cerveza_fiesta]

Goaswerfraiejen;278918 said:

pornography is not art because it is not received as art by its audience. Pornography is not symbolic, but rather consists of signs. Accordingly, when you view a piece of pornography, you are aroused; it is very difficult to contemplate pornography from a disinterested point of view--indeed, pornography is almost always consumed as a means to an end rather than as an end in itself, and in this way it is not art.

officially the smartest paragraph ever written on the forum...since I've been posting anyways.

It is to this forum what bacon is to food.

rep

also agree

Darkwatch;278905 said:

My definition is:
Any visual media that has explicit nudity, sexual activity and has the only purpose to cause sexual arousal with no framework to identify it otherwise.

kinda says the same thing. Agree here also