agency / porn
Feb. 19th, 2006 07:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
keryxI find this interesting: photographer Rachel Weeks did a series of nude photos of herself in vintage (generally 1920s and earlier) style shots.
From her artist's statement:
She also asserts that, by making her own photos for her own pleasure, she has taken objectification out of the picture, but the thought that captures my mind is that statement above. Introduce an audience, and your intent flies out the window. That's true of any art form, and a lot of people deliberately play with that - creating something that isn't intended to make one statement, but to inspire reaction.
When it's using the images of porn, then, is it possible to create a less-objectified, truly divorced from the issues of consumer/consumed & such porn? What happens to independent, consensual, woman-produced - whatever "well intended" porn might mean to you - work when made available to a wider audience? Does that matter?
In keeping with my artistic leanings, I'm not offering answers, just some interesting questions.
From her artist's statement:
Who is the viewer of what would otherwise be a private space or act? And why does the identity of the viewer have an impact on the subject? By asking these questions, by conflating the public and the private, and by making myself the subject of voyeurism, I am claiming the window onto my world.
She also asserts that, by making her own photos for her own pleasure, she has taken objectification out of the picture, but the thought that captures my mind is that statement above. Introduce an audience, and your intent flies out the window. That's true of any art form, and a lot of people deliberately play with that - creating something that isn't intended to make one statement, but to inspire reaction.
When it's using the images of porn, then, is it possible to create a less-objectified, truly divorced from the issues of consumer/consumed & such porn? What happens to independent, consensual, woman-produced - whatever "well intended" porn might mean to you - work when made available to a wider audience? Does that matter?
In keeping with my artistic leanings, I'm not offering answers, just some interesting questions.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-19 07:43 am (UTC)While I definitely agree that not all audience will understand/appreciate/digest intent, I think 'flying out the window' is extreme. Audience and how they will digest/understand art is something the artist is going to have to keep in mind, if they want their intent to come through. I can't use obtuse language in a poem if I want people to get a nuanced poem about politics.
Erotic art is at heart, indulgent. But in a culture that does not allow women to be indulgent, a woman taking pictures of what she likes about her body, or writing what turns her on is such a hugely progressive step....if that is something she has felt silenced in.
I'll mull on this though, I have to hop in the shower and head out of the house :)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-19 08:00 am (UTC)Yes. Thank you. Yes.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-19 07:59 am (UTC)yes.
no.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-19 08:05 pm (UTC)*drool*