What strike me when sitting in my History of Art lecture a few years ago was the categorization of high and low art- Pornography is considered low art. Now when I speak of porn in this blog, I mainly referring to the depiction of the raw nudity and beauty of the human body. Of all the history paintings and sculptures I had to study, I can definitely say over 98% of them were filled with depictions of nudity invoking some sort of sexual connotation AND the interesting thing is that they ARE considered high-art. So it was in my freshmen year in University that for my final research paper, I submitted an essay to my prof about Art and Pornography. My argument in this essay was that pornography should be considered high-art. My arguments ranged from the Pornography Art Gallery based in New York exhibiting fine artworks by many talented artists shunned by censorhsip- to the naked statue of David by Michealangelo placed in public domain for all to see.
Okay, so what is exactly pornography? The definition in the dictionary states that Pornography |pôrˈnägrəfē| noun printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings. Now isn't that something to think about...so pornography doesn't stimulate aesthetic or emotional feelings? so what do I make of the aesthetics of nudity and the sexualized acts and/or behaviours depicted in art? And emotions?- unless we're all computerized androids, as I recall emotions are what makes us human.
We live in a time where we are bombarded by advertisements from plastering posters to gigantic billboards. I can say over 90% of ads are grossly sexualized. We are stimulated erotically and also emotionally-for the service, brand, product but more importantly in the idea. It's an erotic and emotional affair. Pornography exists all around us through advertising. There's always a sexual subliminal code behind it all-isn't that why advertising's a multi-billion industry?
So what I mean to say is that I do believe that pornography have the potential to be viewed as an art form rather than a censorship, a taboo or even trash. We already are charged with pornographic visuals all around us-so we definitely cannot deny we have no strong emotions towards it. Maybe in the near future, the perspective on porn will change and it can step out as being a form of art.
