On Porno Art

I watch a lot of porn. Duh, right?

As such, after while, I, being the special guy that I am, notice patterns, fixtures, recurrences. Things like the pervasive potted plant in the corner or the inexplicably ubiquitous folding room partition in the background. Things like black guys keeping their shoes on (I haven't figured that one out yet).

What I notice most is the abundance of art in porn movies. You see it everywhere, and all kinds: good, bad...mostly bad. If the scene isn't outside, in a motel room, or on a fabricated set, you'll probably see something hanging on the wall.

Several questions arise:

1. Have there been any recognizable pieces featured? I'm not talking about The Nightwatch, certainly, but something from a hot artist from the last 5-10 years or so.

2. Does having your art pop up in a sex flick increase or lower its value? I'm guessing if early deaths and bizarre lifestyles are a career-maker, porn appearance can't be that detrimental.

3. Somewhat, related to the first question. The houses a lot of these movies are shot in pretty much look interchangeable. Has anyone seen a painting and gone, "Oh, that's _________'s place"?

4. Am I the only one who notices shit like this?

5. Why?

I guess the most logical (and least fun) explanation is that many non-motel room, non-fake set sex flicks are shot in pretty swanky digs in and around Porn Valley. A surefire way for the arriviste to gain respectability is through collecting art. I'm assuming, of course, Old Money don't let their houses out for porn shoots, but I could be wrong.

A collage construct from a random sampling of my collection:

I am a geek for documentaries and books about the lives of various works of art. I like knowing how it got from A to B, what happens from the time it's created and the time it gets to its present home. If the story begins with an impoverished, unappreciated artist who sells his prized painting to make rent, and then proceeds to how it was hidden from the Nazis by Resistance members in a dank cave for four years, and ends with the painting now a national treasure hung in the Louvre, then you've got my attention the whole time (no mean feat).

Thinking of Porno Art I let my mind wander.

What if there were an artist. He isn't a hot new thing but he is talented. He isn't known in the big art circles, but he does fairly well in Southern California. His work isn't selling for more than $1000, but he's moves quite a few paintings out of his studio. Maybe he has friends in the porn industry, or maybe it's a fluke of fate, but many of his paintings end up in homes in San Fernando Valley.

Suppose he dies at a young age before his career could take off. Maybe his death is especially tragic or unusual, maybe a renown art critic stumbles across one of his pieces by accident (I'm thinking at a garage sale he almost didn't go to). Could be anything that does it, but soon after his death his profile starts picking up.

Five, ten years go by and this guy becomes hot. Paintings that originally sold for $500 now go for $20,000 easy. Many find that by selling that painting from behind the couch they once thought worthless, they could finance several movies, or buy a new car. His works start moving out of Porn Valley and find their way into the hands of prominent dealers and private collectors all across the US, Japan, Russia, Europe.

Another ten years go buy and this guy's paintings start to appear in museums. Women are shocked to learn, when liquidating their husband's assets for the divorce proceedings, that the ugly painting that's been hiding in storage for all these years in now worth $800,000.

Seventy-five years go by and the artist is a major figure in Western Art. His paintings are in the Met, and the National Gallery, and the Guggenheim. The latest auction offering was a frenzied affair with his most celebrated piece going for $1.2 billion (not that outrageous if you consider inflation). Unknown in his own time, the artist is now considered a pioneer and creator of his own Movement.

And in the classroom of an art school, a professor is starting a three day lecture on this man's life and work. He's giving the Life of a Masterpiece Spiel for a painting that is now priceless.

And it goes something like this: "...was featured in Tinker with My Stinker 2 and Interracial Hole Stretchers 4..."

Can Art Be Porn?

The short answer is perhaps.

In 17th century Spain, the Inquisition held sway. Sexuality was tightly controlled and the depiction of nude women was forbidden. But like in every era, power and money will gain you leniency if not license. It became common for men of influence, royals and courtiers, to have paintings of nudes in their inner bedroom chambers. And for men like Philip IV of Spain, nudes by such revered artists as Rubens and Titian served a utilitarian purpose rather than a metaphysical or aesthetic one.


Did you think of that couple who watch Adam & Eve erotica together to spice things up in the bedroom? Me too, although the paintings could have been used to rub one out every now and again.

Today they hang in the National Gallery, the Liechtenstein Museum, the Met, museums all over the world. They're held up as artifacts of our rich human heritage but really their raison d'etre was to help some nobleman get his rocks off. Granted, they were created by men who were thought of as artists by just about everyone, but one wonders if these works exist solely because of 1635's shortage of cameras and sleazy guys in track suits who take naked pictures of comely yet naive Barcelonan girls.

For the BBW Fans

Is Porn Art?

A few days ago, in a conversation with my good friend Lyndsey, a question surfaced: Can porn be art?

My answer, at the time not as articulate as the argument you have before you, was basically thus: When porn becomes art, it is no longer porn.

My answer was the result of a recent encounter with a definition of pornography that made a whole lot of sense. According to David Wong, pornography is anything you lose interest in after you climax. In one sense this is a definition as vague as Justice Potter Stewart's “I know it when I see it.” But in another sense it it perfectly describes my, and perhaps your, relationship to porn. Most importantly, it underlines its patently utilitarian nature.

Now, I am a man who very much wants porn to be art. As a fifteen year old I gravitated toward those movies with plots and elaborate sets and big budgets and loads of clever, though often butchered, dialogue. I harbored a wish to write fresh, original screenplays for sex flicks that could stand on their own without the sex. I liked the idea of erotic films that weren't simply about sex so much that it took me a long time to admit that I wouldn't like them so much without the sex.

I was enamored by the works of Michael Ninn. But lets face it, Latex and Shock aren't Chinatown or Apocalypse Now. Yes, they're pretty but you'll be hard press to find anyone who'll pop them into a DVD player for any reason other than getting off. I can tell you, as much as I praise the man, I've never watched a Michael Ninn movie straight through. For me, it's skip to my favorite scene. Get my rocks off. Take a nap.

Oscar Wilde said, “All art is utterly useless.” It stands and exists only for itself. Porn, by definition exists to tend to our prurient interests. It has a purpose, some many say a noble one. But until it ceases to serve that purpose it cannot be declared art.

Thousands of years from from now, our civilization will go the way of the Egyptians and the Maya. Our ways of life will be analyzed by people far different from us. I envision them being the epitome of sexual liberation. Their utter lack of repression will mean that the idea of pornography and the pleasure derived from it being verboten will be alien to these people. And these people will excavate the ruins of 21st century civilization and find porn by the boatloads and will be puzzled by it. They will lack the frame of reference to appreciate it for what it is: a masturbation tool. They will wonder, was this part of 21st century religion? Was this art?

A few thousand years ago, before pipes brought water into homes, before wine was corked in bottles, water and wine were ported in jars and vases. And people painted these jars and vases because that's what we human do. No one, not a single one of these vase painters, beamed with pride knowing that their “masterpiece” will be on display at the British Museum. They were just painting a water jug. The same way that guy from the graphics department designs a box cover for the latest Cougar DVD.

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