ART PORN: 25,000 YEARS AND COUNTING (NSFW)
ART PORN: 25,000 YEARS AND COUNTING (NSFW) is 72 x 33 inch mixed media (including paper, acrylics, photo dyes, ink, paint pens, markers, 8 inch papier mache letters (XXX) and 7 inch dark purple plastic die cut letters (NSFW) on stretched canvas. NOTE: The work was photographed on a white wall. The white is the wall, not work's edge. The NSFW letters are outside the frame, though attached.)
The idea for this large piece began with news accounts of a scandal about an "obscene" mural in a Catholic Cathedral in Italy. (See below.)
The appropriated images range from the 25,000 year old Venus of Willendorf to art created recently. It is art from churches, the Vatican, temples, famous galleries and the world’s great museums, including the Metropolitan. And it is work that some now call pornographic.
Much of the art began life as worshipped religious objects including paintings, murals, fetishes and sculpture. They represented sacred beliefs and themes from a wide range of religious beliefs: Hindu, Christian, Islam, Judaism, Shinto. The art portrayed Greek Gods, tribal spirits, Biblical heroes and the beauty of the human form.
Whether an anonymous B.C. artist, Leonardo or Alice Neel, whether working 25,000 years ago or now, the art reflected an admiration of the human form that some believed the gods themselves had created. None found the depiction of the nude sacrilegious or abhorrent.
As mores changed, many works, even ones deemed masterpieces, were relabeled as pornographic, misogynistic, unholy, and downright immoral.
Art Porn. NSFW. Not Safe for Work or the World. Not safe for god-fearing people to behold. Look away! For god’s sake, look away.
My new work ART PORN was stirred to life by a newspaper account of an obscene mural in a Cathedral in Italy. With current news, the news of an obscene mural in a cathedral and the reaction to it (OH THOSE HOMOSEXUALS AND THEIR AGENDAS!) seemed symbolic, ironic, hypocritical and sad all at once.
The article in “Catholicism Pure and Simple” reported, “The homoerotic fresco in the apse of the Cathedral of Terni-Narni-Amelia was commissioned by Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia who paid a homosexual artist to paint a blasphemous homoerotic mural in the Archbishop’s cathedral. The massive mural depicts Jesus carrying nets to heaven filled with naked and semi-nude homosexuals, transsexuals, prostitutes, and drug dealers, jumbled together in erotic interactions.The mural has an image of the archbishop himself.”
“This naked archbishop” the article continues, “is clutching a bearded man wearing nothing but a loose loincloth. The artist also painted Fr. Leonardis, then head of the Office of Cultural Heritage, as a naked, muscular man with a tattoo of a cupid’s heart containing the word “love.” Jesus is painted with the face of a local male hairdresser, and his private parts can be seen through his translucent garb.”
The idea for this large piece began with news accounts of a scandal about an "obscene" mural in a Catholic Cathedral in Italy. (See below.)
The appropriated images range from the 25,000 year old Venus of Willendorf to art created recently. It is art from churches, the Vatican, temples, famous galleries and the world’s great museums, including the Metropolitan. And it is work that some now call pornographic.
Much of the art began life as worshipped religious objects including paintings, murals, fetishes and sculpture. They represented sacred beliefs and themes from a wide range of religious beliefs: Hindu, Christian, Islam, Judaism, Shinto. The art portrayed Greek Gods, tribal spirits, Biblical heroes and the beauty of the human form.
Whether an anonymous B.C. artist, Leonardo or Alice Neel, whether working 25,000 years ago or now, the art reflected an admiration of the human form that some believed the gods themselves had created. None found the depiction of the nude sacrilegious or abhorrent.
As mores changed, many works, even ones deemed masterpieces, were relabeled as pornographic, misogynistic, unholy, and downright immoral.
Art Porn. NSFW. Not Safe for Work or the World. Not safe for god-fearing people to behold. Look away! For god’s sake, look away.
My new work ART PORN was stirred to life by a newspaper account of an obscene mural in a Cathedral in Italy. With current news, the news of an obscene mural in a cathedral and the reaction to it (OH THOSE HOMOSEXUALS AND THEIR AGENDAS!) seemed symbolic, ironic, hypocritical and sad all at once.
The article in “Catholicism Pure and Simple” reported, “The homoerotic fresco in the apse of the Cathedral of Terni-Narni-Amelia was commissioned by Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia who paid a homosexual artist to paint a blasphemous homoerotic mural in the Archbishop’s cathedral. The massive mural depicts Jesus carrying nets to heaven filled with naked and semi-nude homosexuals, transsexuals, prostitutes, and drug dealers, jumbled together in erotic interactions.The mural has an image of the archbishop himself.”
“This naked archbishop” the article continues, “is clutching a bearded man wearing nothing but a loose loincloth. The artist also painted Fr. Leonardis, then head of the Office of Cultural Heritage, as a naked, muscular man with a tattoo of a cupid’s heart containing the word “love.” Jesus is painted with the face of a local male hairdresser, and his private parts can be seen through his translucent garb.”