Klare and Edda Belly-dancing, a photograph by American photographer Nan Goldin, depicts two small girls dancing, one of them naked. Both of their legs were spread out. This was displayed as part of a 139-image collection in the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead. This piece was removed from the gallery by police, and it is up to the Crow Prosecution Service (CPS) to decide whether to prosecute under the 1978 Protection of Children Act that prohibits showing "indecent" photographs of children. There is debate over whether this art piece is pornography or not.
The question: What point-of-view defines the true message, nature, or theme of a piece of art? The view of the creator? Or the view of the audience? In this case, while the artist might purely intend to capture a
realistic moment of children playing around, some of the audience sees it as sexual, and could appeal to people that are sexually-attracted to children. However, if the artist does not intend the piece to be pornographic, does that mean it's not pornographic? Or is the reaction of the viewer more important?
The area of knowledge involved is The Arts . For art, it again goes back to the question of what defines art. When something is labeled "art", does it mean it is free of all crime? Art can be literally anything. In the Goldin case, the art piece is bluntly a photo of naked children. By context the photo breaks the law. However, the artist is using it to convey thoughts. Goldin is an renowned photographer, and many of her works feature nudity with deep themes of love, gender, emotions, and at times sexuality. Her works are exhibited in many places and nobody had a problem with it until this case. Indeed, even if the piece is meant to have sexual themes, it's still different from being pornography. To force a line of different out of this case, we can say it's "a picture that conveys playful emotions with child nudity" against "a picture of naked children that pedophiles might like" As the photo is inside an art gallery, people stand on the side of the first definition and call it art. Yet, the other side, will only practically see the context as "indecent" and call it dangerous pornography. In the middle, people will say whether it is art or not, as long as the reaction in views are potentially harmful, the artist should be held responsible. This again ties back to the question of whether the audience's views are more important or the artist's.
The ways of knowing involved are Sense Perception and Language. In Sense Perception, we have the case where not everyone is seeing the same thing with Klara and Elda Bellydancing. Some people, like fellow artists, could probably easily understand the deep emotions and special themes behind the photo. They see beyond the context of the photo. Then we have those we see the context and rage, calling it pornography and harmful. Also, potentially, there will be pedophiles out there using this photo in their advantage. People with different backgrounds will have there own way of seeing things and giving
opinions. The question is, who's opinion is the most important?
In Language, this case ties with the definition of the words of the Protection of Children Act. What defines "indecent?" What is the level of this indecency? Just in the context of the photo? Or where the photo is from and where it is taken? What even defines a photo? Can really we interpret the law literally and seize the piece of art purely because of it's context? Or do we have to consider these other aspects?
On the side where the "true message" of a piece of art should be what the artist intends to convey, there is the question of what defines a "true message." An artist creates art to make a statement. Even simply "just making something that looks good" conveys the statement itself. The "meaning" the art piece bears is inside the mind of the artist. It will be that one clear and unique idea. Even if the artist explains the meaning of the piece to an audience, the ideas inside the different minds will still be different. This again, deals closely with sense perception. What the artist sees inside a piece is not what another person sees. However, the art belongs to the artist and is created by the artist. The "creator" knows best. In the mind of the creator, where there are many different views and beliefs, the piece of art could perfectly conveying the message. To repeat, the message is clear under the mind of the artist. If we want to measure how well the art piece conveys a message, we can say that it conveys very well, if everyone understood the state of mind of the artist. It works out very well. Only the artist shares the special relationship as the creator with their art. Compared to everyone else, the artist is the only one with the position. He or she has the perfectly unique mind that uniquely understands the art piece. In that sense, whatever the artist feels what their work is saying should be the truest meaning. In Goldin's case, as the photograph is about playful emotions, people should understand and respect that message.
As the purpose of art is to make a statement to viewers, what the audience think should be the most important. Everyone will think differently from a piece of art. If the audience can't see the meaning directly with an explanation, they simply cannot see it. It is not their fault that they do not think the same thing as the artist. As the art piece is for conveying messages to many different individuals, it fails in the sense that it is not living up to the purpose. The audience has no responsibility to think and feel a particular way the artist wants. The artist has to do that himself/herself. In Goldin's case, the art piece seems erotic to many people, and they can't see the other meanings. Also, most people are disturbed by the context of naked children, so deems it as pornographic. Because of these views and the Protection of Children Act, the police removes this photograph from the gallery. The argument is as long as the content is sensitive and resembles pornography to people, it should be something potentially harmful and needs to be seized. Again, this piece offended people and to them broke the law - that's how they perceive the piece. If the audience's view is more important, that means as long as many people feels that this piece is pornographic, then it is. Also, as this piece will be under trial, the view of the judge - yet another audience - will be very important.
In my opinion, I do believe that the audience's thoughts should be respected, however, their thoughts shouldn't be considered of a higher value than that of the artists. Everyone's interpretation varies, and there is no right or wrong answer. This means that those who are more sensitive and views the art piece as pornographic are not on the winning side. Their thoughts don't overpower what Goldin intends. Goldin's true message from the photo also don't rule over, but should be protected. The art piece is in a gallery, not on a pornographic magazine. It is not intended to be pornography at all. If people have problems with it, then they shouldn't come in contact with it.
This question of whether or not something is intentional or unintentional can connect to other real-life cases, such as the issue of oversight law. As oversight is the unintentional failure to notice or do something, which results in committing a crime, there is the question of how much fault is in the person if his/her intentions did not mean to commit crime. Like Goldin's case, where she does not mean to produce art that seems like pornography, there is the question whether or not there should be prosecution in order.
I am quite intrigued by your view that the "true message" of an artwork is clear to the artist (and to the artist alone), because the artist is the one that created the work. If that is the case, then it could be argued that another version of the "true message" is clear to the audience, because the audience sees the artwork in a way that the artist cannot because they did not create the artwork, and because the audience is infinite, then we can logically deduce that there are infinite variations of the "true message" because everyone sees the artwork differently. But is that so? It’s not entirely correct to say that everyone will perceive an artwork in a different way from one another. If that were the case, the controversy over whose view is most valid wouldn’t be restricted between the artist and the people, or between an individual and the collective, because there would be no collective view. Yet, there is one and the fact that there is a majoritarian viewpoint suggests that there are overlaps with our perception. Furthermore, we are living in the same universe and, more importantly, on the same planet: to suggest that each one of us perceives our meager existence altogether differently from the next person is, in my opinion, rather naïve and self-centered. This is not to say that I deny the differences in our perception [of the world], rather; I am merely skeptical of the idea that the difference is palpable enough in everyone. How different does a perception have to be before it is deemed “different” from another perception, and even if they are different, do they overrule the similarities that may exist between them? Is context really all?
ReplyDeleteOf course, this is all under the assumption that there is [always] one "true message", or even a message within an artwork to be conveyed, uncovered, analyzed, and scrutinized. If everyone sees an artwork differently and has a different explanation about what the message is, and likewise, if the artist him/herself does not make his/her intent of creating the artwork evident to people precisely because of the infinite possibility of explanations, then there might not even be a message if such a thing relies so heavily on our perception which itself shifts with the breeze.
What defines art has always been up to a lot of controversy. The issue that is raise about photographer Nan Goldin is very common. Even at our school there are piece of art that can't be but up because they show nudity or simply something that is "scary". Who defines what is shown in a exhibition at school are the administrators or teachers at the school. Likewise who define what is put up in an exhibition in a museum is decided not just by the artist but by those administrators at the museum too. In this case the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead. Therefore is those of the museum can see Nan Goldin's picture as a piece of art why can't others?
ReplyDeleteOf course as an artist you are free to convey whatever you want however without interrupting others freedoms. A professional artist like Nan Goldin herself I believe should have been more cautious in how other might depict her artwork. But art is about expressing what you want to say but that I believe is not all, artist also what to send a message in their works. A good artwork I believe is a well thought out piece that not just shows the viewers what the artist what's them to see but the message behind the artwork. The artist Nan Goldin wanted to convey a child's naivety however is seen as porn.
I believe that there is a fine line between porn and art. For instance there was a Korean Broadway show that was coming to Taipei featuring dancing and acting of topless women. However they were ban because people did not see it as a form of art or a show but instead porn. I believe that, that is wrong. Not all nudity should be associated with porn. Many classical artist drew men and women without any clothes on, however those were never seen as porn, why should these? Just because this is a picture does not mean that the artist intended child pornography.
And if the artist intentions were Innocent I believe that she is innocent. One with a dirty mind will see things in a dirty way, even if they are pure genius. Those who are there to view art and not porn or see beyond the picture and into theart it's self. Although not everyone will see what the artist is trying to convey but they will see something beyond the picture and they own meaning. It is a piece of art, as the artist intended it to be, not porn.
As you brought in your blog what the "true meaning" is I believe that is only important to the artist herself. I believe that there is not One true meaning in a art piece but many meanings. All in all to be, art is art and not a form of pornography. Thus she is innocent, and so is her artworks.
Good TOK article. It will be interesting to see what the judgment on the photo will be. Historically, many extremely explicit pieces of work whether it is painting, photography, dance or film, has been accepted by the public under the label of being “art”. If art is a form of expression in which explicit subjects can be conveyed, when do these subjects become unacceptable? I thought it was interesting that people would label that photo as potential child pornography. Children play naked all the time all around the world. If the two girls were indeed just belly dancing, I don’t see how it could be interpreted as child pornography unless the viewer wanted to view it as so. Ironically photos of naked children or babies are much more acceptable in public than of adults. If you were flipping through somebody’s photo album and you saw a picture of their kid taking a bath, it probably wouldn’t even be considered out of the ordinary, but a photo of an adult taking a bath would be just plain awkward. I agree with you that the meaning of a piece of art should be what the artist meant it to be. If not, anything can be interpreted as offensive in one way or another.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with the idea that people perceive art differently. Therefore, in this case I think that we need to examine the potential effects this piece has on an audience. For example, if it was an adult viewing the artwork, they are probably more likely to view it as the artist, as "a picture that conveys playful emotions with child nudity". However, when a child views this work, they may think that the behavior displayed is acceptable or encouraged. I personally think that instead of removing the work from the gallery, the museum can have a special area that restricts underage viewers. This allows the artist to display her work without giving children the wrong idea. In regards to people who are sexually attracted to children, there will always be pedophiles around. Banning one work of art only makes those who actually do intend to show child pornography more careful about hiding it.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of an autobiographical foreign movie recently named My Little Princess (which has a pretty hilarious Chinese translated title but that's besides the point.) The movie's about the director's childhood, which her mother shot photographs of herself naked to make money, and then shot photographs of her daughter as a kid(the director) as well. I didn't watch it, for obvious reasons, but it would be quite interesting to see how the girl turned out to be, and how they handled the public disturbed opinion.
ReplyDeleteI like how Lay related this to art pieces that may seem scary. This is like when you go to the movie theater to watch a generally harmless movie and then they show a trailer for a horror movie. You're there, forced to watch and listen to the frightening soundtrack unless you close your eyes tightly and your palms are thick enough to block out the sounds completely. People who make horror movies present them as an entertainment, or better yet, an art piece. But it's not something that the general public would be appealed to, and when someone not particularly found of horror movies is placed in that kind of position, it wouldn't be a pleasant experience. However, in this incident from the post, the audience can easily walk away from the art piece and not to be forcefully put on the spot to look at it. There are different kinds of audience and different kinds of artists out there. If the audience can easily walk away, it shouldn't be a big problem.