OF COURSE most of us have known it all our lives, or at least since we were about 12. Pornography is art. Much as I love the works of Picasso, Van Gough, Magritte and many others there is nothing as visually compelling as a naked woman.
Of course they all new that as well, it’s the subject of a new exhibition at the Barbican in London; Seduced: Art and Sex from Antiquity to Now. The exhibition runs untill 27 January 2008 and looks at the representation of sex in art through the ages.
The works span 2,000 years so it must be art eh? It includes Roman sculptures, Indian manuscripts, Japanese prints, Chinese watercolours, Renaissance and Baroque paintings and 19th century photography with modern and contemporary art.
It presents the work of around 70 artists including Nobuyoshi Araki, Francis Bacon, Jeff Koons, Robert Mapplethorpe, Pablo Picasso, Rembrandt van Rijn and Andy Warhol among others.
The exhibition explores the idea of copulation as recreation a concept that is unique to human beings and bonobo, or pygmy chimpanzees.
Of course the chimps have no concept of guilt. They just fuck whenever, wherever and with whoever they feel like so the concept of porn never crossed their minds. But we humans have had to balance desire with religion and other control systems. Thus the need to escape to a quiet place with a few smutty pictures and a firm right hand.
