Thoughts on Nudes and Photography

[Rolleiflexible]

Ian, no: "Richard," of course. He's a troll
who comes in to insult and provoke. Why
do you all indulge him by taking him on
his own terms?

The world is full of insult. What has been
served by permitting its increase here?
Please spare me platitudes about free
speech. This was an unprovoked attack
-- on the forum as much as on Ian.

 

[Ian Leake]

You are right, Sanders. And I shall say nothing more for now.

 

[doughowk]

Ian, your earlier posts are very well stated. I'm reminded of a song by Ben Sidran - "critics, they can't even float, they just stand on the shore, they just wave at the boat"
Btw, just received your book today; and am looking forward to testing your methods - a well done book. Having only worked with the NA2 process, I still have alot to learn.

 

[Rick A]

Ian, no: "Richard," of course. He's a troll
who comes in to insult and provoke. Why
do you all indulge him by taking him on
his own terms?

The world is full of insult. What has been
served by permitting its increase here?
Please spare me platitudes about free
speech. This was an unprovoked attack
-- on the forum as much as on Ian.

Whew--I thought you meant me.

Rick

 

[Grif]

Wow,,, Just read the whole thread. Painfull journy to the end.

Confirms my belief about people however.

 

[Ed Sukach]

Who was it, that when asked, "Do you think your art is sexually exiting?" - answered, "If it isn't, I've failed miserably" (I think that was Picasso).

I suppose it is possible to produce "works" without either being involved with the subject, or deliberately avoiding emotional content ... I run across those from time to time - but - the great question: WHY? In what way are they useful?

Do they fire up imagination? - or a sense of "escape"? ... or empathy to, and displacement with, the elements in the scene?

 

[stinkyprofessor]

VISUAL PLEASURE AND NUDIE PICS; LAURA MULVEY

The idea of 'the male gaze' in the essay I have linked to below - I read as basically that throughout time the main purpose of the nude is to perpetuate the dominant social order. Mulvey also talks about scopophilia: looking itself as a source of pleasure. (Read: boner city!)
Perhaps as artists we wouldn't want to rehash this same old story, or participate in the objectification and exploitation of others - and maybe, if so, whatever value the 'nude' has in terms of inherent beauty, is worthless relative to it's power as an instrument of oppression.
Everything's subjective of course. If we were really able to be objective about it we might see that all humans are actually nasty monkeys and we just like nude pictures for the normal reasons. (Boner city!). For me, Weston's work is a good example of this; his peppers and seashells are sexier and better looking than his nudes, which aren't hard on the eyes either. There's nothing wrong with visual pleasure exactly, it's just a little problematic as art nowadays. Anyway, this essay is the last word on the subject as far as I am concerned, and every nude shooter should definitely read it, at least to get an idea of the argument. It's a little intimidating/academic looking, but it's actually an easy read - I promise.
Cheers,

-Stinky

Replace or imagine 'cinema' as 'photography' as needed in the essay below.

VISUAL PLEASURE AND NARRATIVE CINEMA - Laura Mulvey


Link to essay:
https://wiki.brown.edu/confluence/display/MarkTribe/Visual+Pleasure+and+Narrative+Cinema

 

[Ian David]

It's a little intimidating/academic looking, but it's actually an easy read - I promise.

Wow, that article is a real product of its time (1975). As for being an easy read, that depends on how much tolerance you have for the academic butchery of language. This sort of writing shares a lot in common with the worst kind of art commentary. Speculative overanalysis is often tedious; Freud might even have called it masturbatory.

In any event, still photography and cinema are very different media, but the range of effects (from oppressive, through tacky, to beautiful) that are capable of being achieved by each are evident to just about anyone from simply looking at a wide range of work.

Ian

 

[Ian Leake]

VISUAL PLEASURE AND NARRATIVE CINEMA - Laura Mulvey

Goodness, what an astonishing piece of prose. I can only presume that the author is neither an artist nor an art-lover because she clearly has no grasp of the many pleasures of making, sharing and viewing art.

Perhaps as artists we wouldn't want to rehash this same old story, or participate in the objectification and exploitation of others

Why not? The making of an artwork which shows a human is necessarily the objectification of that person: where there was a person there is now an object. And why your assumption that a nude is necessarily exploitation? Who exactly is being exploited? The model certainly isn't because she (or he) is a willing participant. Isn't it more exploitative to make a photograph of an unknowing subject than one of a knowing one? Or are you suggesting that all images of humans should be banned from art?

There's nothing wrong with visual pleasure exactly, it's just a little problematic as art nowadays.

There is nothing 'problematic' with visual pleasure. Visual pleasure is a fabulous thing. There should be more visual pleasure in art, not less. The idea that art must be an intellectual / political / didactic experience is about as tired and worn out as that old boot rotting at the end of my garden. Art is about expression, and as such it necessarily covers the whole panoply of human experience. And that includes sex. And it includes beauty. And it includes pleasure.

 

[Tom Kershaw]

Doesn't discrediting 'visual pleasure' only really serve those who have very little artistic or aesthetic sensibility, i.e. justifying bad work by writing about it?


Tom

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

I think discrediting visual pleasure is very much a sop to the academic/theoretical/political discourse on art that has so thoroughly divorced aesthetic appreciation from the understanding of art that accretions of trash are now given aesthetic and intellectual prioritization over something that demonstrates craft. It is a sign of the apocalypse that someone with enough discretionary income to consider buying Damien Hirst's pickled shark in a tank can buy a Rembrandt for less.

 

[Rolleiflexible]

If we were really able to be objective about it we might see that all humans are actually nasty monkeys and we just like nude pictures for the normal reasons. (Boner city!). ... Anyway, this essay is the last word on the subject as far as I am concerned, and every nude shooter should definitely read it, at least to get an idea of the argument.

VISUAL PLEASURE AND NARRATIVE CINEMA - Laura Mulvey

Link to essay:
https://wiki.brown.edu/confluence/display/MarkTribe/Visual+Pleasure+and+Narrative+Cinema

Well: You really should get out and read more.
Otherwise, it's hard to see how one could consider
a 35-year-old essay built on quasi-Freudian psycho-
analytic argument to qualify as the "last word" on
anything at all. The author herself lays no claim to
objectivity. In her first paragraph, she writes:
"Psychoanalytic theory is thus appropriated here
as a political weapon, demonstrating the way the
unconscious of patriarchal society has structured
film form." Her thesis receives its first articulation
in the following sentence: "The paradox of phallo-
centrism in all its manifestations is that it depends
on the image of the castrated woman to give order
and meaning to its world."

I think discrediting visual pleasure is very much a sop to the academic/theoretical/political discourse on art that has so thoroughly divorced aesthetic appreciation from the understanding of art that accretions of trash are now given aesthetic and intellectual prioritization over something that demonstrates craft. It is a sign of the apocalypse that someone with enough discretionary income to consider buying Damien Hirst's pickled shark in a tank can buy a Rembrandt for less.

How about a photograph of Damien Hirst's
pickled shark, cross-processed no less?
See below for a photo of a naked shark.

[Ceci n'est pas un raquin nu.]

 

[doughowk]

The ability to accumulate money and aesthetic appreciation are by nature incompatible; so the Hirst purchase befits the buyer. What is less understandable is the aesthetic devaluation being taught in art curricula by those who sneer at beauty and denigrate past masters of photography.
As to the nude, Kenneth Clark said "no nude,however abstract, should fail to arouse in the spectator some vestige of erotic feeling, even though it be only the faintest shadow - and if it does not do so, it is bad art and false morals."