Photograph by Anna and Barney.
The dividing line between porn and art, if it exists at all, is very hard to define. After a long academic study of the subject I’ve decided it comes down to two things.
- The education of the person behind the camera
- The quality of the lighting
For example - someone who picked up a camera after studying at Harvard can automatically call their work ‘art’ regardless of how bad it looks. Conversely, if the closest you got to performing a scientific experiment was building a water-pipe, but your work looks amazing, again - you’re an artist.
If you’re poorly educated and can’t light for shit you’re a pornographer whatever you tell your friends.
I’m not thinking about these things because the voices in my head are telling me too (mother’s taking a nap right now. I love you mommy), but because I’ve been looking at the work of Anna and Barney.
Even for German’s it’s pretty hardcore. Women in Burka’s walking around Paris with their VBLT’s out (VBLT = Vertical Bacon Lettuce and Tomato). The picture at the head of this post shows a woman standing in a Burka, naked from the waist down and standing on a grave. It’s like Marylin Manson’s entry in some bizzare piss off a Muslim contest.
If you did that in the name of porn you’d get accused of racial insensitivity and then killed by angry fundamentalists. Mason, an ex-child star who now directs hardcore movies but carefully guards her identity, used to wear a Burka whenever she was photographed but stopped doing so after thinking it through.
Anna and Barney can work to different rules because they’re artists. Who makes that decision? Why is ‘arty’ porn such a cliche?
I think Anna and Barney’s work is beautiful (and less safe for work than handguns and crack). Wouldn’t it be nice if interesting sexual explicit material didn’t have to pretend that that turning people on wasn’t the reason for its existance? Do sex and thought have to be mutually exclusive activities?