Dirty as in Filthy

Went to the "Dirty Show," and boy was it dirty. And I mean as in the motel rooms were filthy. The exhibition was held in an abandoned downtown LA motel called City Center Motel. Every room had photographs of soft-core pornography hanging on the walls. There was a lot of black-and-white photography — trying to trick the viewer into thinking it was art. My husband and I discussed this. Of course it wasn't art, was my response. But why not? he challenged. And when or can pornography be art, and vice versa?

The old wag about pornography and obscenity — I know it when I see it — that's sort of the same response I have with pornography and art. Larry Clark's photographs have long been controversial because of its pornographic content. He frequently has images of large cocks of young boys, both flacid and erect, images of sexual acts such as blowjobs, gang bangs and car sex. The gang bang is hard for some people to take, as I accidentally learned when I featured Larry Clark's photographs (detail pictured) in my graduate seminar lecture some twenty years ago. The professor at the time was James Hayward and he still tells the story to this day. There is written text below the image: They met a girl on Acid in Bryant park at 6 am and took her home... . Hayward stopped the slide show on that image to rant and rave about the artist I was showing and how it wasn't art, but pornography. It continued in the elevator afterwards. 

I still don't think it is pornography. And Jimmy still thinks it is. I won't be able to change his mind, but there's no doubt in my mind. When I look at pornography, it doesn't strike me as art in the slightest. If I look at the Clark image, there's not a doubt in my mind that it isn't art. I know it when I see it.

I can go on and on about this, and I will be in my next issue of Artillery. So, perhaps that's why I'm blogging about this now. It's heavy on my mind. 

So, the "Dirty Show" wasn't that dirty, nor was it that arty. It was neither. It was a lot of soft-core black-and-white photography.