Yeah, but is it Art?

So I stumbled across a Twitter bio that contained the words “tasteful nudity” and it gave me pause. What makes it tasteful? Who decides when it is tasteful? And the big one, what about the rest of the nudity, the foul, disgusting, awful nudity that isn’t tasteful?

Why the people who want to judge what you do, that’s who, and those folks don’t want to see any of YOUR nasty bits! Now when pressed for a definition of “tasteful nudity” the usual response is “something you might see in an art gallery” Hmm well I have been to some art galleries that might make their hair stand on end. I suspect that what they mean is classical art, but even so.

What fires me up about it (like that is a rare thing, I always seem to be ranting about something) is the judgement that comes along with the division they have just created. Do they miss that? That by even using the expression they are condemning anything that they don’t like to the evil end of the spectrum? Molly takes amazing photographs, some that can be classified (by some) as “tasteful nudity” others that wouldn’t quite fall under that category by a long shot. Oh, and over five years of pictures that contain almost no nudity at all. Want to take a guess which pictures get the most views?

I know, that means that we are all just dirty perverts, right? I would mostly disagree, Sinful Sunday covers all ranges of photographic styles but I doubt that the women that are viewing Sinful Sunday (and yes the traffic to Molly’s Sinful Sunday site is mostly women) are stopping by for a quick look at some wank material. I mean, I hope someone gets turned on, but it is my bet that they are showing up to look at the artistry of what is being made and that the prurient nature of some of the pictures is just a fun bonus, or maybe, just maybe, part of the story the picture is telling.

So let’s fall back on the old adage that “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” and maybe just stop classifying it for the rest of us.

BTW, in my opinion an empty display case isn’t art to me, but YMMV

Michael