art

I don’t think I ever wrote about this. Just something I remembered this morning.
(Disclaimer: I think this is what happened, although it's been a few years, and some of my details could be off. If anyone reading this was there and remembers it differently, please feel free to chime in with a comment.)

A few years back I worked at a small private university...

...Elon, where sometimes an art class would put up paintings, drawing, photographs, whatever, in one of the hallways of the arts building. It was a public hallway, outside of the more “formal” art venue on campus. Sometimes there were sheets for comments from passersby. That building happened to lie between one of the parking lots and the rest of campus, so lots of people would go through that hallway on the way to somewhere else. I think that made it a perfect place to hang art.

It was also the perfect place to cause a little “controversy”. One of the students in some class submitted a full-frontal male nude photograph. Well, .someone saw it and got uncomfortable (I imagine), and wrote a letter to the dean complaining about the pornographic picture.

It wasn’t pornographic. Clearly the purpose of this photo was not to turn anyone on. It was not a sexually explicit photo, just a guy with no clothes on in an unremarkable pose. His penis was not erect; there was no smirk on his face...just a naked guy in a studio somewhere: blank wall behind him. Black-and-white, nice lighting, in focus, nice-looking guy, perfectly normal-looking penis (i.e., not crazy, giant, porn penis). But it was really quite tame, boring even. Not worthy of sparking controversy. Yet, it did. There were a few letters in the school paper; people from off campus, maybe a few alumni, but also folks not directly connected to the school weighing in.

I think the dean asked the art teacher to take down that picture. Of course, that sparked a little more response. But it ended with the teacher taking down the whole group of pictures, and whatever else it was, a few days early. That’s unfortunate.

Of course, I wonder would it have been an issue were it a female nude. People are more used to that. Crazy double standards.

A bit later in that semester, pictures of this guy appeared:

I think the first was just a standard version, except with a little of this:

Well, that's what I saw. You know, in my brain. Maybe it was more like this:

At any rate, I find this:

...much more offensive than the original. First, there's the basic censorship concept that I object to. But also, this focuses your eye & mind on the thing being covered up.It's now impossible to appreciate the thing for what it is.
So, then pics of him at various spots on campus appeared, posted in various other spots on campus. I don’t know who did it, but it was an amusing little...what’s the word? Campaign?

The following semester, in that same spot in another informal class display, someone posted a computer generated picture something very much like this:

...except more stylized and in various colors. It must've been some sort of computer design class. There was nothing new about it, except that a little block was cut out from the center, where the penis was, and there was a small envelope on the side. The creator of this picture indicated that the viewer could censor the pic by removing the penis, or un-censor it by replacing it. I thought that was brilliant. Clearly it was a sort of response or reaction to the nude pic from the previous semester.

This was one of those displays which included paper by each piece, where viewers could comment on the pieces. So someone had commented that it was a really great picture except it was ruined by the whole censorship element. I rebutted that, no, the censorship element was the piece. Without it, the piece was nothing new or innovative or particularly interesting, but with it, the piece was about something, it made you think.

In the next year or so, the art department moved to another building, far removed from the rest of campus. So, it would be unlikely for to be confronted with art, unless they were going to the art building.

So, that's it. The end. No big conclusion. Sorry. Hope you like the pictures.