You know, I really hate it when stuff like this passes as art. I find it interesting that models who have no problem being ogled while naked, and being squeezed between in a doorway, would then be offended when people poked and touched them 'inappropriately.'
We are able to draw such strange lines regarding behavior in our society, because we ignore any sort of natural law. If one does not desire to be touched inappropriately, one should not participate in inappropriate activities.
It is as though the part of the soul that informs an individual's shame is slowed by the degeneracy of our culture, but not stilled entirely. We are able to ignore our impulse to shame until it is too late to avoid the consequences of shameful behavior. If one does not want to be treated shamefully, one should not engage in shameful acts, and one should not encourage others to engage in shameful acts. To encourage a person to look at and touch naked bodies with no expectation of them losing a their sense of propriety is simply unreasonable.
Instead of kicking out the over-stimulated spectators, they should be kicking out Abramović and her 'art.'
This seems to me to depend on the claim that nudity is inherently a sexual practice - a statement that would have interesting implications on most classical art (and indeed on much of the Vatican's collection).
ReplyDeleteI mean, really? "To encourage a person to look at and touch naked bodies with no expectation of them losing a their sense of propriety is simply unreasonable." That's ridiculous. There is never an inability to avoid sin.
If someone is unable to have an encounter with another human being that is intimate but non-sexual (which is what it seems to me the Abramovic piece asks of its audience - the models are not overtly sexual except in their nudity) it seems to me their failing, not the artwork's.
I did not claim that there was an inability to avoid sin, I simply said that it was not reasonable to assume that you could put people in this situation and not expect people to poke and grope.
ReplyDeleteWhat I am saying is that one cannot engage in provocative behavior without the expectation that someone will be provoked. This is not simple nudity, but is an attempt to provoke a sexual response in the viewers (why else would one have to squeeze between two naked models in order to enter the exhibit).
The whole point of the entrance is to put the participants in a tactile and sexual frame of mind before viewing naked bodies.
I am fully cognizant of the possibility of non-sexual nudity, but I do not believe that this is an example of it.