PHOTOSEX: A New Book Ponders the Old Question: But Is It Art?
It was 13 years ago when a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit at Cincinnati’sContemporary Arts Center sparked controversy, and national headlines, withMapplethorpe’s graphic depictions of sexuality. A national debate ensued: how todistinguish between art and obscenity?
I wondered the same thing when I read about a new book called PHOTOSEX, FineArt Sexual Photography Comes of Age (Down There Press, $35). Is it just subjective:one man’s smut is anotherÃs revelation?
PHOTOSEX was the brainchild of David Steinberg, who assembled his own workand that of 30 other photographers to explore sexuality in an artful way. Salon.comcalled Steinberg the “Allan Freed of sexual photography,” and went on to say that”Steinberg is leading an equally daring cultural revolution in an effort to free sexualphotography from decades of wholesale dismissal as pornography and have ittaken seriously as fine art.” Well, dirty pictures and art are two of my favorite things,so the possibility of them not being mutually exclusive is something that has alwaysintrigued me. I had to take a look and determine for myself if this was jerk-offmaterial, or something that truly deserved to be well hung in a snooty loft gallerywhere cultural aesthetes could bandy its merit over bad wine and Brie.
For erotic photography to have a visceral connection with the mind as well as thegenitals, it has to appeal equally to the physical, emotional, and intellectual. Todiscover if PHOTOSEX had the goods, I flashed my Nightspots press badge atDown There Press and the obliging folks, quicker than you can say “rim job,î had acopy in my fevered little hands.
I can’t deny that I couldn’t keep those hands out of my pants when I came acrosssuch delights as a photograph of the late porn star Scott O’Hara ejaculating into hisown mouth. And that whap whap whap sound you may have heard as I gazed atMark I. Chester’s Ken and Bill was not applause (the photo depicts a hairy Daddywearing nothing but a hard on and riding boots being kissed by his boy, who kneelsnaked at his side).
I desperately wanted PHOTOSEX to combine sex and art, to make theminseparable. Luckily, PHOTOSEX fit the bill, with works filled with stunningcompositions, pathos, humor, and heat. Once the shock wore off from seeingChester’s six nudes of a man unabashedly exposing his KS lesions, my breath wastaken away by both the subject’s and the artist’s courage. And I think Diane Arbuswould have approved of Charles Gatewood’s “Marco Vassi with Doll,” a lovingportrait of a happy man with his inflatable, perpetually-surprised companion. DavidSteinbergÃs photo of a man with a shaved head and black fingernails beingpenetrated from behind by a woman is hauntingly beautiful with its contrasts, andplay of light and shadow. The play of light and shadow is again at work, along withtexture one can almost touch, in Paul Dahlquist’s “Power,” which depicts thepowerfully muscled ass and back of a Black man as he penetrates his alabasterwhite partner.
PHOTOSEX titillates. It arouses. And it leaves a brand on your brain with imagesfiery enough to remain with you long after you close the book. And that’s what makesit art.