The american video/installation artist Andrea Fraser provokes in her videos and performances. At times she plays a museum visitor, sometimes a museum guide, while portraying the art enterprise in an ironically way, or something to that extent. A couple of years ago she went to another extreme and produced a controversial video entitled: "Untitled". It's an hour long fuck session with her and an art collector in a hotel room...an "order work", for which the collecter had to pay. You won't see the video in the states, but the art association Hamburg opted (in the context of an extensive Fraser retrospectiv) to show her controversial experiment. Your thoughts?
that's the discussion I wanted. but for now I'm off...it's time to go out, hopefully I'll get to read some interesting stuff.
I remember reading that some time in the late 70's Alex Grey did a live performance peice featuring himself and his future wife making love exhibited in a large glass box. The peice was entitled 'Gods Art'. So I'm confused what is the piece? the film? the act of filming intercourse? or the act of intercourse itself? The fact that Andrea Fraser chose to release a film of her work rather than perform it live, makes it suspiciously pornographic. But then art is defined by the artists intentions, which is probably the first thing you need to examine before futhering the debate.
As a famous cinematographer once said, "the only difference between pornography and erotic art is the lighting."
Quote: "All of my work is about what we want from art, what collectors want, what artists want from collectors, what museum audiences want," Fraser explained. "By that, I mean what we want not only economically, but in more personal, psychological and affective terms.'" Well, it was set up as videtaped prostitution, the collector had to pay her "pimp/dealer" before they could hook up. "For Fraser, "Untitled" was, she explained, "not a literalization of what is, in fact, a very old metaphor, that selling art is prostitution," a point that was made with pithy precision by Baudelaire. "This is not "Indecent Proposal," "Fraser added quickly. And it is not -- or not quite." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/13/magazine/13ENCOUNTER.html?ex=1402459200&en=aa724398866c64a5&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND Quite contradictory, don't you think? She's being very vague, maybe it's just all about provocation again. my sentiments exactly. it seems that anything is art as long as there is intention. I recall that I visited an art project with my painting course once which involved a small town. The whole city was part of the project and everywhere you went there was some kind of experimental art work, drawings, sculptures, sound installations, anything really. As we walked along we came across a tree trunk laying on the sidewalk (there was a forest nearby)...we couldn't tell if it was part of the exhibition or not.
Thank you for clarifying. I'm lost on this one. But I think from an observers perspective it's subject to opinion.
I was wrong, they showed the video in a gallery in New Yorker. I read that the collector paid about $ 22000. I hope he had the fuck of his life.
Sounds like porn under another name to me. But hell I'de watch it though, and proberbly jerk off to it like I do to other porn movies
I'm not feelin this. Art for me is something more "outlined". This is to easy...and for me therefor doesnt deserve to be called art. Although art comes from the word artificial....and this is artificial lovemaking....or something.....I raise my brows when I see this. I like to watch people making out....but then I like to watch it in another context. -1-
If they had fucked on a canvas and let the juices remain as the art, or even hung the stained sheets next to the video screen in the gallery, then the video would have been a nice documetation of a making of a piece of shock art. But, as it is I see it as a publicity stunt and a good way for her to make some quick cash as a high paid hooker.
I think it could be art if the performance used at a high enough level of skill and technique involved in it.
Sex, in general, should be something private… It is the same question as – ‘is having hamburgers at Mc Donald’s art?’ Could be... Could be, but chance is 1:1000000000000000
If there was any true romance involved I could see how it could be "art." And seduction itself is a form of art, in my opinion. But if it was simply some woman luring a guy into paying her for sex, that's just prostitution. I suppose if you think of art like I do, as a visual means of expressing emotion or reacting to something beautiful or inspiring, then anything can be art and everything is art. Especially sex. It doesn't have to be publicly displayed to be considered art. Many people who paint, draw, write, etc. keep their work to themselves and only show it to those closest to them, because art is very personal. And we consider drama a form of art, don't we? So in a way, even porn is a form of art, since the people do act in the videos (although usually the acting is terrible, and it's not the point of the video anyway). I don't know... to me, it just sounds like some woman's way of tricking someone into paying for sex. I guess the work of a con-artist is art too...
