From Bill Henson to Li Zhuang Ping.
Has art become the playground for moral crusaders?
The headline ‘For ‘art sakes’ he asks daughter to pose nude’ screaming for readers’ attention on the front page of The New Paper (25 January 2009). Alongside is a nude picture of a young woman with her breasts censored. The report follows on the next page and more nude photos on its adjacent page. If this is a strategy to sell newspapers, comparatively it is also a publicity stunt for China artist, Li Zhuang Ping to use his daughter as his nude model to sell art. Nudity albeit a common theme in art is a sensitive subject inviting criticisms if the object of nudity is not thoughtfully considered.
Last year, an internationally acclaimed Australian photographer, Bill Henson was under fire for scouting nude models for his exhibition in a primary school. He was accused of child exploitation; his photographs were dismissed as child pornography; he was called a pedophile. U.S. renowned photographers Jock Sturges and Robert Mapplethorpe were similarly accused. The lack of evidence resulted in unsuccessful prosecution against them. And likewise for Henson. This year, China’s respected artist, Li Zhuang Ping, 61, created controversy with his series of oriental goddess inspired oil paintings at the art festival in Chongqing. The public screamed blue murder when his 23-year-old daughter, Li Qin posed nude for his paintings. From a country which outlawed nude figure painting from 1965-77 and remains largely conservative after the Cultural Revolution, Li’s paintings contravene with China’s deep-rooted values on morality. China website, hudong.com reported that Li had crossed the moral boundary acceptable in China in his pursuit of art. Chinese’s notion of ‘lian chi’ (shame) makes it inconceivable that a father would ask his daughter to pose nude for art.
Whether it is the Henson’s case or the Li’s, nudity is just the tip of an iceberg behind their controversial works; the elephant in the room resides in a bigger context. Why is nudity such a taboo when in fact it’s been explored in art for centuries? The fall of mankind has the answer. In Genesis, the first book of the Bible, Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden and became aware that they were naked. They covered themselves with fig leaves and hid behind the trees when God appeared to them. Thus, began the knowledge of shame. As I am using the word ‘naked’ and ‘nude’ interchangeably, how many of us really know that there is a difference between the two? In his book, The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form, Art Historian, Kenneth Clark explains that:
To be naked is to be deprived of our clothes, and the word implies some of the embarrassment most of us feel in that condition. The word ‘nude’, on the other hand, carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone.
The ambiguity between both, however, makes it difficult for a layman to distinguish nude art from pornography. Nudity and Framing: Classifying Art, Pornography, Information and Ambiguity, a research paper by Beth A. Eck published in the Sociological Forum, Vol. 16. No 4, December 2001 highlights the importance of the context in which nude images reside. There are the familiar and the unfamiliar contexts. Based on Eck’s research, the art gallery is a bounded environment with a narrow audience. Nudes are common in such venue and visitors have expected to see them. Images in this context are, therefore, identified as art. No complaints were received when 65,000 attended Henson’s exhibition of nude child photographs in 2005(SMH, Arts & Entertainment, 31 May-1-June, 2008). But when the photograph of a nude 12-year-old girl was featured on invitation cards to his exhibition last year, the public were disapproving. Arts Monthly Australia was also being lampooned for featuring a nude 6-year-old girl on its cover of July 2008 issue. When nudity is commodified, for example, on a magazine cover and displayed in a less-bounded environment with a broader audience, such as a newsstand, ‘its meaning and interpretation are then subject to negotiation’ (Eck, 2001).
Eck’s theory, however, fails to appease visitors at the art festival where Li’s paintings of his nude daughter were exhibited. Hudong.com reported that detractors claimed that had she not posed nude for her father but for other artists, they’d have no qualm about it. They argued that an artist undermines morality – be it a father or a son posing nude for his artist daughter or mother. Li Qin defended that if the artist is not her father she’d never pose nude for other artists. Li compared his painting process to that of bathing his daughter when she was little. Such representation of child nudity is simplified to one-dimension. In the discussion board Arts Vs Porn of the popular networking site, Facebook, the issues of parents taking candid shots of their children playing in the bathtub or running around naked in the garden are also heatedly debated. Lawrence Stanley, an attorney specializing in entertainment and obscenity law argues in his article Art and “Pervasion”: Censoring Images of Nude Children, that whether erotic intention subsists in a photographer’s works depends on the viewer’s intentions, feelings and experience. He reminds viewers that erotic intention could also be overlooked even though it is present in a photograph. By applying Stanley’s principles, a splatter of paints on a canvas can therefore be appreciated as art or discounted as trash by different viewers – just like Li’s paintings can be artistically beautiful or corruptive. The father-and-daughter’s collaboration was labeled as incestuous because a father had seen his daughter’s naked body.
Renowned sociologist, Li Yin He ascribes such stereotype is akin to the general association of nudity with sex. She attests that nudity is an art form and whether a model and an artist are related or not is irrelevant. Art critic, Professor Lin Mu Zai of Sichuan University hails Li’s works as a breakthrough in an art world fenced by ethics and morals. Social ethicist, Yuan Zu She, however, cautions that there are two faces to a coin. From an art’s perspective, there is no implication of ethics; Li is an artist and Li Qin is an object of art. From a social perspective, Yuan asserts that Li’s conduct is ethically incorrect. He reasons that Li’s paintings are displayed in public and therefore, are subject to ethical scrutiny.
In his essay, Art and Morality published in North American Review in 1888, Robert G. Ingersoll defines the role of art and artists distinctively. Paraphrasing Ingersoll, the existence of art is self-contained and it has no direct relation with moral or immorality. He distinguishes naked and nude plainly from each other: ‘undressed is vulgar – the nude is pure.’ Ingersoll abdicates the social responsibility of art by denouncing art as a sermon and artist as a preacher. He believes that ‘the freedom of genius is lost’ and ‘the artist is absorbed in the citizen’ and becomes a laborer when the moral obligation presides over artistic creativity.
Creativity is encouraged in the studies of art. If the sky is the limit is advocated in the teaching of art, surely that implies that art has no restriction to its expression and style in its truest form. Art is too protean a creation to be understood and appreciated in the way that the artists want us to. The works of Henson and Li albeit artistic are immoral to some. Unless we can read an artist’s mind, the true intention and meaning underlying a piece of art can never be proven.
If the social responsibility of artists arises from the fact that their works are displayed in public, then by the same benchmark, moral crusaders should also be socially responsible for their words in public. Their criticisms should be confined to private discussion; it is more just to leave the judgement of artists and their works to the experts.
Last year, an internationally acclaimed Australian photographer, Bill Henson was under fire for scouting nude models for his exhibition in a primary school. He was accused of child exploitation; his photographs were dismissed as child pornography; he was called a pedophile. U.S. renowned photographers Jock Sturges and Robert Mapplethorpe were similarly accused. The lack of evidence resulted in unsuccessful prosecution against them. And likewise for Henson. This year, China’s respected artist, Li Zhuang Ping, 61, created controversy with his series of oriental goddess inspired oil paintings at the art festival in Chongqing. The public screamed blue murder when his 23-year-old daughter, Li Qin posed nude for his paintings. From a country which outlawed nude figure painting from 1965-77 and remains largely conservative after the Cultural Revolution, Li’s paintings contravene with China’s deep-rooted values on morality. China website, hudong.com reported that Li had crossed the moral boundary acceptable in China in his pursuit of art. Chinese’s notion of ‘lian chi’ (shame) makes it inconceivable that a father would ask his daughter to pose nude for art.
Whether it is the Henson’s case or the Li’s, nudity is just the tip of an iceberg behind their controversial works; the elephant in the room resides in a bigger context. Why is nudity such a taboo when in fact it’s been explored in art for centuries? The fall of mankind has the answer. In Genesis, the first book of the Bible, Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden and became aware that they were naked. They covered themselves with fig leaves and hid behind the trees when God appeared to them. Thus, began the knowledge of shame. As I am using the word ‘naked’ and ‘nude’ interchangeably, how many of us really know that there is a difference between the two? In his book, The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form, Art Historian, Kenneth Clark explains that:
To be naked is to be deprived of our clothes, and the word implies some of the embarrassment most of us feel in that condition. The word ‘nude’, on the other hand, carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone.
The ambiguity between both, however, makes it difficult for a layman to distinguish nude art from pornography. Nudity and Framing: Classifying Art, Pornography, Information and Ambiguity, a research paper by Beth A. Eck published in the Sociological Forum, Vol. 16. No 4, December 2001 highlights the importance of the context in which nude images reside. There are the familiar and the unfamiliar contexts. Based on Eck’s research, the art gallery is a bounded environment with a narrow audience. Nudes are common in such venue and visitors have expected to see them. Images in this context are, therefore, identified as art. No complaints were received when 65,000 attended Henson’s exhibition of nude child photographs in 2005(SMH, Arts & Entertainment, 31 May-1-June, 2008). But when the photograph of a nude 12-year-old girl was featured on invitation cards to his exhibition last year, the public were disapproving. Arts Monthly Australia was also being lampooned for featuring a nude 6-year-old girl on its cover of July 2008 issue. When nudity is commodified, for example, on a magazine cover and displayed in a less-bounded environment with a broader audience, such as a newsstand, ‘its meaning and interpretation are then subject to negotiation’ (Eck, 2001).
Eck’s theory, however, fails to appease visitors at the art festival where Li’s paintings of his nude daughter were exhibited. Hudong.com reported that detractors claimed that had she not posed nude for her father but for other artists, they’d have no qualm about it. They argued that an artist undermines morality – be it a father or a son posing nude for his artist daughter or mother. Li Qin defended that if the artist is not her father she’d never pose nude for other artists. Li compared his painting process to that of bathing his daughter when she was little. Such representation of child nudity is simplified to one-dimension. In the discussion board Arts Vs Porn of the popular networking site, Facebook, the issues of parents taking candid shots of their children playing in the bathtub or running around naked in the garden are also heatedly debated. Lawrence Stanley, an attorney specializing in entertainment and obscenity law argues in his article Art and “Pervasion”: Censoring Images of Nude Children, that whether erotic intention subsists in a photographer’s works depends on the viewer’s intentions, feelings and experience. He reminds viewers that erotic intention could also be overlooked even though it is present in a photograph. By applying Stanley’s principles, a splatter of paints on a canvas can therefore be appreciated as art or discounted as trash by different viewers – just like Li’s paintings can be artistically beautiful or corruptive. The father-and-daughter’s collaboration was labeled as incestuous because a father had seen his daughter’s naked body.
Renowned sociologist, Li Yin He ascribes such stereotype is akin to the general association of nudity with sex. She attests that nudity is an art form and whether a model and an artist are related or not is irrelevant. Art critic, Professor Lin Mu Zai of Sichuan University hails Li’s works as a breakthrough in an art world fenced by ethics and morals. Social ethicist, Yuan Zu She, however, cautions that there are two faces to a coin. From an art’s perspective, there is no implication of ethics; Li is an artist and Li Qin is an object of art. From a social perspective, Yuan asserts that Li’s conduct is ethically incorrect. He reasons that Li’s paintings are displayed in public and therefore, are subject to ethical scrutiny.
In his essay, Art and Morality published in North American Review in 1888, Robert G. Ingersoll defines the role of art and artists distinctively. Paraphrasing Ingersoll, the existence of art is self-contained and it has no direct relation with moral or immorality. He distinguishes naked and nude plainly from each other: ‘undressed is vulgar – the nude is pure.’ Ingersoll abdicates the social responsibility of art by denouncing art as a sermon and artist as a preacher. He believes that ‘the freedom of genius is lost’ and ‘the artist is absorbed in the citizen’ and becomes a laborer when the moral obligation presides over artistic creativity.
Creativity is encouraged in the studies of art. If the sky is the limit is advocated in the teaching of art, surely that implies that art has no restriction to its expression and style in its truest form. Art is too protean a creation to be understood and appreciated in the way that the artists want us to. The works of Henson and Li albeit artistic are immoral to some. Unless we can read an artist’s mind, the true intention and meaning underlying a piece of art can never be proven.
If the social responsibility of artists arises from the fact that their works are displayed in public, then by the same benchmark, moral crusaders should also be socially responsible for their words in public. Their criticisms should be confined to private discussion; it is more just to leave the judgement of artists and their works to the experts.