nudity in the gallery

joe, you are a moderator enforcing the rules. IMO you should not have left this thread (an announcement + reminder of some rules) open for free discussion...it is an invitation to the "freedom fighters", the "no more censorship partisans".
 
ErikFive said:
Can someone that saw the picture explain what it was about?
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I assume it's the one I commented on as well. Unfortunately, I also then missed the discussion - I would be most interested in other opinions about the picture.
The picture shows a not too slim nude lady with wide open thighs (p!nk sh*t style) wearing only a "muslim style" headcloth and veil. Picture style was early 20th century, but in colour with actually quite nice lighting.

Best regards,
Uwe
 
sitemistic said:
Well, I'm no "freedom fighter." But the whole "keep the children from seeing nudity" thing baffles me.
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It baffles me too. That's how I was grown up (i did have a good childhood and am very grateful to my parents) and i do not understand why.
But that's not the point.
This is a forum of somebody. We come here we are welcome as long as we obey the rules. If we feel the rules are stupid or just baffling, well we can laugh about them and still obey or we can find another place, or of course we can discuss them in a civilized manner too! but we can NOT expect the owner to change them because we come from another background or we have different taste in something.
 
Hi Pherdinand,
Don’t worry, I think we can discuss the topic without “fighting” in a way or another :)

Well, I saw the picture and I commented it, and discussed it with Jocko and RayPa.
For Erik and those who didn’t see it: it represented an Arab/Persian/Turkish woman on a bed, naked, with a headscarf hiding her face. She was spreading her legs showing her sex, holding a pearl necklace on her thigh. The title was at least as provocative as the posture: Matriarchy.
Jocko claimed that the picture was a vulgar copy of 19th nudes in European painting, without eroticism or mystery. Besides, he argued that it carried the worse of Orientalism as art and colonial ideology. The representation of the woman as a sex, a vagina, dismissed this picture for him. Am I right Ian?
I find this argument pretty strong. On my side, I saw as the continuation of the 19th nudes, especially an attempt to revive the artistic tradition of odalisque/concubine. (But obviously that’s rebuttable). RayPa was claiming the same, plus adding an interesting reference to Joel-Peter Witkin whom I didn’t know. I think that was a pretty interesting discussion.
About the topic of the thread: rules are rules of course, but no rules are unquestionable (even constitutional ones). I’m not saying we have to change rules about nudity, but only that it’s not a valid argument to justify the prohibition of nudes. There are pros and cons. Basically:
- Why should we tolerate nudityin the gallery? 1. Because it’s one of the very first subject of human art, from the Flingstones:) to the Greek, from the Roman to the French, from the Japanese to the American and so on … 2. Because it’s a very interesting and difficult art; showing a nude body is a real challenge. (Personally, I couldn’t make it). Nudes express a lot of things, depending on the intention of the artist (and even when he has no intention). 3. What would be our museum without nudes? The Louvre, the Bristish even the Moma would be empty.
- Why should we prohibit nudity from the gallery? 1. Because it can be offensive to some people. (This reason is the weakest, because if we had to prohibit everything that could offend others, we would end with a very few tolerated pictures, if only one). Because minors could see it: that’s of course a powerful reason. Maybe we could set a distinctive category, forbidden to minors, and which requires the consent of the spectator. (Someone suggested that, and we should think about this option). 3. There’s a radical reason against nudity on a site like RFF: even if there was a distinctive category, the dividing line between art and porn would be easily crossed. That’s the main problem with the “Artistic nudes” category on deviantART. Most of the time, there’s no art in this category.
My own opinion now: I would support the setting an optional “Nudes” category, because we just can ignore this part of photography. But that’s only me.
 
I think this is a real dilemma for moderators of sites like this. I have no problem with nudity in life or art and I think that good erotic photography can be compelling but the reality is that most journeyman efforts at nude and/or erotic photography are kitschy and generally of low merit. It often seems to me to be more about the 'triumph' of persuading someone to get naked in front of ones' camera than about the images themselves.

I think the moderators need to treat each instance on its merits and I personally wouldn't have arbitrary rules about not depicting genitalia - I notice that there are some pictures of naked male statues with genitalia fully on show - eeek! - but I accept it isn't up to me.
 
Marc-A. said:
Hi Pherdinand,
Don’t worry, I think we can discuss the topic without “fighting” in a way or another :)

Well, I saw the picture and I commented it, and discussed it with Jocko and RayPa.
For Erik and those who didn’t see it: it represented an Arab/Persian/Turkish woman on a bed, naked, with a headscarf hiding her face. She was spreading her legs showing her sex, holding a pearl necklace on her thigh. The title was at least as provocative as the posture: Matriarchy.
Jocko claimed that the picture was a vulgar copy of 19th nudes in European painting, without eroticism or mystery. Besides, he argued that it carried the worse of Orientalism as art and colonial ideology. The representation of the woman as a sex, a vagina, dismissed this picture for him. Am I right Ian?
Hi Marc - firstly i regret the thread and comments were removed, because I too think that this was an interesting discussion.

I would slightly enlarge your summary of my views regarding the picture simply as a picture. Basically I identified the image with the titillating "smoking-room art" of some bad late 19th century painters and their imitators in photography. I made a point of distancing that material from the source works - Ingres, Delacroix and (I might add) Moreau, who used such themes in a rich and creative way. Essentially I regarded the picture as a failure of imagination, using the model's sex organ as a sensationalist substitute for real content or creativity.

I did find the contrast between hidden face/revealed organ disturbing, but also tried to stress that there was nothing wrong with objectifying an individual in purely sexual terms if that process expressed something real. There is fabulous and explicit art all way back to the stone age which does exactly this. Here - I felt - we had complete emptiness: Pure "formalism" in the old Soviet sense" basically a picture of some genitals with trappings from a child's dressing up box, pretending to amount to something when in fact it told us nothing - that we had bad art.

Now - obviously that's my own view, and it is always good to have dialogue, as that way understanding emerges.

Cheers, Ian
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Marc-A. said:
Well, I saw the picture and I commented it, and discussed it with Jocko and RayPa.
For Erik and those who didn’t see it: it represented an Arab/Persian/Turkish woman on a bed, naked, with a headscarf hiding her face. She was spreading her legs showing her sex, holding a pearl necklace on her thigh. The title was at least as provocative as the posture: Matriarchy.
Jocko claimed that the picture was a vulgar copy of 19th nudes in European painting, without eroticism or mystery. Besides, he argued that it carried the worse of Orientalism as art and colonial ideology. The representation of the woman as a sex, a vagina, dismissed this picture for him. Am I right Ian?
I find this argument pretty strong. On my side, I saw as the continuation of the 19th nudes, especially an attempt to revive the artistic tradition of odalisque/concubine. (But obviously that’s rebuttable). RayPa was claiming the same, plus adding an interesting reference to Joel-Peter Witkin whom I didn’t know. I think that was a pretty interesting discussion.
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So, sorry I missed the discussion, but I tend to agree with Jocko.
In my opinion, the picture was provocation for provocation's sake and not even "good" provocation.

Marc-A. said:
About the topic of the thread: rules are rules of course, but no rules are unquestionable (even constitutional ones). I’m not saying we have to change rules about nudity, but only that it’s not a valid argument to justify the prohibition of nudes. There are pros and cons. Basically:
- Why should we tolerate nudityin the gallery? 1. Because it’s one of the very first subject of human art, from the Flingstones:) to the Greek, from the Roman to the French, from the Japanese to the American and so on …
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Fully agree. I very much like this posting.
2. Because it’s a very interesting and difficult art; showing a nude body is a real challenge. (Personally, I couldn’t make it). Nudes express a lot of things, depending on the intention of the artist (and even when he has no intention).
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Also agree. However, that nude "Matriachy" in my opinion did not express anything and the intention of the artist - apart from trying to be provocative - did not come across to me.
3. What would be our museum without nudes? The Louvre, the Bristish even the Moma would be empty.
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I do not mind nudes, nudity or even pornography. I also very much like pictures of V. Kula, but I do not think that RFF would be the right platform for his pictures.

- Why should we prohibit nudity from the gallery? 1. Because it can be offensive to some people. (This reason is the weakest, because if we had to prohibit everything that could offend others, we would end with a very few tolerated pictures, if only one). Because minors could see it: that’s of course a powerful reason. Maybe we could set a distinctive category, forbidden to minors, and which requires the consent of the spectator. (Someone suggested that, and we should think about this option). 3. There’s a radical reason against nudity on a site like RFF: even if there was a distinctive category, the dividing line between art and porn would be easily crossed. That’s the main problem with the “Artistic nudes” category on deviantART. Most of the time, there’s no art in this category.
My own opinion now: I would support the setting an optional “Nudes” category, because we just can ignore this part of photography. But that’s only me.
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We (well, the owners and mods of this forum, actually) should not prohibit nudity and they don't - see the thread I linked above.
Whether a distinctive category would help - I don't know. It would only be more difficult for the mods to delete pictures and would lead to more discussions about censorship.
I don't mind seeing nudity here on RFF in the existing categories, but I am not very fond of seeing "p!ink sh*ts" and provocation of ethnic groups disguised as art here.

Best regards,
Uwe
 
jan normandale said:
Darn, I usually am in the galleries more than the forum.. I missed some excitement. Probably just as well. I might have had to have the wife crank up the volts and apply the "paddles" to revive me. J/k/h
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:D

Well, the rules are the rules of the site owner and so we must respect them.
Nonetheless they are exaggerating IMHO the attempt to exclude "tasteless" stuff.
Excluding genitalia in general as tasteless (that's what the rules say) is more than strange, at least seen from my European point of view.

As for me I'd rather risk some idiots trying to smuggle in straight porn ( which one could remove immediately) ) than I'd set the exclusions as they are set in the rules now !

If there was anything I did not like then it was that sort of insolent self promotion with the water mark. This made the presentation dishonest and devalued the pic itself, it got a porno ad this way. A pity ! Because the photo is good !

Bertram
 
ErikFive said:
Marc: So you are saying that nudity is a natural thing? Come on, I have never heard such a stupid thing before:)
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:) I know. Nudity is a natural state, that's why, as a human being, I wear a trunks for showering :D

Jocko said:
it is always good to have dialogue, as that way understanding emerges.
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That's what I believe too. As a matter of fact, I am more and more convinced by your arguments, especially the "smoking-room (decadent) art" argument and the formalism one. I was enthusiast when I saw the picture in the gallery because a few days before I made some researches on the representation of odalisque in painting and photography. I know the paintings you are refering to, those by Delacroix and Ingres, Moreau but also Matisse later; maybe the first painting that dealt with the theme of female nudity was Goya's La Maya Desnuda. I was surprised that there were only few photographical attempts - as far as I know. I would be glad to learn more on the subject. I found one photographical Odalisque by Horst (NY, 1943); see below.

Bertram2 said:
If there was anything I did not like then it was that sort of insolent self promotion with the water mark.
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I could not agree more! RayPa made the same comment for one of his pictures.

Uwe: the nude you're refering to is very beautiful. I've seen it before; weird but the first question that popped in my mind was "where did he find such a dreamy tree?" ... then I wonder how he managed to take the picture, from a practical point of view. But in itself, the picture is remarkably composed, nature/nude, tree/human body, roots/veins and nerves ... and the picture is technically outstanding.

Maybe, instead of setting up a new gallery for nudes - I fully appreciate the negative aspects of showing nudes in the gallery - members can open threads in order to show and discuss their nudes. There could also be a sticky in the W/NW category: we (but not me :rolleyes: ) could post nudes there. That would be an acceptable compromise.

Best,

Marc
 
Last edited by a moderator:
This is a subject that regularly convulses apug.org.

I am a newcomer here. I shoot nudes. I posted a
nude a month ago in the LTM forum in which the
subject (my wife) is completely bare, including
pubic mound. Should I not have posted it? I do
not want to be violating the site's rules but it
appears that I have crossed the line. If so, perhaps
a moderator can delete the thread. Here's the link:

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=43753

Sanders McNew
 
Here we go again. Posting the Horst image is a copyright violation. Do you have permission from the photographer's estate? Is the image in public domain? If not then please remove it.
 
I liked the photo becuase it reminded me of paintings by John Fredrick Lewis and Jules Joseph Lefebvre, I have no qualms about nudes, but the pose of the odalisque like model, as an inmate of a seraglio, did not add anything to the picture other than shock value, which probably was the intent of the photographer.
the photo could have been so much better without the exposed coose pose and splayed legs.
this took away most of the artistic merits and brought it to the realm of the vulgar.
it is just my opinion though.
 
Sanders McNew said:
This is a subject that regularly convulses apug.org.

I am a newcomer here. I shoot nudes. I posted a
nude a month ago in the LTM forum in which the
subject (my wife) is completely bare, including
pubic mound. Should I not have posted it? I do
not want to be violating the site's rules but it
appears that I have crossed the line. If so, perhaps
a moderator can delete the thread. Here's the link:

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=43753

Sanders McNew
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Please don't delete the thread.
I agree with Erik that your picture is not at all offensive, but just great!
And I don't think that you crossed the line.

Best regards,
Uwe
 
I saw the image, to me this looked like spam or an ad to drag people away. Cheap porn. Therefore I reported it to the moderators. Maybe people should think about posting beforehand.
 
If nothing else this has sparked an in depth photographic critique, which can only be good. Here is a little sidebar to the discussion. Years ago when I worked at a museum I heard a story about a certain Victorian, Lady Landsdowne, who with her husband held an extensive collection of Roman sculpture. She would take a hammer and create a more perfect artistic statement by knocking the naughty bits off the male statues. The offending parts were then kept in a box.
 
xayraa33 said:
the photo could have been so much better without the exposed coose pose and splayed legs.
this took away most of the artistic merits and brought it to the realm of the vulgar.
it is just my opinion though.
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Well, hmm, what do you mean ? The pose is part of the concept, it's what all the fuss is about, it's waht MAKES this photo. Without the pose it would have been another photo, wouldn?t it ?

bertram
 
Bertram2 said:
Well, hmm, what do you mean ? The pose is part of the concept, it's what all the fuss is about, it's waht MAKES this photo. Without the pose it would have been another photo, wouldn?t it ?

bertram
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No, there was no need for all the fuss, (no pun intended).
it would have been a lovely photo in the 19th century orientalist painter's manner with out the spread pose.
that is my 2 cents.
 
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