Art is a confusing topic, modern art even more so. Art has
been around for so long, and has had so many things done with it; pretty
pictures no longer seem valid. You can paint an in detail picture of a
landscape – but that’s been done. You can draw a realistic portrait of someone –
ten other people have painted that same person.
No if you want to be new, if you want to get people talking,
you need to get creative. You need to be daring. And sometimes this can be a
little confusing for us non-artists.
Confusing in the sense of, is it okay for me to like this?
If I like this piece of art, am I sinning? Do I need to go to a Catholic church
and confess? Am I a bad person for viewing this art?
To understand where I’m coming from, I need to direct your
attention to Danny Fields. Some of you might know Danny Fields as the long-standing
manager of the Ramones. You might know him as the guy who edited the iconic 16
magazine. The guy responsible for signing the Stooges, MC5, and Nico. At the
very least, you’ve at least heard the John Lennon quote Fields was responsible
for reporting – ‘We’re more famous than Jesus.’
But what you probably didn’t know about Danny, is that in
the 1970s, he also enjoyed making porn. As you do.
So when the day was done, and he had gotten his fill of
being an iconic figure on the New York punk scene. Danny Fields would go out,
get a group of boys and bring them back to his apartment. Once there he would
give them some vague directions and take pictures of the boys – and their
genitalia.
In his Richardson interview, Fields says:
“They were all prostitutes. Well, prostitutes
sounds too glamorous; they were hustlers. I’d pick them up in the street or at
prostitute bars, and then one always seemed to bring the others. You’d pay them
forty dollars or something, and they’d pretty much do whatever you told them
to. This was before AIDS and the internet, so people weren’t so paranoid. A lot
of them are dead now, and a lot of them—I never even knew their names.”
This is the back story behind the collection of photographs
in this article. And this is what I meant by art being problematic nowadays.
On the one hand, I cannot deny that I find the photographs
fascinating. And yet at the same time I’m disgusted.
Is it disgusting because of what the boys are doing? The
pictures I’m showing here are the tame versions, others graphically show ass
fingering, bondage... poo holding, and other icky stuff.
It could be said that these pictures are disturbing because
of what they tell me about myself. They show that I am conventional in my
sexuality. That other executions of sex repulse me, and perhaps that shows me
to be a little closed minded.
Not all sex is based on love and cuddles, some people have
sex purely for the pleasure. And some people experience pleasure in different
varieties.
Then of course we have to address the origins of these
pictures. Is this art or exploitation? Is this what makes the photos disgusting? These boys are being paid to perform
these acts. More than likely the men in the pictures are selling themselves out
of experiences with drugs, broken homes, dysfunctional relationships, ect.
Was it wrong for Fields to pay, and therefore fuel, their
lifestyle?
By displaying these pictures, is he exploiting their
misfortune?
Or are these pictures offering us a glimpse into someone’s
life that would have otherwise been over looked. And it does have to be said,
that in some of the photos, there appears to be a genuinely look of joy on some
of the boys faces. Did they enjoy the experience? Are we judging their way of
life too quickly?
In all honesty? Probably not. They probably were deeply
troubled youths, and we’ll never really know how the rest of their life’s
turned out. Maybe Fields is right, maybe most of them are dead. But do I find
the photos exploitative?
Personally no.
These are shots of just one night in these boys lives.
Without Fields, these boys would have continued to do the same thing, only with
a different person. And in a way, I find most interest in these photos stemming
from a desire to know these people. To know what happened to them. To know if
they’re now okay.
Obviously I’ll never get these answers. And the boys will
never know that I care about their lives. But for a couple of minutes, these
pictures have forced us to question something about ourselves and at the same
time, pulled us out of our own problems and question and care about someone
else’s.
Though keep in mind I do a literature degree, so I am prone
to have my judgement clouded with feelings and pretension. So what do you guys
think? Fields’ photographs: Porn? Exploitation? Art? Or just plain icky?
Let me know in the comments.
All the
photographs and quotes in this post come from the sex magazine Richardson. I’m
not cool enough to read said magazine, so I found all of this on one of my
favourite blogs: Slutever.com. When you’re done reading my crap, give the
original article a read and check out some of the more in detailed pictures.
Because I can’t really have up close shots of anuses on a blog with a dragon
drawn on the top, can I?
All images by Danny Fields
