Art Undressed, or, PORN!!!

{ October 26, 2009 @ 10:56 pm } · { Uncategorized }
{ Tags: academics, art, friends, London, Oxford, super-duper interesting }

I really really ought to be continuing with my microeconomics work… but I think one of the wonderful things about being here is that I’ve begun to realize just when I can and can’t do work anymore, and I know that forcing myself to go on isn’t going to be the answer. So I figured it’d be a good time to make a quick blog post!

It’s been, in short, a pretty busy week. I know that last post I said that it was the second week I’ve been in Oxford, which was true, because Fresher’s Week is a week, but that was actually the end of the first academic week. So now it’s essentially Monday of 3rd week, which already means that I’m a through a quarter of my first term here. An eight-week term really does mean that work builds up, and the learning here is seriously independent. There’s no way to miss a week of work and make up for it at another point, which is why I really, really don’t want to fall sick. I think falling behind here is going to be absolutely agonizing.

I had my first philosophy tutorial on Mill and it’s really, really amazing. Two students to one professor, and I know you’re not supposed to be intimidated by authority and all that but you know you’re being taught by someone whose erudition comes from years of study and digesting and thinking about these issues and it’s not possible to be unimpressed. I had to read my essay out, and after every point we stopped and discussed the ideas which came out and really, really thrashed out everything, and you walk out reeling but in a really excited way. Ellie and I continued arguing about it all the way down the street. It’s not just the specific issue that becomes a lot clearer – by trying to answer the professor’s questions you really start trying to think in his mindset and because of that you come that much closer to what you have to be doing to really get to the heart of an issue and to the heart of what a philosopher was saying. Why would Mill say this? Why did he feel that this was a sufficient or insufficient answer? It’s great. I adore it, it takes so much effort out of you but in such a brilliant way.

I spent the weekend in London at UCL with Clar and really enjoyed myself! Oxford’s new and great and I’m making some pretty good friends, but Clar and I have known each other for five years and that’s really something that can’t be compared in any instance. It’s a case where you really can talk about random stuff or just not talk at all, and it’s great fun just being with her. If you’re reading this, dear girl, I LOVE YOU LOTS! *hearts* Also, Oxford’s an awesome place, but I do think that I’m a city girl at heart. London’s confusing and I like it lots too… also went shopping, which is of course always great. But I shan’t bore with details of a shopping trip. *laugh*

Went to the Tate Modern, and I was immensely amused. Clar doesn’t like modern art because she thinks it’s rubbish, I generally agree but approach it from a different angle. I don’t like any individual piece of modern art but am extremely amused by what it does say about our culture today, and what art is becoming as a whole. The cynic in me is laughing really, really hard. There’s a room in the Pop Art exhibition covering the work of Jeff Koons, and essentially:

It’s just him and his porn-star wife, fucking.

They’ve been sculpted fucking, photographed fucking, photographed fucking in various poses… there’s a shot where they’ve been transplanted onto a natural scene with waterfalls and rocks… there’s even a shot of his cock entering her pussy, a huge close-up of that with his fingers spreading her ass open. There’s really no other way to describe it. I could use the clinical (or politically correct) terms for the various genital paraphernalia, but then I wouldn’t be doing justice to the sheer, stupid crudity of the whole thing.

I suppose you could be highbrow about it. You could argue about the value of shock and an unashamed, unabashed look at the sex act which is self-mocking and self-referential. You could say that it’s ironic and makes a strong point about the way we see sex in our society. You could even say that it makes a statement about our voyeuristic culture and the link between sex, celebrity and art.

I still don’t see how it’s anything other than porn, though. Really, just go to Google, type in the word ‘porn’, find a free site, and screencap a shot. Then blow it up really really big on canvas and try and sell it to the Tate Modern. They’ll buy it – them and the National Heritage Fund (or something similar). Bonus points if it’s an amateur video that you and your partner filmed with a grainy scratchy camera, probably. It’s so ridiculously self-indulgent, and I guess that’s where I feel I appreciate modern art? If art is supposed to represent the spirit of our times, sure, this is it, modern art’s doing a fantastic job. Vulgar and banal and stupid.

It’s the Emperor’s new clothes, redux. Now, we’re all free to say that he’s not wearing any clothes. (Neither is Jeff Koons.) But now, no one’s pointing out that it’s really not cool to be prancing around naked.

But don’t worry, there’s hope for the future of mankind. I attended a talk by Lord Hannay, who was British ambassador to the UN, and he was discussing the problems that face the world and the role that the UN can play and how it should develop. It’s awesome because he has all these ideas, and while I do appreciate that there are very many obstacles to progress and to fixing things like climate change and nuclear disarmament and terrorism, his message overall was a fairly hopeful one: there is a way to go about fixing many of these things. It’s a matter, of course, of bringing together the political capital and clout and cooperation, but none of the problems that face us are beyond us.

I really appreciated the questions that got asked as well – the questions were fast and furious and incisive and ranged across a massive range of issues – issues on how to treat rogue states like Iran and North Korea, issues like America’s place in the world and Britain’s place relative to America and the EU, questions about the veto on the Security Council and whether the membership of the council should be expanded, about the settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, questions about bringing China into alignment with the rest of the world… a range of questions that really demonstrated that the people in the room had thought really hard about their topics and weren’t afraid to ask serious and genuine questions.

Later this week I’m going to troop down to Corpus and hear the editor of the Economist talk about the revival of faith in the world today. Daryl will probably be interested in this one, so I’ll make a post when that comes up.

Busy busy! I have the time to go out with friends and make new ones, to work and study hard, to see some porn, to attend fascinating talks, and to think about all the huge issues that the world is presenting to all of us. What more can I ask from university life?