Pornography: Art and Politics?

I’ve been thinking a lot about performance and politics. During the “Black Power, Black Feminism” conference at Sarah Lawrence, I attended a panel on the Black Arts movement and I was provoked to start thinking differently about art and politics. One panelist noted that during the Black Arts movement, dancers were not respected as a “serious” art in terms of social politics. Dance was perceived as frivolous apolitical action—and not a true art in light of the movement. Yet, the panelist argued that dance was by far one of the most politicized art forms during the movement, and also one of the most accessible considering that the only tool required is the body. Something else that only requires the body is sex, but this action is hardly understood as an art. Sex is certainly a performance, no matter how many people are involved. And art is certainly also performative, but what about pornography? Can pornography also be art? Before I even begin to consider this question, it is critical to start with deconstructing what we even deem as pornographic. In light of the performative scope of my inquiry, I would like to commence with a videographic introduction.

He has a point. Let us embody this problematic as the foreplay to our work…But I’m going to take this slow.