This notion — the delicate relationship between art and commerce — struck me while reading a brief about artist Jonathan Yeo’s latest exhibition, “Porn in the U.S.A,” which opened at Lazarides Gallery in Los Angeles last Thursday. While the title is suggestive, and a semi-clever pun (two things that definitely don’t fly for journalism in the days of search engine optimization), it’s also intended to stoke controversy — like all of his work.He’s probably best known for his porntrait portrait of Paris Hilton (complete with penis thumb… NSFW) from his debut show at Lazarides in 2008, a piece that was famously purchased by Damien Hirst. The name recognition of Yeo’s subjects, and the attention he draws by using porn as his medium, feels a bit like artworld hucksterism.
That last thing that Yeo says, the notion that a percentage of those who view his work will be uninformed gawkers attracted by the mere sight of a large crowd, is telling. His porn and celebrity sales pitch are far from unheard of. In fact, the two topics are tried and true public attention grabbers. Yeo’s particular choice to cast Palin in porn is a not-so-subtle exploitation of her often sexually-charged image. Just as his decision is to give Tiger Woods the same treatment (NSFW: View here).
It begs the question, how much interest in art these days — whether visual art, music, writing, etc. — is driven by hype? And how often does the art itself live up to the expectation of how it was marketed or sold? Back in the pre-Internet world, consumers would cry fowl of such disregard for quality control, claiming bait-and-switch tactics when disappointed by the end product. But today things are different for some reason. Perhaps expectations are at an all-time low, or maybe most of us have just stopped caring.
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