Erotic Art vs. Pornography: Rowan Metzner’s Photographic Exploration of Rodin, Schiele and Picasso
What is the difference between erotic art and pornography; and why is it that the change of medium changes perspective? These are questions Los Angeles photographer Rowan Metzner is presenting in her latest photography book collection, Erotic Masters: A Photographic Exploration of the Provocative Works of Rodin, Schiele and Picasso, a collection of photographic representations of erotic works by modern masters Rodin, Schiele and Picasso. Each scene is photographed as if the original artists had done so themselves, inviting the viewer to contemplate the ultimate question: is photographed erotic art viewed as pornography?
A masterful photographic representation of the art world’s most iconic artists, Erotic Masters comes out at a perfect time, on the cusp of the 100th anniversary of celebrating Schiele’s work, featured exhibits of Picasso and Schiele’s erotic works happening now at the Met Museum and during a time where women are continuing the fight to express their bodies as they please. A loaded subject at a time when gender equality is on the front burner.
Metzner’s own experiences served as the impetus for the investigation into the contention between erotic art and pornography after a stint photographing for Playboy. “Many years ago, when it was still in Chicago, I worked at Playboy. As a feminist working there I often wrestled with my conscience. On one hand, the women were choosing to be photographed, on the other I questioned what led them to that decision, particularly when there were visible signs of emotional trauma. Later after moving to LA, I briefly retouched still photos for a pornography company. When I read the introduction in Erotic Art of the Masters, The 18th, 19th, and 20th Centuries which claims there is a difference between erotic art and pornography I had to find out if that was the case and, if so, what that difference was. My past experiences alongside my upbringing and education steeped in “high art” made this project make perfect sense. ”
So what inherently is the difference between erotic art and pornography, and where does one draw the line? The glaringly obvious distinction between the two is the medium through which the images are captured and disseminated, and the intention of the artist themselves.
Rowan Metzner’s work brings the inherent pornographic nature of erotic photography to the forefront, allowing the viewer to contemplate the importance and implicitness of the medium. Picasso, Schiele, and Rodin all worked within the traditional medium of the painterly, allowing for a certain distance between themselves and their subjects. The material itself stands as a division of sorts between artist and subject, and subsequently spectator and subject, and moreover their avant-garde surrealist interpretations of the human form further distance the spectator from a pornographic reading of the images.
“People have a tendency to view works done by hand differently than photography. It often does not register that a living model posed for the drawing/painting/etc and quite possibly for a very long time. There is no room for denial in a photograph. The model is right there. In Erotic Masters I give the audience an opportunity to experience the same imagery as they might have seen in museums but without that separation. This amplifies the question is it erotic art or pornography?”
Metzner’s photographic recreations of the modernist erotic masterpieces by virtue of the very medium and style through which they are displayed, are not afforded the distance that abstract illustrations imply and thus tread the line between art and pornography. The photographer, working behind a camera lens rather than behind a canvas, is present in the voyeuristic energy of the image, and thus as their surrogate, we as spectators become participatory in this voyeurism.
Photography since its inception has been regarded as a medium symbolic of veracity and realism. Andre Bazin, a film scholar during the height of photographies cultural apex in the 20th century positioned photography as a “discovery that satisfied, once and for all and in its very essence, our obsession with realism.”
Famed media theorist and scholar Marshal Mcluhan once proclaimed the “medium is the message,” and in the context of Metzner vs. Picasso, Rodin and Schiele the statement could not be truer. Implicit in Metzner’s work is a corporeality and presence embedded in the realism implicit in the photograph itself. This corporeality lends a certain presence to the eroticized subject, and thus stimulates a much more erotically charged reaction than a painting or sculpture whose “message” is more of interpretation of reality than of reality itself; filtered through the artists psyche and expressed in a frenetic and surrealistic manner, one does not feel a corporeal presence when viewing a “traditional” work of art.
Yet there is much to Rowan’s work which is decidedly painterly and sculptural. Recreating the works of the masters, some images are hazy and slightly blurred with an impressionistic quality, and her models pose in such a way that eschews any overtly eroticized readings. Stretching their limbs and contorting themselves, the photographs are much more like studies of form than pornographic images. In recreating the poses of the original works themselves, Metzner draws attention to the medium itself, and in doing so highlights the inherent message of the medium.
“I asked a lot of people what they thought the difference between Erotic Art and Pornography was as I was working on the project and the overwhelming answer was the intention, the intention of the artist and the viewer. What was the artist thinking when they created the work, what do they want the audience to feel, what do they feel?” Metzner leaves the question unanswered, inviting the viewer to decide for themselves. “I have been posting some of the images from the book on social media making sure to cover nipples and genitalia. Even with these precautions, Instagram removed one of my images saying it violated the community standards… Cleary they think it was pornographic.”
Cody Rooney is a Glossi Mag contributor.
He is a photography aficionado, masters student, fashion enthusiast, avid Ariana Grande fan and lover of all things aesthetically pleasing.
