MUSEUM, URBAN DETRITUS AND PORNOGRAPHY

The art market wants porn, but it doesn't want porn when it comes from feminism. Everything needs to be kept in its place. The art world likes the odd splash of recycled pornographic codes, provided they are kept well away from their function of social critique, existing more as mere aesthetic residues. The Barbican likes Jeff Koons, and testicles (even hairy ones) are art provided they are drawn properly by solemn gentlemen. Paris Hilton’s nudity as sculpted by Daniel Edwards singularly transcends the sordid world of pornography, and a little bit of meat always helps highlight the YBAs’ transgression. Let's not demand too much from Western art historiography; it’s already had quite enough to cope with in recent years what with having to acclimatise itself to the critical interferences of different sexual, racial and cultural minorities. We've had Warhol, Mappelthorpe and Journiac (three men, incidentally, who knew how to draw testicles). We need to be epistemologically cautious and ethically patient if we’re not to waste all our effort.