When art is pornographic

Many thanks to Ceres Doyo for the thoughtful column “Poverty porn” (Opinion, 10/17/13). It has been rolling around in my mind and this is what I think…

I have often used big black-and-white photos in seminars and workshops with older people, street children and farmers. I lay a large number of these photos on the floor or table, and then ask people to silently walk around, look at the photos and, if one stirs some kind of reaction, to pick it up. When everybody’s finished, we go into a session, with the participants describing what they felt when they picked up the photo (what psychologists describe as a “projective technique”). I am always amazed at what people say about the photos—almost always very far from the mind of the photographer (and tells you a lot about the one describing them). Art is ambiguous and leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Which is why I can understand scientists becoming atheists because they have to describe everything in detail. But artists can never be atheists because they themselves do not understand completely what they have made.

So what is poverty porn? It’s when art (e.g., photography) is one dimensional but wrongly so—as in sexy to sell cream to make you look young; as in classy people to sell premium whiskey; as when it conveys not-so-subtle hints that actual possession of a product lifts one above the masa—when art is used to propagate the same, its pornographic.

—EDWARD GERLOCK,

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