This is a deceptively simple question and one which was prompted by the statement by an artist I had never heard of before but came across while reading one of my photography books.

The artist, whose name I cannot right now recall, but will remember it I am sure as soon as I have posted this, described the phenomenon whereby the public, will when presented with an abstract photograph, defer to someone who is classified by the viewer or someone else  as an ‘expert’ and accept their opinion as to the quality and artistic merit of the said work.

Such deference is in complete contrast to the situation when confronted with a work featuring the nude. Suddenly everyone is an expert about what is good or bad about the work and whether or not it is art!

I found this very interesting and it is worth exploring in much more detail and from a few different perspectives. I think it’s fairly obvious that the statement points out yet another double standard, whereby the same person (usually without formal art training) can at the same time plead ignorance of the finer points of artistic merit on 99% of all the artwork they see and yet be an expert when it comes to artwork depicting the human form.

It’s like the old expression…which goes something like….I can’t define what what is offensive, but i know it when i see it!

I think it is worth exploring in ourselves and in the wider artistic world, if we find something offensive or that upsets us we have to know exactly what it is about that thing that we find unpalatable and we have to be able to explain it. We cannot just say we find a work offensive and demand its removal or suppression. If we defer the judgements about artwork to ‘experts’ and accept their conclusions for 99% of the work we see, then we cannot reserve judgement on the remaining 1%,just because we don’t like that 1%.

Just a thought for now….

Derek.