Hans Maes and co-author Petra van Brabandt have just published a monograph (in Dutch) on the ‘art vs porn’ debate.
Art or Porn? The popular media will often choose this heading when reviewing the latest sexually explicit novel, film, or art exhibition. The underlying assumption seems to be that the work under discussion has to be one or the other, and cannot be both. Hans Maes and Petra van Brabandt think this is a false dilemma. In their new book, “Kunst of Pornografie?”, they argue that pornography and art are not mutually exclusive and that the phrase “pornographic art,” far from being an oxymoron, actually designates a legitimate artistic category.