Dr 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. Dr 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.
Dr Maes has authored papers on a wide variety of topics in aesthetics and the philosophy of art and culture, including the role of intention in the interpretation of art, the nature of portraiture, melancholy as an aesthetic emotion, the role of sexiness in contemporary culture, and the relation between art and pornography.
Prior to the release of “Kunst of Pornografie”, Dr Maes published two essay collections based around the same subject: Art and Pornography (co-edited with Jerrold Levinson, Oxford University Press, 2012) and Pornographic Art and The Aesthetics of Pornography (Palgrave MacMillan, 2013). While the first book focuses exclusively on the philosophical side of the debate, the second book takes an interdisciplinary approach and includes contributions from art historians, cultural theorists, film scholars, artists, curators, as well as philosophers.
For more information about Dr Maes and his publications, Please visit his staff profile.