‘Art’ Articles

Shiny Black And Sexy

This one’s for Suze

Tags: shiny body
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Harder, Harder, Faster, Faster

Advertising is an art form that has no equal. Unlike other art forms it is a practical application of the aesthetic that has a practical goal. The sale of goods or services to people who didn’t know they needed to buy them (or at least were going to but them from another supplier).

Art should provoke a reaction, you should feel something. It doesn’t matter so much if that reaction is love, disbelief or outrage. Though provoking pure outrage is too easy and means that some artists mistake abominations for art. Provoking outrage should be a means to an end not an end in itself.

… returning to advertising.

Advertising has in recent years has introduced a lot of people to new concepts. There’s the application of CGI to expand what’s possible in the visual arts, cultural influences from across the world and new music.

For most people, even those around at the time of its release some music is a bit obscure. Adverts can introduce a new band to the public, Nickelback benefited from this phenomena, as did (regrettably) Babylon Zoo. Both Jeans in commercials incidentally.

The one that really stands out as being powerful and subversive is the tyre advert featuring the Psychedelic Furs Classic Venus In Furs. I’ve mentioned it before but make no apology for mentioning it again. It’s bloody marvellous and featured in the video of the Dunlop commercial above.

How many people have listened to the lyrics and not know what it’s about?

Tags: Venus In Furs
Posted in Art, Fetish, Non-Fiction, Opinion, Sexuality | No Comments »

Naughty Playmate

Tags: art, MichaelO
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Neo-Classical Nudity

As followers of my Twitter will know we went to Fountains Abbey today. Weather was glorious, thought the portion sizes in the National Trust restaurant in the visitors centre were meagre to say the least. We ate a hug pile of Kentucky Fried Chicken when we got back! A good long walk is great for developing a healthy appetite.

Anyway, while there we walked down river to Studley Royal Gardens and from next to the formal lakes took some shots of the ornamental statues. We’d passed the one pictured on the other side of the lake but I couldn’t tell you what it looks like from the other side. But from behind it looks like this guy is doing something very naughty indeed.

Tags: naughty art
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Sexy Up Skirts And Stockings

In fact, following on from my earlier post I have to say that pin-up girls really do make the sexiest images. None of this awful up skirts crap. A flash of stocking top and a feigned innocence in the smile … gorgeous.

In fact I wrote a story a while back about a pin-up girl, I’ll post it up soon.

Tags: pin-up girls
Posted in Art, Non-Fiction, Opinion, Sexuality | 2 Comments »

Red Lips And Stockings

I’ve always had a thing for pin-up girls. Even before I realised it, or for that matter understood what having a thing for anyone was. I wouldn’t say it was a pre-sexual development, more part of developing sexuality.

Pin-up art and photography are evocative of a certain era and distil female sexiness down to its fundamentals of fun, femininity and touch of the risqué.

Tags: pin-up girls
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Burlesque Or Slutty? Who Cares?

Would you class this image as a little bit Burlesque, slutty or maybe a bit 1940s pin-up.

Honestly I don’t care ‘cos it’s a great photo.

Tags: photography
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Swinging And Sliding Parties

Back in the depths of time, before the Internet, before DVDs, before digital projectors there was something called film. 35mm film cameras were the standard for recording images. You could get larger film formats, but 35mm is perfect for producing slides and is compact, yet big enough to produce quality negatives for quite large prints, with the right emulsion.

I read today that Kodak has announced it will be stopping production of its Kodachrome slide film soon. Now I’m not a big fan of the colour reproduction of Kodak emulsions, too saturated for most of the stuff I used to take. Indeed I like black and white anyway. However, that said the demise of Kodakchrome after 74 years is a bit of a milestone.

Not just for the photographic industry. Before digital getting naughty images involved a discrete and understanding lab to process your film if it was slide, and to print it if you were using negative film. That’s why it was the custom for certain artistic images to be viewed at men’s parties, just as erotic etching sand woodcuts might have been in centuries past.

The methods of production and dissemination of pornography limited its proliferation. In a way that made it more exciting. The all-pervasive nature of Internet porn means that unlike the images available to previous generations which would have been savoured and enjoyed the images created and viewed now are barely glimpsed, only a handful receiving careful and considered attention from the viewer.

As with all technology it’s another example of more choice reducing the attention span of the consumer and demanding an ever increasing amount of content.

The seminal image is on kodachrome by Steve McCurry and appeared on the cover of National Geographic in 1985.

Tags: erotic imagery
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