Monday, February 9, 2009

Reworking Fine Art, Chinese Style

A collection of Chinese bloggers have done an awesome job at pointing out the absurdity that is surfing the net in China.

From AFP:

SHANGHAI (AFP) — Chinese Internet users angered by censorship in cyberspace have dressed up images of famous renaissance nudes in a protest against Beijing's crackdown on "vulgar" online content.

Images posted as part of the protest include Michelangelo's statue "David" shown in a Mao suit while black socks and a strategically placed necktie were added to the artist's depiction of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

The protest began last week after a user of the social networking site Douban.com complained that images of several paintings, including Titian's nude "Venus of Urbino," had been deleted from an online photo album.

Read On

This recent crackdown on pieces of art shows just how clueless the people controlling the internet here are. Although I don't agree with it at all, I can at least understand why they want to crack down on pornographic content. But fine art, give me a break.

I think that the following is a pretty good definition of pornography: "the creative activity (writing or pictures or films etc.) of no literary or artistic value other than to stimulate sexual desire." Obviously these works which were being questioned do not fall under that category at all.

As the article goes on to say, the photoshoppers who pointed out the ridiculousness of this filtering won and the works of art which were being questioned now aren't.

This story is a testament to the power of a meaningful, well thought out, and subtle standing up to the Man.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The creative activity (writing or pictures or films etc.) of no literary or artistic value other than to stimulate sexual desire

Are you talking about porn or advertising?

Anonymous said...

Well they have no moral high ground cracking down on either as a government and certainly not on some of the most beautiful, inspiring works mankind has ever created such as these.