How is this still acceptable in this day and age?

[Eumaybe]

Picture attached, not sure it will show straight away, but it shows a photo of someone called David Ross sitting next to a table by Allen Jones.

YABU: it’s just art.
YANBU: appalling, just another example of sleazy male nonsense disguised as art.

https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/celebrity/article/david-ross-nevill-holt-festival-bbl0cd9fd

I'm not a subscriber, I just got those links from googling.

This. I remember seeing it in the Sunday Times magazine sometime in the 70s.

Bizarre comment

But there wouldn’t be. People would roll their eyes, find it funny/weird and all the comments
would be “But what if this was a woman - there’d be uproar!”

It's utterly grim and I have no respect for the artist or the man posing next to it.

"Eroticism" is just an excuse for pervs to perve in plain sight by calling it "art". It's objectification - mostly of females - however you slice and dice it. Call me old-fashioned, but give me a nice Turner landscape any day.

The fact that it exists as a piece of Pop Art, which is deliberately controversial and meant to spark debate, is perfectly fine. People are allowed to make art which others might consider distasteful and artists are allowed to depict things which others (or the artists themselves) find unpleasant and distressing or repulsive. Art doesn't have to depict nice things.

The fact that David Ross has chosen to buy, display and most of all, be photographed with, that particular piece of art does, however, say a lot about David Ross - much more than it says about the artist, in fact. It certainly suggests he's a dickhead who wants to show off about having that specific piece of work on display in his home.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with the newspaper choosing to photograph him with it, though. They've done that to make a point about what sort of man he is, and they've done it very well. The photograph doesn't indicate approval - quite the opposite. It's very much a 'give him enough rope and he'll hang himself' situation - the journalist and photographer who went to his home to do that piece will have got the measure of the sort of person he is and are fully aware that this photo says 'This man is a twat' far more clearly than the journalist was probably able to do in the article.

So basically the artist isn't at fault, the newspaper isn't at fault. David Ross, however, is.

I think it’s bollocks to say art is trying to be edgy and get debate going. I think it’s always been a case of the ‘old boys’ net work, ‘hiding in plain sight’, men have always been trying to erode boundaries and make the unacceptable acceptable. It’s supported by the ‘pick me girls’ who are too vapid to realise it. I think many critics are like the emperor, and new wardrobes.

Art's intended to shock and surprise. This is, unfortunately, drearily predictable.

Even if this person has a companion piece - purely coincidentally JUST out of the frame of this photograph, but equally prominently displayed in the room - of a man in similar attire, the cultural and historical context would render the message and impact substantially different.

I finally got to access the article and it’s very clear that anyone writing Ross off as a “twat” hasn’t read it. The only thing I find to argue with is his politics. He’s a great philanthropist who has given away tens of thousands of his money. He’s also built up a significant collection of modern art of which the table is just one example - there are others scattered throughout the article. He’s definitely naive because The Times subs have clearly set him up.

You are missing the point on a colossal scale, which is not 'this is a lovely piece of art and a good thing because it gets debate going'. The point is that sometimes art depicts unpleasant things, and art doesn't have to be nice or make points you agree with. Depicting something doesn't automatically mean the artist is condoning it. Sometimes it's quite the opposite, and they want you to look at it and be appalled and disgusted or ask yourself certain questions.

I think someone who buys that particular piece of art to display in their home, and chooses to be gleefully photographed next to it, is complete arsehole. An old rich bloke crowing over owning that work is grim as fuck. Contextually, it's repellent. But the context is the key thing here. That artwork would have a very different context if it were displayed in the Tate Modern as part of an exhibition on portrayals of attitudes to women, for example. It's the fact that the artwork is being owned, displayed and boasted about in the manner shown in that photograph that's the grim thing.

'Pick me girl' is an extremely misogynistic insult, by the way. Having a different opinion doesn't mean that someone is a) vapid (a word you'd never use about a man, btw) or b) trying to pander to men. If you don't think women are capable of forming a different view to yours on the incredibly complex and nuanced question of 'what is art' cannot possibly have any motive or agency other than wanting male approval, you don't have a very high opinion of women at all.

I agree with all of that apart from the “crowing” and “boasting” part. The table isn’t mentioned at all in the article, Ross has said not one word about it. If anything he “crows” and “boasts” about his collection which includes several Bridget Rileys and an £11 million Hockney. Hopefully he’ll donate the whole collection to the nation when he dies so more people can enjoy it.

Awful but his house his choice.

What about Sabrina carpenter's album cover?

YANBU that the "art" is hideous.

YABU to reference "sleazy male nonsense" instead of just "sleazy nonsense".

(Plenty of modern sleaze is female-driven, its not exclusive to men)

YABU because I don't get what is the alternative of "acceptable". Making that illegal? Going to David Ross's house and seize the table?

It's bad taste, but bad taste is, thankfully, still permitted. You don't have to like it.

I don’t like it, l dont like what it represents -but its art ffs.
Some people like art which provokes no emotion or discussion at all. Some don’t.
Isn’t some art designed to be divisive and provoke visceral reactions?
Should we destroy it like Isis destroyed art/historic buildings because it didn’t fit with their narrow radical Islamic views?
Who decides which art -from a different time-is acceptable or not?
It’s as if everyone has forgotten how boundaries were pushed to the limit in the 60s.
What shall we do next -burn books that objectify women/have BDSM in or anything that people don’t like?
It seems to have bypassed people that it’s doing its job- provoking discussion & emotion.

Already carrying so much weight that the addition of clothes would be the final straw?

I wonder what the reaction would be if he'd had another kind of 'artwork' depicting black slaves in chains being led by a white slave-master?

Not in a museum with the full horrific historical context clearly explained and condemned; but just some rich bloke thinking it was a cool, quirky style feature in his mansion?

Great post. That's about my feeling on it too.

This is the absolute epitome of being as rich as a pig in shit, with the class to match. Come to think of it, that’s doing a disservice to actual pigs, which are much classier.

I think a lot of posters are missing the point here. Yes, art can be controversial, yes people can buy and own whatever they like.
That isn't the issue here, it's that The Times have chosen to put him next to this piece in particular and publish it.
And to those saying he didn't know, I don't buy that at all, of course he knew this was the picture they were going with.

It's not the "art" itself that is the problem, it's that they have chosen this piece and this picture.

I disagree and think the use of this picture is badly misjudged and pretty grim tbh. It's not a 'public service" to publish it.

I don't subscribe to The Times but if I did I would cancel it over this.

I don't think it is acceptable these days though. I think most people seeing that would judge him as being a twat (rightly or wrongly, idk, I haven't read the article).

Kind of related: I was really surprised to see the Dr Squatch mens deodorant advert with Megan Fox dressed in leather. I wasn't "offended" exactly, but it seemed so regressive and grating to have a "sexy woman" advertising a product for men... Which I guess is a sign that things have moved on as it used to be totally standard 🤷🏼‍♀️

Trust me I’m tempted. And not for the first time.