Does the Royal Family like Poornography (sic)
Posted by guest author
4 December 2008
Jasper Joffe, Does the Royal Family like Poornography (sic)
Sartorial Contemporary Art, London
18 November to 13 October
www.sartorialart.com
by Francis Scholl
This is an attempt at not-shock art. Juxtaposing large images of The Royal Family with pictures of hard core pornography, seems at first glance to be designed to appall the “Daily Mail” brigade. Yet looking more closely at the show, including a press release quote of Andrea Dworkin, the late great radical anti-porn feminist, you realise that perhaps Joffe is hinting at his own discomfort with pornography, or at least trying to cast these now banal if still unpleasant images in a new light. Oddly you begin to sympathize with the Queen and her family, as though through being constantly photographed, like the porn models, they have lost their humanity. A stange reversal (of Joffe’s intentions?) which leaves you thinking more of the loneliness of Royalty rather than the exploitation of women who have become mere metaphors/vessels yet again.
Francis Scholl is an art lover and dog walker.