Prostituierte in der Kunst - eine Kontroverse

[Hanna]

Hallo zusammen,

Marc hat ein Kritisches Statement zu einer Ausstellung in Australien verfasst. Vgl. hier im Forum:

viewtopic.php?t=501&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=20

(Seite 2 ganz unten)

Carl Hopgood, ein englischer Künstler "benutze" hier männliche Prostituierte ohne rückzufragen als Collage.

Das hat uns beide nicht befriedigt und daraus ist dann folgender (offener) Brief an den Künstler entstanden.

wir sind gespannt auf die Antwort...

[Hanna]

Hanna H.
Leipzig
Germany


to:
Carl Hopgood
Australia
http://www.myspace.com/carlhopgood


Frankfurt/Leipzig/Vienna  February, 29th 2008



Dear Mr. Hopgood,

Sorry for our not so perfect English, but we couldn't afford a translator.
We, that is a network of sex workers in the German internet, linked with other sex worker support NGOs especially in Austria and Germany. We are fighting for the rights of male, female and transsexual prostitutes and have established an on-line community and knowledge base about sex work: www.sexworker.at.

I learned about your work depicting male prostitutes' ads by the posting from Marc of Frankfurt, Callboy Connection FFM - est. 1991.
viewtopic.php?p=32677#32677

Not having finished my studies in art I'm not entitled to professionally judge your work, especially because the reproductions I' ve seen on the web are not perfect. But what we can say all together now is the following:

Our job is of use and value for our clients and society in general. And if our clients use us that's okay, if we are paid accordingly and if we can keep our human integrity and self determination. However, we are not amused by being used ourselfes or our created visible traits being used or abused by others even artists. Sorry about this harsh reaction, but we are just normal sensitive human beings with complex feelings especially if you think about individuality, freedom, love and partnership.

In former days - as I remember - artists were friends to the poor. And most sex workers are poor, because they wouldn't do the job otherwise. In those former days the art scene was a little bit smaller and the public got more moral impulses out of it as it seems to me nowadays.

Furthermore the message of your work seems to be quite neglecting social responsibility. In our opinion possibly very many people only will find you work erotic or decorative even if you didn't intend this.

We can not find a deeper human emancipatory approach in your work, satisfying the use and misuse of personal fingerprints of often stigmatized sex workers. The ads with body pictures and phone numbers are unseperatly linked with our business role, personal identity, and individual personality. We feel publicly stigmatised once again and unasked used to create a sensation and even marketable product by your piece of art, as we were so often on TV, in print, and in the public opinion, and moral stereotypes. It is just a blunt repetition.

To come to the point, you (ab)used us, and we ask for indemnification. How can you do this?
There are several possibilities: make a contribution to one of the sex workers NGOs in your community, here or elsewhere. Please inform us about that

If you've done so already please forget about this claim and send a small information to our forum www.sexworker.at - admin@sexworker.at or just post your explanatory statement with better visual reproductions at our forum or on you web page, which we can link.

We would very much appreciate, if we could discuss with you about your work. We've already discussed similar cases in our community several times with interesting results even for the responsible artists.

Many greetings,

Hanna H., transsexual sex worker
Marc of Frankfurt, facilitator Callboy Connection, sexworker.at
 
also in the name of
Christian K., admin sexworker.at, Vienna