What is the purpose of art? To arouse thought, to generate discussion, to express the artist’s innermost thoughts? Maybe. Or it’s just an excuse to look at some naked people. Pornhub has created a highbrow-meets-lowbrow interactive website and app, Classic Nudes, which guides museumgoers to only the finest boobies of the art canon. Wangs, too. Some artworks are also re-created by live models who make explicit what many of the pieces only hint at.
Per Hyperallergic, the pornography company wanted to help the fine-arts community bounce back from the pandemic by “stimulating the public to visit, explore, and fall back in love (or lust) with these cultural institutions.†Not every cultural institution is feeling the love, however: Florence’s Uffizi Gallery is suing Pornhub over its dramatic re-creation of Titian’s painting Venus of Urbino. (The video of the reenactment is currently unavailable.) The Uffizi claims its images and other content were used without the museum’s permission. Kenneth Weine, chief communications officer of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, told Hyperallergic that the Met “will not be taking any action that directly or indirectly raises awareness of this project.â€