Museums are threatening to sue Pornhub for turning art into porn

Article
The Louvre in Paris and the Uffizi in Florence were not amused by Pornhub's choice to take classic nude paintings and present them in a new, more raunchy, light.

Called "Show me the nudes", the initiative consists of porn actors re-envisionning works of art to derive sexual interpretations, depicting them as classy porn from yester years. That way, the giant clam from which Botticelli's Venus emerges becomes a clear metaphor for what Courbet referred to as "the origin of the world": the vagina.

 

Art collectors from back then who collected nudes are also labelled as porn enthusiasts, Lorenzo Di Medici is described as owning so many painted nudes that he could be considered "the first ever Pornhub premium member", according to the show's presenter Asa Akira.

 

Some of it makes a lot of sense, nude and erotic art have definitely generated fantasy when they were the only means of representation of the female form and were certainly viewed as shameful smut by so-called moral authorities.

 

The porn website stated that it created the show to get people involved in art and back into museums, but no doubt they were also banking on a good publicity from the media buzz they created.

 

However the two giants that are the Louvre and the Uffizi, did not take kindly to Pornhub using images of paintings from their collection without their permission. The adult website has received cease and desist letters from both museums, threatening legal action if they did not take their content down.

 

The real question is whether they would have threatened to sue a website that didn't specialise in pornography? As far as art itself in concerned, a bit of spice always helped stir the pot and kept it relevant, so, why not?

 

 

image: Hermaphrodite endormi - Musée du Louvre