The Brooke Shields photo debate: Is it pornography or just shite art?

It's the question that has got the art world buzzing and furiously musing over glasses of Viognier and nibbles. Does the photo of a naked ten-year old Brooke Shields constitue pornography or is it simply a piece of hack sensationalism that is frequently passed for art by braindead divs? The Chum Bucket asks for both sides of the debate with the columnist from The Daily You're Not From Around Here Are You? Carole Bismuth and artist and freelance crackwhore Dashiell Getarealjob taking up the challenge.

String the photo up says Carole Bismuth

First of all, I'll admit that it takes little to get me outraged. Every time I wake up and open the curtains, I am so appalled by what I see in the world that I spew invective at anyone I see. I then ask my maid, Zevitsa, to type up what I have screamed at her and formulate it into some sort of column.

However, when I heard someone gossiping about what they had read about the reports of this controversy, my hackles were raised to such a degree that Zevitsa could not understand what I was saying and I had to be sedated. This isn't art at all. Constable, that's art. A picture of a village green in the 18th century, now that is saying something. It says things are so nice, why ask questions?

Today's artists have lost all sense of what they are supposed to do. Are they here to challenge people's views? Are they here to comment on society and its peculiar attitudes to children and sexuality? No. They are here to produce nice pictures that can hang on my wall so that when people come to my house, they can say "Oh, you've got such nice taste" and I can say "Yes, yes I have."

The photo must remain says Dashiell Getarealjob

What is art? Is it a painting? Is it a photo of a man playing Swingball with a potato? Is it the recreation of the Battle of Ypres using only dancing question marks? Is it an installation piece where a monkey learns to play the clarinet whilst three hundred mice are shot for treason? No, this is all borgeouis make-believe and highly silly.

The very essence of art is to feel, to experience a furious range of emotions and to question how much people are willing to pay for the corpses of three hundred mice and a woodwind-playing primate called Fizzy.

That is why I believe the photo must remain in the gallery. Because what is art if it does not question? What is art if it does not arouse in people the urge to say "That is child pornography, pure and simple and has no place in a gallery"? This is exactly the type of inciendary sensation that I will attempt to stir up with my next installation piece, Man Loitering In A Clump Of Bushes Next To A Spanish Language School. I will be that man.