Nude women. Clowns welcome.

How much is that doggy in the window -- the one with the big giant tits? Looking as if she's about to be mounted by a plaster Ron Jeremy? Well, check out the link if you want to find out more, but here are a few excerpts from the gushing blurbs for this Pro Life Statue Of A Nude And Pregnant Britney Spears Down And Dirty Doggy Style --

A nude Britney Spears on a bearskin rug while giving birth to her firstborn marks a ‘first’ for Pro-Life. Pop-star Britney Spears is the “ideal” model for Pro-Life and the subject of a dedication at Capla Kesting Fine Art in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg gallery district, in what is proclaimed the first Pro-Life monument to birth, in April.

Dedication of the life-sized statue celebrates the recent birth of Spears’ baby boy, Sean, and applauds her decision of placing family before career. “A superstar at Britney’s young age having a child is rare in today’s celebrity culture. This dedication honors Britney for the rarity of her choice and bravery of her decision,” said gallery co-director, Lincoln Capla. The dedication includes materials provided by Manhattan Right To Life Committee.

“Monument to Pro-Life: The Birth of Sean Preston,” believed Pro-Life’s first monument to the ‘act of giving birth,’ is purportedly an idealized depiction of Britney in delivery. Natural aspects of Spears’ pregnancy, like lactiferous breasts and protruding naval, compliment a posterior view that depicts widened hips for birthing and reveals the crowning of baby Sean’s head.

The monument also acknowledges the pop-diva’s pin-up past by showing Spears seductively posed on all fours atop a bearskin rug with back arched, pelvis thrust upward, as she clutches the bear’s ears with ‘water-retentive’ hands.

“Britney provides inspiration for those struggling with the ‘right choice’,” said artist Daniel Edwards, recipient of a 2005 Bartlebooth award from London’s The Art Newspaper. “She was number one with Google last year, with good reason --- people are inspired by the beauty of a pregnant woman,” said Edwards.

“Monument to Pro-Life” is on view April 7th thru 23rd with a reception for the dedication April 7th from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm at Capla Kesting Fine Art, 121 Roebling St., Brooklyn, NY. Gallery hours are 1:00 – 6:00 pm Thursday thru Sunday, or by appointment. The gallery can be reached at www.caplakesting.com or by phone at 646-932-5687

See, we all know that the difference between 'porn' and 'art' is entirely subjective, and I myself have long known that 'smut', like 'family values', 'decency', 'sedition', and 'All American', means pretty much whatever you're pointing towards at the time you say it. Rarely, however, do I see this concept of subjectivity embodied more clearly than this. What is it that makes this art instead of porn? Is it that it's a sculpture, rather than a photo or a drawing? What if it was an oil painting? A watercolor? Would it make a difference if we knew the sculptor did the entire project one handed, from concept sketches through finished statue? Can it be that all that matters is the media -- that the form of the image is all it takes to place or remove an in from the front of decency?

I suspect this is just a case of spin -- the gallery in question knows that a nude statue of Britney Spears is going to be a pretty good draw, but they don't want people to think they're running a hooch show, even a ceramic one, and they certainly don't want folks to regard them as the plaster equivalent of a Niagara Falls wax museum -- an a pretty strongly R rated one, at that. (Say, there's an idea -- an adult wax museum with X rated dioramas. I wonder what kind of zoning you need for that...)

Still, I don't know. A nude Britney Spears down on all fours on a bearskin rug... smells like porn to me. Not that there's anything wrong with that...