Ilona Staller.wps

Mrs Koons: The Real Artist? John A. Walker gets to the bottom of things (Copyright 1992)

Ilona Staller on the cover of Playmen, No 4, April 1983. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------'Ilona [Staller] is one of the greatest artists in the world. Other artists use a paintbrush. Ilona uses her genitalia.’ (Jeff Koons, husband, at least until the divorce is finalised).

Just hype or could Koons possibly be right? Not having seen Mrs Koons - Ilona Staller [b. 1952, Budapest] - in action, I could not tell. Research method: visit local newsagent to obtain soft-core porn magazine; scan the adverts; write to box number in Amsterdam; send £30; receive plain brown paper package by return with

videotape of the colour film Banane al Cicoccolato (n.d.) directed by Riccardo Schicchi, starring Ilona and several other men and women. Apparently, such holeinthe-corner procedures are not necessary in Italy where so-called 'new pornography' home videos aimed at heterosexual couples are widely and easily available. As Britain and the rest of Europe become more integrated, whose social customs, one wonders, will prevail? What the film reveals is that Ilona used not only her genitals but also her breasts, mouth and rectum, her voice and personality. La Cicciolina (nicely plump) was a porn actress - sorry, performance artist - who put her whole body and soul into her work. As with Gilbert & George, the distinction between art and daily life was blurred when, in 1987, Ilona extended her performance to the Italian Parliament (as a Radical Party Deputy). The more recent union with Koons resulted in a fusion of fine art and 'pornography'. (When art appropriates pornography, is it not appropriate to treat pornography as art?) Ilona has, in fact, a slim, well-proportioned body. Her pink gash of a mouth generally sports a smile as wide as Richard Branson's. With her pale flesh and blonde wig she resembles a Nordic, Aryan maiden such as one sees in the nude paintings favoured by Hitler. However, unlike the Nazis, Ilona has no racial prejudices: she is happy to have sex with a black man and a black woman. While the film is hardly a masterpiece of the cinema, it is not without sophistication: the camerawork is fluent in terms of its tilts and pans. It calls attention to its status as a reflection of reality by opening with a shot of a ceiling mirror: scantily dressed Ilona lies on a bed surrounded by fruit suitable for self-

abuse; we then discover she is being filmed by a man called Christopher. By showing a cameraman, the film foregrounds the process of production and the voyeuristic relation of the viewer. Later on, Christopher becomes aroused; he abandons his role as objective recorder and joins in the action. The film-within-the-film and the viewer-image relation are reinforced by the fact that as Ilona penetrates herself with phalluses and bananas she observes herself on TV being licked and given a body wash by two females. At times there is a voice over commentary (in Italian); at other times, passages of music. Ilona has a high-pitched, giggly voice and is fond of the breathy sigh associated with Marilyn Monroe. The tone of the commentary is designed to give the impression that sexual intercourse is an enjoyable, light-hearted form of recreation. Another scene takes place in simulated nature. An elaborate set has been constructed: a forest scene with a carpet of leaves; on the painted backdrop is a rainbow. Ilona and her black stud slurp and copulate while electric fans disturb the leaves and hoses sprinkle them with 'rain'. Later on, the film crew goes on location to the real countryside to shoot a mini-narrative in sun-drenched corn fields. Narrative is not the film's strong point. There is a series of loosely-connected scenes, some with perfunctory plots. Clearly, the director's aim was to pack as many sexual encounters as possible into the time available. Ilona is a skilled individual performer and she also appears to orchestrate the antics of the rest of the cast. To cater for all sexual tastes, the various actors and actresses demonstrate a wide range: fellatio, cunnilingus, vaginal and anal intercourse, lesbian and group sex, mild flagellation, even urination and defecation.

Strangers to this kind of pornography may well be astonished by the brazen frankness of the film. Nothing is hidden - no modesty, tenderness, shyness or shame are evident. The participants seem blissfully unaware of the industrial injuries they might acquire through their exchanges of bodily fluids (AIDS, for instance). Explicit depictions of sex are not, however, necessarily erotic. Mills and Boon novels are probably more erotic. There is no romance, no teasing or seduction of the viewer. Some observers will be reminded of video exercise tapes in which athletes pump iron. As in other industries, a lot of hard graft seems to be involved in the sex industry. Pornography is a controversial phenomenon. It generates strong feelings and divided responses, even amongst feminists. (There are those who seek to ban it and others who are against censorship.) In terms of money and celebrity, Ilona Staller has profited immensely from pornography. She is not a victim in the same sense as the exploited children and women compelled by poverty to work as prostitutes and models in Third World sex tourist industries. (Ilona claims never to have worked as a whore.) Her political use of sex is also sustained by a 1960s-style, radical liberationist ideology ('All you need is love', or rather, 'All you need is an orgasm'). Whatever reservations one has about pornography, Ilona's daring evokes admiration. One has only to imagine La Cicciolina as a British MP sitting in the House of Commons to reveal the repressed and hypocritical attitudes towards sex typical of this country. Her presence would surely improve the bad tempered atmosphere of the House and alter the reaction of the press and public to the extramarital affairs of politicians like Cecil Parkinson and Paddy Ashdown. Their sexual

indiscretions would seem such small beer in the face of Ilona's open championship of nakedness and animal-like rutting. The editors and reporters of the British popular press would be beside themselves: all the nudity, scandal, sex and moralising they desire would be theirs for the asking. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------This article first appeared in the art magazine Art Monthly (155) April 1992, pp. 3-5. John A. Walker is a painter and art historian. He is the author of Art and Celebrity, (London & Sterling VA: Pluto Press, 2003).

NB for a biography of Staller see: Per Amore e per Forza: L’Autobiografia di Cicciolina (Milan: Mondadori, 2007).

Biographical entry Wikipedia. See also her official website: http://www.cicciolinaonline.com/