Vienna museums to post to OnlyFans after social media continued to ban ‘explicit’ art

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In late 2017, a woman posted a photo on Facebook of “Venus of Willendorf,” an approximately 30,000-year-old statue that is a famous depiction of women and fertility.

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Facebook ruled that the image was pornographic and removed it.

The statue’s house, the Vienna Museum of Natural History, was unhappy with what it called censorship. “An archaeological object, especially one so iconic, should not be banned on Facebook for ‘nudity’, as no work of art should be,” the museum said in a statement.

Facebook apologized, but other cases of social media platforms banning the artworks followed over the years. So the Vienna tourism board is trying a different approach: showcasing museum art on OnlyFans, a subscription-based website that is more closely associated with sex work. For $ 4.99 a month, subscribers to the tourism board page can view “explicit” works from four of the Austrian capital’s famous museums.

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In announcing the “Vienna uncovered” campaign, the tourism board said museums and their works of art “are among the victims of this new wave of prudery, with nude statues and famous works of art blacklisted according to social media guidelines. ” Those museums give people the opportunity to see works by artists like Egon Schiele and Koloman Moser, who “pushed the boundaries of what was considered acceptable in art at the time,” the tourism board said.

“So it is not surprising to learn that some of his artwork fell out of favor with censors more than 100 years ago,” added the tourism board. “And the battle against censorship still continues: With the rise of social media, bans like these are making headlines once again. Major social media channels like Instagram and Facebook target nudity and ‘lewd’ content.

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“That’s why we decided to put the capital’s world-famous ‘explicit’ artwork on OnlyFans.”

The campaign comes after some of Vienna’s museums, including the Leopold Museum and the Albertina, have had trouble posting artwork containing nudity on social media. In July, Albertina’s TikTok account was suspended and later blocked for posting images by Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki. The suspension forced the museum to create a new account.

In 2019, Instagram determined that a painting by Peter Paul Rubens violated the platform’s rules that prohibit any nudity, even if it is “artistic or creative in nature.” And this year, the Leopold Museum sought to celebrate its 20th anniversary with the production of a short video featuring Koloman Moser’s 1913 painting “Liebespaar,” showing a nude couple. Facebook and Instagram rejected it as “potentially pornographic.”

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Helena Hartlauer, a spokeswoman for the Vienna Tourist Board, told NBC News that social media was a critical tool for museums seeking to display their artwork while obeying social distancing guidelines during the pandemic. He said he is concerned that social media policies are leading artists to self-censor their creativity so they can display, promote and sell their artwork online without being banned.

“Right now, an algorithm determines what can and can’t be seen,” Hartlauer said. “And it definitely shouldn’t determine our cultural heritage.”

OnlyFans has made their own news recently on censorship. In August, the company announced that it was banning “sexually explicit” content, which it said was the result of requests from the banking industry. But after the pushback of a significant number of users, OnlyFans quickly screwed up the plans.

Hartlauer said the tourism board will keep the OnlyFans account beyond the “Vienna exposed” campaign, though he told The Guardian he did not know how the page would be updated.

“This marketing initiative of ours is not the definitive solution for this troubled relationship between the art world and social media, but. . . we want to defend our values ​​and our beliefs, ”he said. “Vienna has always been famous for being open-minded.”