POST-HIERARCHICAL ANALYSIS · 007

When the Boundary of Art Becomes a Shared Decision

A post-hierarchical analysis of Austėja Zovytė’s article “The Representation of the Nude Body from Ancient Sculpture to Contemporary Theatre: Where Is the Boundary Between Art and Eroticism?”

Terms marked with ? are explained without leaving the article.

Austėja Zovytė’s article begins with a concrete and very contemporary cultural conflict. In early August 2026 in Kaunas, the international performing arts festival “ConTempo” opened with the French company Gratte Ciel’s living installation “RoZéO”. In the public sphere, the greatest attention was drawn not to the acrobats’ slow movement on tall poles or to the relationship between human beings and nature created by the performance, but to the fact that some performers appeared topless. Because the event was also presented as suitable for families, the dispute quickly moved from aesthetics to ethics: was such nudity part of artistic expression, eroticism, provocation, or content inappropriate for children?

Zovytė does not stop with the immediate conflict. Drawing on comments by art historian Ramutė Rachlevičiūtė and cultural scholar Tomas Riklius, she expands the question historically: from the idealised body of antiquity, Renaissance mythological nudity and the censorship of the Sistine Chapel to twentieth-century boundary-breaking and contemporary theatre. The article shows that the nude body never exists as a neutral form. Its meaning is shaped by the period, social norms, space, the gaze, gender, age, artistic function and audience expectations.

Analysed text: Austėja Zovytė, “Nuogo kūno vaizdavimas nuo antikinės skulptūros iki šiuolaikinio teatro: kur yra riba tarp meno ir erotikos?” [“The Representation of the Nude Body from Ancient Sculpture to Contemporary Theatre: Where Is the Boundary Between Art and Eroticism?”], Bernardinai.lt, 6 August 2026.
Source: Bernardinai.lt, 2026-08-06
Context: official “RoZéO” presentation by the ConTempo festival · LRT report on the controversy after the performance

Context: the dispute was not about the body in general

It is important to identify the object of the conflict precisely. The discussion did not arise from the abstract question of whether a nude body may be represented in art. In Western art history, practice answered that question long ago: nudity is one of the recurring forms of artistic expression. The conflict was produced by a specific situation — a live body, a public space, an element of the performance not known to everyone in advance, and the event’s designation as family-friendly.

This changes the structure of the problem. An ancient sculpture displayed in a museum, an evening performance accessible by ticket, a labelled video on an online platform, and a free performance in an urban space are not the same communicative situation. The same image creates different relations between creator and viewer in different contexts: in one, a person consciously chooses to enter; in another, the artwork enters a shared space whose audience is heterogeneous and cannot always choose the conditions of encounter in advance.

The “RoZéO” discussion therefore brought together at least four distinct questions: the artistic function of nudity, the intensity of eroticisation, the presence of minors, and the organisers’ communication about the character of the performance. On social media these were rapidly fused into a single moral question — “is it decent?”. The value of Zovytė’s article lies in the way it begins to dismantle this simplified opposition.

The festival’s own description adds further context: “RoZéO” is presented as a living installation intended for slow observation, a sensory relation to nature, and connection with the surrounding environment. In public debate, a fragment of the performance was detached from this overall conception and began to circulate as an autonomous image. The artwork thus entered another medium and another regime of evaluation: social-media algorithms reward reaction rather than context. It is precisely here that a cultural question also becomes a question of decidement architecture.

What Zovytė’s text does well

The first strength of the article is that historical relativity is not reduced to simple relativism. Tomas Riklius reminds us that in ancient Greece the nude male body could signify heroism and civic and physical perfection, while female nudity was much more constrained. During the Renaissance, nudity returned through mythological or allegorical distance, yet even Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment” faced demands that bodies be covered. This shows not that “everything is always permitted,” but that cultural boundaries are not constants of nature. They are socially created and recreated.

The second strength is that nudity is distinguished from eroticism. Rachlevičiūtė and Riklius, in different terms, return to context and function. A nude body can be anatomical, symbolic, sacred, heroic, a sign of vulnerability, political, comic, erotic, or deliberately anti-erotic. The visibility of a body part alone does not tell us what meaning the work produces. This distinction is especially important in a society where sexualisation is often confused with embodiment as such.

The third strength is the question of artistic necessity. Riklius mentions intimacy coordinators, now used in contemporary film production, who help ask whether a particular intimate scene is genuinely necessary to the meaning of the work and whether its production respects the performers. This is an important shift: not “is nudity permitted in general?” but “what is it doing here?”. Such a question neither begins with prohibition nor ends with permission; it requires the artistic function to be argued.

The fourth strength is that the article shows the historicity of bodily norms. A young, symmetrical and strong body has in many periods been considered more suitable for idealisation, while an old body or one that does not conform to prevailing norms has often been pushed out of visibility. This broadens the discussion: the problem is not only how much of the body is shown, but also which bodies culture considers worthy of being shown. The example of Mykolas Sauka’s sculptures makes it possible to see that an “uncomfortable” body can provoke not because of sexuality, but because it disrupts a familiar hierarchy of beauty.

The fifth strength is that the text does not provide a single final moral judge. Rachlevičiūtė considers the public outrage exaggerated and hypocritical, while Riklius places more emphasis on context, sexualisation and artistic function. Their positions are not identical, leaving the reader room to perceive the dispute as multidimensional.

The problem: there is no single boundary between art and eroticism

Yet the question formulated in the title — “where is the boundary between art and eroticism?” — still inherits a hierarchical schema of thought. It implies that somewhere there is a correct line that a competent authority could recognise and draw. If only we could find an art historian, moral philosopher, curator or judge educated enough, uncertainty would supposedly disappear.

But “art” and “eroticism” are not two mutually exclusive categories. A work can be both art and erotic. It can be aesthetically weak yet ethically unproblematic. It can be artistically significant yet poorly presented to a particular audience. It may be non-erotic in the artist’s intention but sexualised by the viewer’s gaze or by a medium that extracts a fragment from its context. Finally, it can be provocative and artistically strong at the same time.

For that reason, one axis — “art ↔ eroticism” — is not enough. At least several independent dimensions are required:

• artistic function — does nudity create a meaning the work would otherwise lose;
• mode of sexualisation — is the body presented as an object of desire or in another semantic register;
• intensity of expression — from partial nudity to an explicitly sexual act;
• character of the space — gallery, theatre, enclosed stage, public square, online platform;
• audience expectation — could a person reasonably anticipate what they would see;
• possibility of choice — can a person consciously choose to participate or not participate;
• age and vulnerability — to what audience is the content shown, and what explanation does that audience require;
• performer autonomy — is nudity created with informed consent and without pressure arising from power relations;
• proportionality of restriction — is the proposed protection no greater than the reasonably substantiated risk.

When these dimensions are compressed into a single moral label, the dispute cannot be resolved. One group starts defending “art,” the other “children” or “decency,” although in reality they may be talking about entirely different things.

Artistic freedom and the conditions of shared space are not the same question

A post-hierarchical analysis first proposes separating two kinds of decision.

The first concerns the artistic legitimacy of the work. No institution, expert council or majority should acquire the final right to decide that a work using nudity “is no longer art”. Artistic value may be assessed by critics, audiences, researchers and time, but such judgments should not become a prior system of permission to create. Here, post-hierarchy protects the creator’s autonomy from a permanent social apex.

The second concerns the conditions governing the use of shared space. A public festival, a publicly funded cultural institution, a city square or an event labelled for families is not merely the creator’s private studio. Several legitimate interests meet here: the artist’s freedom of expression, the performer’s bodily autonomy, the viewer’s choice, parental responsibility, a child’s right not to be treated merely as a passive object, the organiser’s duty to communicate clearly, and society’s interest in having a living rather than sterilised culture.

A hierarchical system usually chooses one of two peaks. Either the curator and institution receive the final word — “we know what art is”. Or the moral majority receives it — “if part of society dislikes it, it should be banned”. Structurally, both logics are similar: they seek a single centre that will terminate the dispute on behalf of everyone else.

Post-hierarchy seeks not the highest judge, but a better decidement procedure.

Not “what do we allow the artist?” but “how do we preserve choice for all parties?”

The “RoZéO” case shows well that many procedural solutions lie between complete prohibition and complete indifference. A work can, for example, be shown unchanged while the event description clearly states that it includes partial nudity. A misleadingly broad “family” label can be replaced with a more precise age recommendation. In public space, the viewing arrangement can be designed so that a person may choose to approach rather than be unexpectedly drawn in. In some cases, time or space can be differentiated. In others, it may be important to change nothing at all if a restriction would be based solely on stereotypical body-shaming rather than substantiated harm.

A content notice in such a system is not censorship. It is an informational interface between the work and a heterogeneous audience. Its purpose is not to say that the work is bad, but to increase a person’s ability to choose consciously how to relate to it.

At the same time, audience discomfort is not by itself evidence that a work is harmful. If every strong emotional reaction automatically granted a veto, culture would be governed by the most sensitive or the most loudly mobilised group. In post-hierarchy, dissatisfaction is a signal to be examined, not the final decision.

Likewise, the artist’s intention — “this is not erotic” — is not an automatic trump card. A work enters into relation with other people, so its social situation cannot be described solely by the author’s intention. Artistic autonomy protects the right to create, but it does not remove the obligation to justify the conditions under which the work enters shared space.

A post-hierarchical model: expertise without final rule by experts

Conflicts of this kind require competence. But in post-hierarchy, competence and power are not the same thing.

Experts are necessary because a complex question cannot be resolved by spontaneous “like / dislike” votes alone. An art historian can explain the iconography and artistic function of nudity. A director or choreographer can explain the logic of the stage form. A child-development specialist can distinguish what we actually know about the responses of children of different ages from what we merely fear. An ethicist can clarify criteria of autonomy, informed choice and harm. An intimacy coordinator can address performer consent and power relations in the creative process. An expert in public space or event organisation can identify practical solutions that preserve choice without dismantling the work.

But none of them should individually gain the right to say either “society must accept this” or “this must not be shown to society”. The task of experts is not to rule others, but to improve the space of possible decisions.

This is the essential post-hierarchical distinction. Competence is not abolished; it is separated from a permanent right to make the final decision.

Two-stage decidement

In practice, situations of this kind could be addressed in two stages.

1. Experts refine alternatives

In the first stage, competent participants representing different perspectives would analyse the problem in one Collective Intelligence platform, propose solutions and evaluate one another’s proposals. Evaluation should be protected from prestige as far as possible: the argument should be visible before the author’s name, institution or social status.

Their goal would not be to produce one “correct” conclusion, but a small number of justified, genuinely implementable alternatives. For example:

1. show the work in its original form without additional restrictions because its nudity is not sexualised and there is no basis for considering it harmful;
2. show the work in its original form, but clearly disclose partial nudity in advance and abandon an overly broad “family” label;
3. leave the work unchanged but provide an age recommendation, an alternative viewing distance, or another measure that increases choice;
4. in exceptional cases, apply stronger access restrictions when there is a clear, argued and proportionate basis rather than moral panic alone.

It is important that alternatives be evaluated against several separate criteria: preservation of artistic form, viewer information, children’s interests, performer autonomy, proportionality of restriction, practical feasibility, and possible side effects on cultural freedom.

2. Affected people choose

In the second stage, the alternatives refined by experts would be chosen among by those directly affected by the decision: creators and performers, festival organisers, representatives of actual audiences, parents or guardians, the community of the place or space, and, when relevant, young people included in an age-appropriate way.

A crucial boundary applies here: affected people do not vote on whether the work is art. They decide under what conditions a particular work is presented in shared space. Artistic freedom is therefore not made the object of a plebiscite, while the rules of shared space do not remain the exclusive privilege of a curator or administration either.

This two-stage decidement protects against two opposite errors. It prevents an unprepared majority from spontaneously deciding a complex artistic and ethical question, while also preventing experts from turning into a new caste that converts competence into a right to decide for others.

Collective Intelligence instead of a social-media referendum

It is important to distinguish Collective Intelligence from what happened on social media after “RoZéO”. A multitude of comments is not Collective Intelligence. A stream of reactions reveals emotion and polarisation, but it does not create a procedure in which arguments can encounter one another, proposals can be compared, and a shared outcome can form.

The architecture of social media privileges signals that rapidly mobilise attention. As a result, an entire work can easily be reduced to a single frame, and a complex question to two camps. One side becomes “backward puritans,” the other “artists sexualising children”. Such polarisation is less a result of people’s moral corruption than of poor discussion architecture.

In a Collective Intelligence system, the process would be the opposite. Participants would have not only to state a position but also to encounter other proposals, evaluate them, refine their own judgments, and see where genuine unity exists and where there is polarisation. It would be especially valuable to record not only average support but also the dispersion of evaluations: in some cultural questions, wide dispersion is not a system failure — it is important information about a genuinely existing normative conflict.

In this way, conflict would become not material for scandal but data for cultural self-learning.

Rules must be dynamic, not eternal

The history of art presented by Zovytė itself shows why a once-and-for-all “standard of decency” does not suit a post-hierarchical culture. The meanings of nudity have changed from antiquity to the Renaissance, from the academic nude to performance art. As media change, so does the mode of encounter with the work itself. What is a stable object in a museum becomes an extracted fragment on social media, and in a public performance it becomes an inseparable interaction among body, place and accidental viewer.

Cultural institutions therefore need not an eternal catalogue of prohibitions but a learning mechanism. After an event, they could anonymously collect not only a satisfaction score but structured feedback: did people feel adequately informed, was the age label clear, did the notice help them choose, did it unnecessarily sexualise the work in advance, would restrictions have damaged the artistic form, and what would organisers and viewers themselves do differently?

These data should be fed back into future decidement processes. Rules would then be neither one-off administrative decrees nor mechanical copies of earlier precedents. They would evolve together with cultural experience.

Post-hierarchical conclusion: not to draw a final boundary, but to build a good architecture for deciding it

Austėja Zovytė’s article is valuable because it moves from a single social-media scandal into the long cultural history of the nude body. It shows that nudity is in itself neither eroticism nor art; its meaning is produced by context, mode of representation and historical norm. More importantly, the article brings the question of the gaze into focus: what the body means, who sexualises it, what the artist seeks, and how the audience encounters it.

The post-hierarchical perspective proposes one further step. Instead of asking “where is the boundary?”, we should ask: what decision do we actually need to make, who has the knowledge needed to formulate alternatives, and who will be affected by the decision?

It then becomes clear that we do not need a single cultural arbiter to define the border between art and eroticism for all time. We need a procedure capable of protecting, simultaneously, the creator’s freedom, the performer’s autonomy, the viewer’s informed choice, children’s interests, and the openness of shared space to difficult art.

Post-hierarchy does not abolish boundaries. It abolishes the monopoly on setting them.

The value of art should not be decided by the majority, while the conditions of shared space should not be determined unilaterally by a cultural authority. Experts should help create justified alternatives, and the people affected by the decision should choose among them.

flowchart LR
    A["Nudity in the work"] --> B["Hierarchical question: who decides whether it is art?"]
    B --> C["Authority, majority or scandal"]
    C --> D["One verdict for everyone"]
    A --> E["Post-hierarchical question: what concrete decision must be made?"]
    E --> F["Separate artistic function, space, audience, choice and risk"]
    F --> G["Experts refine justified alternatives"]
    G --> H["Affected people choose the conditions of presentation"]
    H --> I["Feedback and rule revision"]
    classDef system fill:#f4f1ea,stroke:#6f6d66,color:#191916
    classDef transition fill:#e9e5dc,stroke:#6f6d66,color:#191916
    classDef shared fill:#f4f1ea,stroke:#a93b2b,color:#191916,stroke-width:2px
    class A,B,C,D system
    class E,F,G transition
    class H,I shared