While I dispute Styleite’s headline ‘Today in Racist ‘Art’: Miroslava Duma’s Site Places White Socialite on Black Woman Bondage Chair’, the use of Norwegian artist Bjarne Melgaard’s provocative chair inspired by British pop-artist Allen Jones is offensive to me, too. Street style maven Miroslave Duma published the image of Garage editor-in-chief Dasha Zhukova sitting on her BDSM throne. I do agree that uploading the photo on Martin Luther King Jr’s day of honor in America is utterly tactless.

My own intense dislike of Allen Jones’ art is grounded in its being an aggressive, misogynist, artistic statement against women. There is simply no other way to interpret the intention of his art and the mindset of people who buy his work. I could care less if the Tate has given Jones a show, and the protests by those who own this art fall on my deaf ears.

Misogyny against women is rampant among artists and curators in the art world. Goodness knows, there’s plenty of misogyny in the fashion industry. As enormously talented as designer Alexander McQueen was, I always sensed a psychological ambivalence with regard to his views of women.

When I saw this image of the designer with his own Allen Jones ‘art’ table, I said ‘bingo’.

Doing a quick survey of Bjarne Melgaard’s sculptures, I sense his art is more social commentary touching many subjects, unlike that of Allen Jones, who has a fixation on women in degrading forniphilia poses or less offensive to me as body parts. Allen’s painting ‘Soft Tread’ — with which I have no issue — sold in 2010 for $539,000 on an estimate of $90-120,000.

I’ve written before about forniphilia, an extreme form of BDSM that uses real women and an occasional man as furniture. Two key articles in forniphilia are below the McQueen image ~ Anne