The Vienna Tourist Board is turning to OnlyFans to showcase the explicit works of art on display in the city's museums after receiving content strikes from Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok for sharing artwork displaying nudity.
"The Viennese are very open-minded," Helena Hartlauer, head of media relations at the Vienna Tourist Board, said of the unusual move.
OnlyFans, which was founded in 2016, is a membership service that connects creators with fans and has earned a name for itself as one of the few platforms that allows nude and explicit content.
The city's tourism board freely shares images of artwork by Richard Gerst, Egon Schiele, Amedeo Modigliani, and Koloman Moser on its OnlyFans account, despite the fact that traditional social networking networks had branded such works as inappropriate and "pornographic."
The city has been home to artists "whose works pushed the boundaries of what was considered acceptable in art and society at the time," according to a statement on the tourism board's website.
Prominent Viennese musuem Albertina's TikTok account was suspended and then blocked in July for showcasing the work of Nobuyoshi Araki, whose photography frequently depict sexually explicit images of nude women.
Then, in September, when the Leopold Museum celebrated its 20th anniversary by uploading a work by Art Nouveau illustrator Moser, Facebook's algorithms tagged the campaign as "potentially pornographic."
To avoid any repercussions, the museum replaced the image with a less offensive one.
Hartlauer argued that by transferring these offerings to OnlyFans, Vienna's museums were doing more than simply a publicity stunt; they were also hoping to "start a conversation" about the role of social media and the challenges that come with it.
According to Hartlauer, while some might argue that these museums could use other pieces to promote themselves, the matter is not quite so simple, given that it is growing harder and harder to tell what will be labeled "explicit."
Despite this, the marketing campaign has hit a snag: major social media networks have refused to link to the account, therefore the campaign is being teased rather than being openly linked to outside of the official website.
The explicit pieces, however, are available to subscribers of Vienna's adult-only content to view at their leisure on the museum's OnlyFans profile, with early members also receiving a Vienna City Card or entrance ticket to see the artworks in the flesh when travel allows.
