Sunday, February 25, 2007

Number Forty-Three

Seduced: Art And Sex From Antiquity To Now at the Barbican in London from 12-October-2007 to 27-January-2008.

Above: Aubrey Beardsley’s ”Cinesias Entreating Myrrhina to Coition”, Illustration from Lysistrata by Aristophanes 1896

“Seduced: Art and Sex from Antiquity to Now” is a major exhibition focusing on representations of sex from diverse eras and cultures. Provocative and ambitious, it includes around 250 works, spanning over 2000 years, including Roman marbles, Indian manuscripts, Renaissance and Baroque paintings and sculptures, Chinese paintings and prints, Japanese woodcuts, 19th century photographs and contemporary video. Drawn from important public and private collections from around the world; some of the works have never been seen in public, others rarely shown and many have never been exhibited in the UK . Seduced opens at Barbican Art Gallery on 12 October 2007.

Curated by scholars Marina Wallace, Martin Kemp and Joanne Bernstein, Seduced aims to generate a lively public debate about shifting attitudes towards explicit imagery, and to question the lines drawn between art and pornography.

As the curators say, “We are all here because of a sexual act…The union of two bodies is an act of extraordinary physical and emotional intimacy. The prelude, the process of seduction, the act itself and the immediate aftermath provide the focus for the exhibition. Like the preening bird, evolutionary rituals dominate the way we behave before, during and after sex. But as humans, we have developed elaborate social frameworks for its expression and its regulation. Visual representations of the sexual act have played key roles in the culture of sex, ranging from open display to absolute censorship.”

Over 70 artists are featured including Francis Bacon, Louise Bourgeois, Annibale Carracci, Jean Honore Fragonard, Guercino, Jeff Koons, Robert Mapplethorpe, Pablo Picasso, Auguste Rodin, Egon Schiele, Bartholomeus Spranger, J M W Turner, Kitagawa Utamaro and Andy Warhol.

It reveals how works of art with a sexual content have been openly displayed, concealed or forbidden over time. In ancient Greece, very explicit images of heterosexual and homosexual sex were rife and yet these same images have been typically downplayed in the antiquarian context of museums. The great English landscape painter, Turner, made secret sketches of sexual activities in his private notebooks, whilst Emperor Rudolph II at Prague openly commissioned flamboyant oil paintings of the loves of the gods for his gallery. Japanese prints, issued in very large numbers, treated sex with a directness that is extraordinary by any standards.

Presenting a powerful sensory experience, the exhibition highlights the relationship between viewer and artwork and provides the historical and cultural framework for us to question our own boundaries; where does art stop and pornography begin? Is an explicit painting from an ancient Pompeian brothel acceptable (hallowed by time), while its modern equivalent is not?...Because something can claim “aesthetic merit” can it be exempted from charges of obscenity?

The exhibition is enhanced by sound and movement. A sound installation entitled The Voice of Sex features readings from erotic texts, such as the Kama Sutra, Lolita and late 18th century books by the Marquis de Sade. Whilst on selected dates, Union Dance , under the artistic direction of Corrine Bougaard, present a specially commissioned movement series created as an integral part of the exhibition concept, with music specially composed by Hayden Chisholm.

NOTES TO EDITORS:  The exhibition is curated by Marina Wallace, Professor at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design at the University of the Arts, London, Martin Kemp, Professor of the History of Art at Oxford University and Joanne Bernstein, Independent Curator.  The exhibition is designed by Stanton Williams Architects.  A fully illustrated book and comprehensive programme of events and talks, including a complimentary film season, accompanies the exhibition.  Full details to be announced. Exhibition open to over 18s only. Barbican Art Gallery opening times: Daily 11am – 8pm (Except Tuesday & Thursday 11am – 6pm).  Admission: £8; £6.  Public information/advance tickets: 0845 1207550.

Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Next entry: Number Forty-Four Previous entry: Number Forty-Two