Artwork that goes for the groin

Brian Alexander • E-mail

Forty years ago, a key Supreme Court case with a Kafka-esque name, United States v. Ten Erotic Paintings, put works of some of the great modern artists of Europe on trial. Seventeen years ago, an exhibit of the photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe in Cincinnati wound up getting a museum curator arrested on obscenity charges. He was later acquitted. Five years ago, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft failed to see the irony of covering seminude art deco statues in the Justice Department — “Spirit of Justice” and “Majesty of Law” — with giant blue drapes reminiscent of burkas as American troops were fighting against the Taliban.

Now, though, more and more Americans are voting with their feet and their dollars to say they appreciate a painting that may at first look like fresh cherries but when you stare long enough, becomes an image of kinky sex.

Just such a painting was part of the Seattle Erotic Art Festival, considered the top such festival in the country, in March and one of a growing list of erotic art fairs, festivals, galleries and exhibitions spreading throughout the United States and abroad.   

The Seattle event followed Detroit's Dirty Show in February. Recent exhibits have been held in seemingly unlikely places such as Tulsa, Okla. A 5-year-old New York gallery, Art at Large, that features erotic art is doing “astonishing” business, claims co-owner Pet Silvia. In two weeks, starting April 13, the Second Annual Kinsey Institute Juried Erotic Art Show will open at the Kinsey Institute on the campus of Indiana University in Bloomington, and run through July 20. Other erotic art shows, exhibits and fairs are scheduled all spring and summer in the U.S. and Europe.

“The trend is upward now,” says Catherine Johnson-Roehr, curator of the Kinsey gallery. “It is something that, judging from our visitors, is becoming more acceptable and a thing that appeals to a wider range of people.” Despite very little advertising, “we were kind of amazed at the response to our show.”     

Not only is the audience growing, but the range of artists making the works is growing, too. Johnson-Roehr says the gallery “had a huge number of submissions,” so organizers had to double the number of pieces to display and expand the space into the hallway outside the main gallery.

More mainstream appeal
According to Allena Gabosch, a director of the Seattle festival, some 2,500 people attended the three-day event, held in a large nightclub called Fenix. Many paid an admission fee ranging from $5 to $20, or $40 to attend the auction night. There, works sold for upwards of $1,600.

“Sunday afternoon, people looked like they just came from church,” Gabosch recalls. “That was great. When we first started, the tendency was to be overly fetish, to appeal to those groups. Now we have gone out of our way to create an atmosphere with themes like ‘Gods and Goddesses of Eros,’ or this year’s ‘Art Noir.’ We had people showing up in suits from the 1940s! We had some zoot suits!”

The fact is, erotic visual arts are now mainstream enthusiasms. You could argue they have always been so.

Erotic art was one of mankind’s first handicrafts. Sexually charged works like the famed "Venus of Willendorf" date from the Paleolithic period. The sexually explicit carvings on the Shiva temple in central Katmandu are the city’s most popular tourist attraction. Lately (in historical terms), though, we’ve spent an awful lot of time arguing about sexy art.

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