Seduced at the Barbican?

The Barbican’s new show ‘Seduced’, takes us through the history of sex in art beginning with a range of classical and ancient Chinese and Japanese art, and ending with today’s practising artists from around the globe. Not once does the content seem to hesitate or hide under the pretence of innocence and naivety of what it is dealing with, thus giving it a very matter-of-fact feel even when it comes to the more extreme images such as Robert Mapplethorpe’s photograph of anal fisting.

The educational stance the exhibition takes (despite being filled with oversized phalluses and raw images of vaginas), which is by no means accidental, gives the subject matter a mature and intellectual view of what it really is. It is precisely this that leaves us taken aback – the non-allowance of giggles or disgust. This is because the curators Marina Wallace, Joanne Berstein and Martin Kemp chose works from some of history’s most respected artists who undermine the fantastical side of sex by showing it either as humorous, purely physical and obscene or beautiful and emotional.

Being uncensored is exactly the point - it begs to differentiate art from pornography. One is forced to wonder that what might have once been considered porn is now re-evaluated (largely due to the existence of photography and film) and looked upon as art - the idea of which is precisely delineated by artist Jeff Koons in his enlarged, surreal photographs of his ex-wife and porn star Ilona Staller.

It seems ironic though, how the curators appear to be stressing the point that these works are in fact art, not pornography, and should be viewed as such - yet they have made it an over 18’s exhibit only. Though the age restriction might add to its appeal, in an age in which pornography is widely available to the under-aged, it only serves to contradict the concept on which the exhibition is founded. Or perhaps this was a deliberate move to inspire further debate on what the fine line between art and pornography is, and where it is drawn.

However the works do not fail to fascinate in that they offer such a broad scope of sexual fantasies and realities and often touch on the animalistic and natural aspect of sex, explored in works such as Nobuyoshi Araki’s photographs of cut up fruit and snails on unfathomable body parts.

In taking us through the history of sex in art, we are forced to recognize how utterly undividable sex is from our nature and moreover, our day to day lives. The choice of artists to prove this point was an excellent one, and their recognition as professionals serve to aid us in our understanding that though throughout the ages sexual art has been censored or available only to the select few, it has always been a prominent theme for artists, both well-known and unknown – and continues to be so.

Louise Bourgeois' Trauma'?

It is probably more appropriate to say that the ninety-five year old female artist’s work is currently on display at the Tate Modern, rather than to say that her life is on display, but I am unsure as to which is most accurate. Of course her work is intended to be autobiographical, once inside the exhibition you cannot escape that fact. I felt as though I’d just walked into some strange nightmare in which memories take on the form of darkly psychedelic objects.

Her obsession with her past is undeniable, and for a brief moment she is able to draw you into it. I was curious to find out what had made her so angry, and why exactly the word ‘trauma’ was written in every corner possible inside the exhibition, but I have to say I was sorely disappointed to understand that it was merely that her father had invited his mistress to live with them and be tutor to Louise and her siblings. Ah yes, the Oedipal complex all over again. I was immediately bored, how many times have we heard a story about a man having an affair with the live in maid/governess/whatever and the child’s confusion at the situation? Surely there was a more disturbing trauma behind all these tits and willies. One gets the feeling therefore, that she has realized the power behind the ‘oedipal’ qualities of her work, and has since sucked as much out of it as she could.

She is also inconsistent. She says that it is not the penis she dislikes, but the bearer of the penis. This is all fine and dandy, but then why is there a bodiless penis hung from a hook in the ceiling? It seems she doesn’t really know in which direction to point her anger, towards only her father or towards all men in general? Her work speaks contrarily to what she says.

On the other hand, one interesting thing about her work is that she recognizes that both men and women share feminine and masculine qualities, and she quite openly if not unconsciously expresses a degree of penis envy, which in today’s modern society is something most ambitious women can relate to.

Another issue that irritated me about her exhibition was why should we be so concerned with this woman’s history? Especially when it does so little to enlighten us on issues surrounding trauma. The theory of the Oedipal complex has already been offered to us by Freud, and we all seem to accept it as a truth, so there really is nothing that distinguishes Bourgeois from the rest of us other than her obsession with it, and there is nothing new we can learn from her work. It serves simply as a confirmation of Freud’s theories, so why all the fuss over it?

In my opinion, Bourgeois shows nothing else of herself but a woman from a wealthy background who has nothing else to complain about other than daddy’s sex drive and his supposed tyrannical personality. But in all honesty, how many of us have not had a fallible, overbearing parent?

One would have thought that by now she would have dealt with her past ‘traumas’ and moved on to something different… she is ninety five years old, after all. It saddened me to be confronted with a woman who cannot seem to look past herself.

Seeing through blinding light

She cast her sceptical eye over the hands with no bodies as they traced the glass walls of the large box. ‘Is this art?’ she asked herself. In a world where art has no definition, where life itself appears not to, she was at once confused and lost. Could she decide whether or not it was a worthy work of art before she’d been through the experience awaiting her in the box, as she tended to before every art exhibit? She desperately longed to disengage herself from it all and throw into the wind all of her own desire to be an artist. ‘There was no point’, she thought, ‘it’s all nonsense’. Terrified of herself and her ambition, but most of all, the prospect of failing, she wanted to reject everything that might open her mind and make her better than she was. It was a never ending conflict between what she was and what she frantically didn’t want to be.

Finally the queue in front her disappeared inside the box and she was allowed in. She approached the mist cautiously, and saw her limbs slowly dissipate into the white cloud. A sudden chill shuddered through her body, as though to remind her that it was still connected with her. She could see nothing in front of herself. Everything was white, and it felt for a moment that she was entering the gates of heaven.

Bodiless voices called each other and giggled nervously all around her, and suddenly she felt utterly alone. In this claustrophobic box everything material ceased to exist, everything that had guided her through life was irrelevant. All that was left was the desire to get out, to retrieve control of the one sense she so heavily depended upon – her sight. But something urged her to stay. It was as though there was something within the mist that urgently needed discovering.

It came to her in a silent bang. ‘There is no point in trying to get out, the haze is everything you are and everything life is'. To find the exit so quickly would be a reflection of the solution to every problem she had ever faced. It struck her at that moment as entirely repulsive and cowardly. 'I will stay here and face it', she told herself. Sometimes one needs to be suffocated from the vision of reality in order to truly gain perspective of it. This is what the mist seemed to be whispering. ‘All our paranoia, all our fears are hysterical. Our society is hysterical. We are all hysterical beings thrown into a haze of confusion, and it is this essential buzzing fear that unites us but at the same time ultimately divides us’. She knew at that second that the only way she would ever manage is by embracing her fear and in a way use it to gain perspective of the positive in the world.

At last she decided it was time for her to leave. At the exit she was confronted by her friend who asked her how she found it. She replied that it was ‘alright’. She offered no explanation as to why she considered it merely so but it seemed unfair that one was allowed a few minutes of clarity and relief from the real world when you had only to return to it a moment later. You see, when her vision was returned to her and she was faced with the ugliness that surrounded, it was impossible to put to use anything that she had just learnt. Perspective, it seemed, was momentary, and though those moments came to be sacrosanct to her, they offered no solution to true existence. She was left with many questions, and few answers. Such was life, she thought, and headed home filled with the comfort of knowing that sometimes answers to life and ambition are in a practical sense, useless.

Artists catch head lice for show

Seven German artists are living with lice in their hair in an Israeli museum for three weeks in the name of art.

The Berliners aim to stretch boundaries of what is art, saying they are toying with ideas about hosts and guests in line with a theme set by the museum.

"The idea is that we live in the museum as their guests, and at the same time we are hosting lice on our heads," said artist Vincent Grunwald, 23.

The artists are wearing shower caps to prevent the lice from spreading.

Milana Gitzin-Adiram, chief curator of the Museum of Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv, said: "Art is no longer just a painting on the wall.

"Art is life, life is art."

'Open up wounds'

She said she spent weeks exploring the gallery's theme of "hosting", turning to philosophers such as Jacques Derrida and the Bible for inspiration.

But after receiving proposals from around the world, she decided to choose the head lice.

But artists also stressed the show was not meant to be a reference to the Holocaust.

"We were aware that, as Germans in Israel, there was a risk we may be misunderstood, that we would open up wounds," said Stefan Reuter, 27.

The exhibition has the potential to cause controversy in Germany, where the mention of lice could prompt memories of Nazi propaganda that described Jews as "parasites."

Not a 'gimmick'

"People ask about it - we had one woman who came and thanked us for making such a great statement against the fascist rhetoric of German history," Reuter said.

He and his fellow artists said the exhibition offered the chance to explore the concept of the parasite and to ask whether the word could be "reclaimed" in Israel.

The group acknowledged that living with lice was uncomfortable, but said it was worth it for the sake of art, and insisted it was not a gimmick.

"We are serious," said Akim One Machine-Tu Nyuyen. "The lice are part of the art."

Other controversial artworks have included last year's Turner Prize winner Mark Wallinger, who also made a film called Sleeper in which he dressed as a bear and wandered around Berlin's National Gallery.

And an Australian performer, Stelios Arcadiou, also garnered attention when he had an ear grafted onto his forearm in the name of art in 2007. He said his extra ear, made of human cartilage, was an augmentation of the body's form.

(taken from BBC)