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.