Art Business News: Nov. 2002. pg. 56 - 60.
Trendsetters section.

We find this article exciting - it certainly recognizes and acknowledges a trend we've seen developing in the last several years. A few excerpts are quoted below. - A @ L

"Art That Excites"

By: Claudia La Rocco
ABN Contributing Editor

"Ever since artists began creating art, they have incorporated sexual themes into their work. As early as 23,000 BC, Paleolithic artists across Europe were creating Venus figurines, female sculptures and bas-reliefs with distinct, exaggerated sexual characteristics...Viewed through the lens of modern Western culture, the exact intent and context of these art works is often difficult or impossible to surmise, but their explicit relationship to sex and the human body is clear...
In more recent periods in Western history, artists dealing with sexual themes or imagery have worked in much muddier waters. This debate has yet to be resolved.Examples of persecution and censorship abound throughout the 20th century...

As 2002 draws to a close, artists and the government continue to clash on the subject of art vs. pornography. The latest artist to venture into the fray is a New York photographer Barbara Nitke [represented by Art @ Large, I might add] - the chief plaintiff in a lawsuit filed on her behalf by the National coalition for Sexual Freedom against John Ashcroft.

Erotic Art on White Walls

Fear of being labeled as an erotic gallery has led certain galleries to refuse to show work they admire, because it deals with sexually explicit themes. But according to Grady Turner, art critic and executive curator of the newly opened Museum of Sex in New York, an increasing number of galleries are indeed exhibiting work that addresses sex and sexuality. Particularly among emerging artists - those who grew up in a world that was much more open in terms of gay rights, gender issues and so on....

Pet Silvia, artist and co-owner of Art @ Large, also has an optimistic outlook. The New York gallery, which opened about a year ago, is advertised as housing a 'fine arts erotica collection' (though Silvia and many others, is not particularly fond of the term 'erotica' - seeing it as a vague and unnecessary adjective) and represents such artists as Charles Gatewood, Michael Rosen and Barbara Nitke. Silvia was also largely responsible for bringing the Los Angeles based Tom of Finland Foundation's Annual Erotic Art Fair to New York. The foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and preserving erotic art.

Increasingly, said Silvia 'We're getting collectors who are looking beyond the subject matter and beginning to see the academic qualities of the work...Silvia said there is no particular profile for the collectors he sees. Many are first-time art buyers, but others are seasoned collectors 'who really take the responsibility of building an art collection seriously.

Chris Schuster, marketing director for New York publisher Behr-Thyssen, agreed. 'For first-time collectors, there is a sense of the risqué involved in it.' said Schuster. 'It's always exciting to acquire a piece of art, and there is that much more excitement with something that is pushing the limit a little bit"

'There is definitely a large and growing market for erotic art, as the general public becomes more receptive to different types of sensuality,' continued Schuster , adding that the real trick is knowing which customers to approach with which works.

The hesitancy with which collectors approach works by contemporary artist dealing with sexual themes is perfectly understandable to Silvia, who said this has always been the case. He points to such works as Edouard Manet's "Olympia." Now considered a classic, the sensuous 1863 painting of a nude prostitute caused considerable outrage among viewers and critics alike when it was first shown in Paris in 1865.

However, Silvia does fault the mainstream art world, particularly curators and the art press, for failing to pay enough attention to the quality work that is being done, instead of simply dismissing it all as pornography - a word he says is 'about as unclassifiable as the word art.' ...

The Shock of the New

When Charles Gatewood took his camera to the streets in 1964, the shock of the new was just beginning. Not only were explicitly sexual themes dismissed as marginal (or even criminal), photography itself was not taken seriously as a viable art form...

He pointed to the Metropolitan Museum's recent show on Surrealism, 'Surrealism: Desire Unbound," as proof of the genre's acceptance: 'I walked in and there was a Man Ray blow job on the wall of the Met. If it's artfully done, erotic work can be anywhere.'

Art That Excites

...Many artists, find the belief that art should not seek to arouse, prudish.
Excitement, be it sexual or not, is a word that comes up a lot when speaking with gallery owners and publishers who deal in erotic imagery. In 1999, when Marilyn Reyes opened what she bills as the Midwest's first commercial erotic art gallery, the Feitico Gallery in Chicago, she was interested in presenting art with an energy that she feels is 'missing from a lot of contemporary art. It has no soul.'

Silvia agreed, pronouncing that 'the current post-modern period will probably go down as one of the longest, most boring periods in art history. In the last 20 years, it has been difficult to see anything original...but the work we're showing here is, in addition to being a celebration of the body, a celebration of individuality.' ABN