Rubens, Peter Paul The Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus c. 1618 Oil on canvas 88 x 82 7/8 in (224 x 210.5 cm) Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Nowadays, erotic art is more of a niche player and the art market (the closest thing to a royal court that we have) prefers its sexy in air quotes. Marilyn Minter uses hard core porn photographs and transforms them into glittering, wet-and-wild bauble-fests. They are not so erotic when she’s done with them but way “sexy,” hip and commercially viable.

Marilyn Minter, Split, 2003, C-print

When I emailed a bunch of Philadelphia artists recently to ask what was the most erotic art they’d seen and why, mostly I got no responses. One artist, Christopher Davison, demurred. Davison makes pretty darned sexy works himself, (his drawings of male and female nudes interacting in dark, eerie forest settings were a staple at the former Jenny Jaskey gallery). “While it would seem like I would have something meaningful to contribute on this topic I am actually not the best person to provide feedback,” he said, adding “Strange but true!”

They're On Their Way Flashe, watercolor, acrylic ink, gouache on Rives BFK 22" x 30" 2009

Gabriel Martinez, a mischievous artist known for his autobiographical works — and for a recent series of sexually-charged masturbation photos featuring anonymous men’s legs and feet at moment of orgasm — wrote back “I will think (hard) about this one…” Then he slipped away into the ether never answering the question. But Proximity Gallery owner and artist Janel Frey responded immediately and directly naming Philadelphia artist, Pete Checchia who, she says, “captures women in a very sensual and complex way.”

Gabriel Martinex, Self Portraits by Heterosexual Men (Anonymous), 2007. c-print

Artist and FLUXspace co-founder, Chris Golas, sent in an anecdote from his own life. While a student at Tyler he did a performance that was arguably erotic. He stood behind a shower curtain half-naked while a woman slapped him after her hands in different colored paints. Golas said “My intent was not to make erotic work but as I reflect on the experience it clearly had meaning that bridged into a certain eroticism for me. This particular performance could border on fetishism as well.”

Pete Checcia, Photo collage

Chris Golas, photo from a performance

Artists now don’t seek to titillate per se, but still the erotic will out especially in work by those who court the unconscious mind, like Louise Bourgeois, Lisa Yuskavage, Pipilotti Rist, Patty Chang, R. Crumb, Paul McCarthy, Philadelphia artist Tony Ward, Andy Warhol (films) and Marcel Duchamp (Etant Donnes) for starters. There are more of course.

Louise Bourgeois, photo by Robert Mapplethorpe, 1982

These artists all work in a narrative tradition and use figures or figure fragments (Bourgeois) and their works might give off a pleasurable erotic charge along with whatever other message is there. Warhol is in a class all his own with experimental movies that are sensual (Blow Job, Sleep) and those that are sexually explicit and close to porn (Blue Movie).

Andy Warhol, Blowjob

But postmodern erotic art usually has a conflicted sexuality. Pleasure is subsumed under oozing gooey messes (Paul McCarthy, Santa’s Cholocate Shop); or it’s accompanied by embarrassment (R. Crumb). In the case of Duchamp’s Etant Donnes — on view in the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s permanent collection — the erotic is tempered by a dose of pure weirdness as you look through a peephole at the work and what’s portrayed — the lower half of a nude woman on the ground, her legs splayed, one hand holding aloft a lantern and an eerie waterfall in the background — is creepy and inexplicable.

R. Crumb drawing

Artists now might deny the erotic in their art. Louise Bourgeois said “I wouldn’t say my work is erotic, even though this side of it seems obvious to many people.” Tony Ward, on the other hand, in an interview with Corey Armpriester on artblog, embraces sexual imagery as a way to put human sexuality into the art history canon. But even this artist — who shows with Sande Webster Gallery — seems to waffle on the erotic charge of his works saying he’s “looking for a means to express the art of it (human sexuality) not the sex of it.”

Photo by Tony Ward

Feminism took some of the sexy out of art by attacking the male gaze and by empowering women to make works about their own sexuality. Many early feminist works are angry, and while graphic, not sexy. The Visible Vagina at Francis Naumann Gallery which Andrea told you about recently, exposes many feminist works focused on the female sex organ. But as with much feminist work eroticism wasn’t the point of it and it doesn’t seem to be the byproduct.

Marcel Duchamp, Etant Donnes

But even before feminism, abstract expressionism and minimalism — both about as sexy as Benjamin Moore paint chips — put eros on the shelf.

Lust Caution, Ang Lee's movie about the Japanese occupation of China has scenes that feel like they're based on Japanese Shunga drawings

Photography went where painting and sculpture wouldn’t go and nude photography is our latter day erotic art. But more than that, today’s erotic art is the movies. Films may be the closest thing we have to Rubens, Boucher, Caravaggio, Bronzino. Movies use narrative– often extremely over the top dramatic — and add romance and the erotic scene or two. Art house movies are full of that mixture. These movies deliver erotic content without irony. It’s seriously sensual stuff, just like the old masters used to provide.

So if movies are how we get our erotic art it’s not a bad thing. It’s just another example of pop culture taking over what used to be in art’s domain — or art ceding something it didn’t want to deal with to pop culture, which very much wants to deal.  Hollywood sells sex because sex sells.

>>Etant Donnes, on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gallery 183, Modern and Contemporary Art, first floor. 26th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway Adults: $16 Seniors (ages 65 & over): $14 Students (with valid ID): $12 Children (excluding groups) ages 13–18: $12 ages 12 & under: Free First Sunday of each month: Pay what you wish all day.

>>The Visible Vagina, to Mar 20. Francis Naumann Gallery, 24 W. 57th St., Suite 305. NY NY 10019. 212 582 3201.

There’s a confluence of exhibitions in or coming to Philadelphia that raise overlapping questions about women’s agency, their representation and self-presentation. They’ve also got me thinking about the extent to which one should consider biography in assessing artwork, something I’m not inclined to do.

The Art of Lee Miller opened at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) last week, where it runs through April 27. Miller’s photography has been known, up to now, only in its reproduced form. The 140 works in the exhibition, organized by Mark Haworth-Booth for the Victoria and Albert Museum, London consist mostly of vintage prints by Miller and by a group of well-known photographers for whom she modeled (Arnold Genthe, Edward Steichen, George Hoynengen Huene and Man Ray).

Lee Miller Women with Fire Masks, Devonshire Hill, London (1941) modern print by Carol Callow, Lee Miller Archives © Lee Miller Archives, England 2008. All rights reserved. The first of Miller’s work published in Vogue (and its British version, Brogue) was taken in London at the beginning of WWII, although they didn’t print this image of two women at the entrance to an air raid shelter wearing masks to protect them from incendiary bombs. The disorienting effect of the protective gear recalls Miller’s early involvement with the Surrealists in Paris.

Miller’s work as a photographer was a product of the opportunities available to her rather than any obviously self-generated plan. She modeled for magazines and artists during the 1920s, hung out with a group of Surrealists before turning to portraiture in the 30s, and did war reportage in the 40s. Perhaps this is why I have difficulty conceiving of her work as an oeuvre. She used her beauty to get a foot in the door to the fashion world of Vogue and into Man Ray’s Paris studio, where she worked from 1929-32. But it took gumption rather than looks for a 25-year-old woman to open her own commercial photography business in New York in 1932.

The same gumption was behind her war work. Her first photographs for Vogue were fashion shoots but she moved on to pictures of London during the Blitz then became an official US Army War Correspondent and covered subjects ranging from a military hospital in Normandy and bombings in St. Malo to the liberation of Buchenwald. At this point she was writing the text as well as providing the pictures and her articles seethed with anger at the Germans she met who would deny knowing about the atrocities of the death camps. One of the most remarkable things in the exhibition was to see an American fashion magazine publishing some of the most gruesome pictures to come out of the war.

It’s difficult, if not impossible, for women today to have any idea of the resistance Miller must have faced in the almost entirely-male worlds of art, commercial and journalistic photography. Her one obvious acknowledgment of this is a repellent double photo (two views) of a severed breast on a plate at a table setting; Take that! she seems to say, as a riposte to the Surrealist penchant for nude, bound and dismembered female bodies.

Lee Miller Burgermeister of Leipzig’s Daughter Suicided, Leipzig, Germany (1945), Lee Miller Archives © Lee Miller Archives, England 2008. All rights reserved. Vogue included this photograph in a spread captioned The Nazi Harvest, which included Miller’s photographs of piles of dead bodies at Buchenwald.

Next month the PMA will open an exhibition of her exact contemporary, Frida Kahlo, another woman who struggled to be taken seriously within a male artworld. Frida’s public persona was every bit as much a work of art as her paintings, though perhaps that was her way of getting her foot in the door.

While the PMA will be showing two exhibitions of exceptional women, its modern and contemporary painting and sculpture department continues to exhibit almost entirely white guys (with minor exceptions of an installation by the African, Georges Adeagbo, and videos by Marine Hugonnier). I also continue to be amazed by the museum’s segregated hanging of a group of paintings by African-American artists –Horace Pippin, William H. Johnson, Jacob Lawrence, Beauford Delaney, Alma Thomas, Bob Thompson–in the ground-floor corridor between the coat room and the gift shop, with only one Milton Avery to integrate the group. Don’t they belong in the upstairs galleries either?

Anna Gaskell Untitled #1 (Wonder) 1996 C-print, Collection Debra and Dennis Scholl, © Anna Gaskell

It’s not such a surprise that Moore College of Art, an all-woman’s school, should host an exhibition devoted to women artists who portray women, often themselves. The exhibition titled In Repose, organized by Lorie Mertes for The Galleries at Moore, is drawn from the private collection of Debra and Dennis Scholl (of Miami Beach). Almost all of the work is photographic (either prints or video) and coming from Lee Miller’s work I found the exhibition particularly disturbing. The artists, after all, are mostly two generations younger than Miller yet, with the exception of Carolee Schneeman and Mariko Mori, what they show are damsels in distress.

Their subjects are slashed, bound and constrained either literally or by society’s expectations. Pipilotti Rist’s I’m Not the Girl Who Misses Much shows the artist in a bosom-revealing dress, dancing and singing but speeded up so she looks and sounds like a delirious wind-up doll; Janine Antoni’s fashionably painted fingernails (Ingrown) have become so long that the nails of both hands fuse; Anna Gaskell’s girl/woman (dressed after Tenniel’s illustrations to Alice in Wonderland) in the series Wonder is trapped in her clothes or about to drown; Naomi Fisher’s women are tortured, violated or dead; Rineke Dijkstra depicts herself at a public swimming pool looking stunned, like a deer caught in headlights.

Rineke Dijkstra Self-Portrail, Marnixbad, Amsterdam, NL June 19, 1991 91991)C-print, Collection Debra and Dennis Scholl, ©Rineke Dijkstra

Women may still be having trouble in the artworld and the greater world beyond, but it was depressing to see that as the subject of so much work, despite the presence of artists I respect.

Robert Mapplethorpe Louise Bourgeois in 1982 with ‘Filette’(1968) , ©Robert Mapplethorpe

Speaking of remarkable women, my doorbell just rang and it was the postman delivering a copy of Louise Bourgeois, the catalogue to the large exhibition that I saw at the Tate Modern last year (edited by Frances Morris and Marie-Laure Bernadac, Rizzoli in association with the Tate Modern, ISBN 978-0-8478-3131-9). Bourgeois is certainly one of the few women artists of Lee Miller’s and Frida Kahlo’s generation who still survives and is productive (Eve Zeisel, b.1906, is still working as well, I believe). Bourgeois has always plumbed her psyche in her work and reveled in its feminine fecundity. Unafraid of exploring the varieties of desire, she famously posed for Robert Mapplethorpe with one of her sculptures, shaped like a huge phallus, tucked under her arm (above). The catalog has essays by no fewer than eight authors, among them the psychoanalyst and critic Julia Kristeva. Can’t wait to read it.

Detail of Bourgeois’ 1992 performance at the Fabric Workshop, “She Lost It”

The Louise Bourgeois exhibit at the Fabric Workshop highlights the artist’s recent works in different materials, concentrating on her use of textiles. The majority of what is on view revisits her 1992 performance “She Lost It,” which revolves around a 245 foot-long scarf with red writing.

A video documentation of the performance is on display in the lobby, with catchy dance music (you may recognize the 90′s hit “Rhythm is a Dancer”) accompanying the images of the original exhibit and the live-performance. I recommend watching the video, as it helped me to understand the importance of much of the work I was to see in the exhibit; for example, I was able to recognize the clothing worn by the performers that was displayed under glass, spread wide so that most of the writing on the front was visible. Although I do not have a better detail of these, you can make one out in the picture above: an off-white apron with the words “I had to make myself be forgiven for being a girl” in angry red stitching across the front. This article of clothing was actually worn by a man during the performance, defying the common conception of who should wear an apron, as well as asking who the “I” in the message really is – who, exactly, is the performer representing?

Photo of Louise Bourgeois (1999) Courtesy of Google.

Most likely, the message is from Bourgeois herself, as she considers much of her work, thematically and materially, to be autobiographical in nature. She was born in Paris in 1911 to a family involved with the tapestry industry. She later emigrated to New York in 1938, where she is currently living.


The terrycloth “Pregnant Woman” (2002) is endearing, with its soft lines and color; however, it also seems vulnerable, because of its miniature size and lack of a head. 12¾ x 12 x 12 inches

The work in the “Louise Bourgeois” exhibit is evocative and interesting, questioning the nature of relationships between people, between viewer and art, and between materials. Of notable mention were “Pregnant Woman,” a small sculpture that Bourgeois had made in 2002 for the Fabric Workshop’s 25th Anniversary, and “Couple,” a royal blue hanging sculpture of two figures wound tightly around each other in an embrace. The sculpture is free to spin, making it seem that the nature of the relationship is precarious and ungrounded, and that the couple is trying to protect it from outside forces. The fabric of which it is made is frayed at the edges, constructed without care of exterior aesthetics and almost with a hint of violence.

Page from Bourgeois’ book “Ode a l’Oubli”

The sculptures and artifacts from the 1992 performance in this exhibit touch on a theme that is timeless – relationships. Bourgeois highlights the many facets of relationships, and unites them into works that all viewers can understand. However, I had more trouble appreciating the book that is displayed, “Ode a l’Oubli.” It is a series of 34 hand-sewn pages printed with lithographic ink, the majority of which are abstract. There were a few with words, though, such as “I had a flashback of something that never existed,” and “The return of the repressed,” with which I felt more connected. Overall, I think that Bourgeois’ book wasn’t very successful, but that her work adorned with text and her sculptures were powerful.

For more images from Bourgeois see my flickr site here. Also, I found a video of one of her works “Cell II” at the pbs website. Although not in the show, it is similar to “Cell XX,” a piece in the show of the which I could not obtain a picture.

-Despite a long holiday, Caitlin is still the artblog intern.

“Louise Bourgeois” at the Fabric Workshop. 1315 Cherry St, 5th and 6th Floors. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. On view until September 16, 2006.

Louise Bourgeois’ Crouching Sider moved onto the front plaza in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art today. The event announcing its presence included–besides the obligatory gaggle of local school children from Philadelphia and Media– the creme de la creme of local power women: Director Anne d’Harnoncourt and COO Gail Harrity of the museum; and from Pew Charitable Tusts, President Rebecca Rimel and Director of Culture and Civic Initiatives Marian Godfrey. Contemporary Art Curator Carlos Basualdo and Modern Art CuratorMichael Taylor also were there to celebrate the installation. Robert Storr was an invisible presence thanks to his role in helping secure the loan.

The critter weighs 4,000 pounds, and came in a number of pieces–legs, body and head and will grace the PMA plaza for a year. It’s not as flashy as Calder’s Eagle, but it packs its own sort of creepy wallop. As soon as the dignitaries finished speaking, the kids were let loose. They quickly figured out new ways to do the limbo with it.

If Rosa Kleb (“From Russia With Love”) were in “Alien,” this sculpture is who she’d be.

For images from my Flickr set, go here.

Catching the Wave
From a one-day-only traveling sideshow to a monumental bronze and steel spider, this summer offers an array of great art happenings.

The Bugs of Summer

Louise Bourgeois, Spider, 1996, cast 1997, bronze cast with silver nitrate patina. Here, sited on the National Gallery grounds in DC. I can’t find an image of the Crouching Spider but will take some tomorrow at the unveiling.

Summer’s the time for bugs. This year watch out for one big arachnid perched above the Rocky steps on the Philadelphia Museum of Art‘s east terrace. Louise Bourgeois’ Crouching Spider-a monumental bronze and stainless-steel web-weaver-comes to visit May 24 and will stay through April 2007. [Ed note: I was told to look for the spider's unveiling tomorrow. We at artblog will be there to take some pictures. Stay tuned.] The spider’s visit is a little ahead of summer mosquitoes, but it’s right on time for an exhibition of Bourgeois’ works at the Fabric Workshop and Museum. That show, opening July 8, will feature the French-born Bourgeois’ fabric works along with some recent sculpture and a film. One of the most important 20th-century artists, Bourgeois, now 95, broke traditions and led the way into installation art and autobiographical performance-related works. Bridgette Cornand’s 2002 feature-length film biography C’est Le Murmure De L’eau Qui Chante will screen in the FWM’s auditorium, and it’s a must-see for anyone interested in the artist.

The Black Factory

William Pope.L’s The Black Factory. NOTE: The Factory will be in town for THREE DAYS! In addition to the FWM stop on July 27, it will be at the ICA July 28 and Bartram’s Garden, July 29.

Also coming to the FWM–perhaps the hottest art happening of the season–is the one-day-only (July 27) visit of New York artist William Pope.L, who brings his traveling educational sideshow The Black Factory, a panel-truck that unfolds to become a workshop, library and gift shop. Pope.L’s people-power-mobile seeks to provoke discussions of race, politics and democracy. You’re encouraged to show up with objects that represent blackness.

Da Vinci In the Garden

Da Vinci Art Alliance–this year celebrating its 75th anniversary–is going to Bartram’s Garden for a collaborative weekend of free arts-and-crafts workshops and an exhibit. Bartram’s, the more than 250-year-old historic botanical preserve on the Schuylkill, will open itself to Da Vinci artists and to the public for free Aug. 18 to 20 for various indoor and outdoor activites.

Art Jaw and Paper Trail

Shelley Spector‘s online collaborative writing project Art Jaw launches May 31. Written by local artists, curators and gallerists, Art Jaw will feature short autobiographical anecdotes and images, and will grow bimonthly as new stories get added. The first round of writings features 11 artists. And because nobody lives entirely in cyberspace, Art Jaw kicks off with a two-day real-world exhibit “Paper Trail” at Spector Gallery June 9 and 10. Rejection letters, bills and other paper artifacts-provided by art world folks-will form an installation that, according to Spector, is like a “walk-in communal file cabinet.”

Smiles of a summer photograph

David Graham, Nan and Vi in Maine, Photograph taken in Maine, 1982

Summer is also museum-going time. The Philadelphia Museum of Art offers two excellent photo-graphy exhibits this summer: “Summer Vacation” and “Dreaming in Black and White: Photography at the Julien Levy Gallery.” “Summer” features views of quintessential seasonal activities-backyard barbecues, street fairs, camps, company picnics-that you’ll enjoy without having to eat, drink or socialize.

Frida Kahlo, c. 1938, Julien Levy (American, 1906-1981) Gelatin silver print

Katherine Ware and Peter Barberie co-curated the museum’s other summer photo show “Dreaming,” a 200-plus-work exhibit drawn from the Julien Levy collection (which was given to the museum in 2001). Levy, whose gallery operated from 1931 to 1948, was the first exhibitor of surrealism in New York, and this show, opening June 17, rounds up many of the photographs he featured.

Travel to Maine at PAFA

Alex Katz painting from PAFA’s Maine show.

The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts will take you to Maine this summer courtesy of the “Alex Katz in Maine” exhibit opening June 24. The show, organized by the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine, will feature Katz’s paintings of people and landscapes done between 1958 and 2004.

Travel to Pittsburgh…really

John James Audubon, Barn Owls, from the Carnegie Museum of Art’s Fierce Friends exhibit.

Pittsburgh museums like the Warhol Museum and the Carnegie Museum of Art make wonderful art destinations, and a great alternative to New York. I’ve been to Pittsburgh’s museums a number of times and always found them excellent, their collections full and interesting and their theme exhibits provocative. The Carnegie Museum’s theme show “Fierce Friends” with more than 300 works that feature animals-and the idea of animal-human interactions-sounds great.

Entrance to the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.

And for a celebration of the human animal, the Warhol Museum’s theme exhibits “The ‘F’ Word” and “The Downtown Show: The New York Art Scene 1974-84″ sound like great cultural anthropology. “The ‘F’ Word” focuses on art made by 10 women, from early feminist artists like Yoko Ono to contemporary stars like Wangechi Mutu. “The Downtown Show” features a staggering number of works (500-plus) from the era of happenings and early video art. Both shows open May 27.

Fall’s tasty treats to dream on

Tristin Lowe’s inflatable cyclops, “Alice” in his Girard College solo show.

Summer’s also the time for dreaming, so here are a few fall items to dream about: Michelle Oosterbaan‘s first solo show at Gallery Joe and Tristin Lowe‘s first solo exhibit at Fleisher-Ollman Gallery.

Michelle Oosterbaan drawing from group show last year at Gallery Joe.

Also anticipated: F-O Gallery director William Pym says his venue will push itself in new directions with community-oriented extracurricular gatherings. The world is waiting.

On a final note, artists and gallerists often prepare for upcoming exhibitions during summer months. Consequently, many venues take a break from regular hours, so it’s best to call ahead before making a plan.

Where It’s At

“Alex Katz in Maine”
June 24-Sept. 3. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Hamilton Bldg., Fisher Brooks Gallery, 118-128 N. Broad St. 215.972.7600.

“Art Jaw”
May 31. www.artjaw.com

“Creative Cross-Pollination: Da Vinci Art Alliance at Bartram’s Garden”
Aug. 18-20. Opening reception Aug. 18, 6-9pm. Free. 54th St. and Lindbergh Blvd. 215.729.5281.

“The Downtown Show: The New York Art Scene, 1974-84″
May 27-Sept. 3. Warhol Museum, 117 Sandusky St., Pittsburgh. 412.237.8339.

“Dreaming in Black and White: Photography at the Julien Levy Gallery”
June 17-Sept. 17. Berman and Stieglitz Galleries, ground fl., Philadelphia Museum of Art, 26th St. and the Pkwy. 215.763.8100.

“Fierce Friends: Artists andAnimals, 1750-1900″
Through Aug. 27. Carnegie Museum of Art, 4400 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh. 412.622.3131.

“The ‘F’ Word”
May 27-Sept. 3. Warhol Museum, 117 Sandusky St., Pittsburgh. 412.237.8339.

Louise Bourgeois: “Crouching Spider”
May 24-April 2007. Philadelphia Museum of Art, east terrace, 26th St. and the Pkwy. 215.763.8100.

Louise Bourgeois
July 8-Sept. 16. Opening reception July 7, 6pm. Free. Fabric Workshop and Museum, 1315 Cherry St. 215.568.1111.
Michelle Oosterbaan
Sept. Gallery Joe, 302 Arch St. 215.592.7752.
“Paper Trail”
June 9-10. Opening reception June 9, 6-9pm. Free. Spector Gallery, 510 Bainbridge St. 215.238.0840.

“Summer Vacation: Photographs From the Collection”
Through Sept. Julien Levy Gallery, ground fl., Philadelphia Museum of Art, 26th St. and the Pkwy. 215.763.8100.

Tristin Lowe
Oct. Fleisher-Ollman Gallery, 1616 Walnut St., suite. 100. 215.545.7562.

William Pope.L: “The Black Factory”
July 27. Fabric Workshop and Museum, 1315 Cherry St. 215.568.1111.