In the ongoing philosophical discourse of “What is art?”, The Body You Want at the Asian Arts Initiative pushes the boundaries of pornography and aesthetic admiration, erotic art, what sensual poetry can be, and the role of marginalized bodies being perceived in full erotic glory. The Asian Arts Initiative is a non-profit art exhibition space and community center to service the Asian American and other BIPOC communities of Philadelphia, and this exhibit includes six artists of East and Southeast Asian descent: Jaewon Kim, Jongbum Kim, Jason Vu, Eva Wu, Shawna Wu, and Yidan Zeng.
The exhibit opens with a full-wall description from the curator and curatorial assistant, Joyce Chung and Dominique Chua, explaining that this exhibition highlights LGBTQ East and Southeast Asian erotic joy and pleasure in a universe where said communities are burdened by implicit and explicit violence. This joy is apparent from the start of the exhibit, framed by textile arts, photo collage installations, video installations, and found object dioramas in fluorescent, vivid colors.
Jongbum Kim’s felted chair with a matching rug suggests the playfulness in yonic bodily anatomy through the use of colorful, radial lines draped across a wooden skeleton. The rest of his work rests in the corner of the first, largest gallery space with appliques of smiling lips and satin, hair-like embroidery. His textile installations suggest human-like playfulness and at rest, in tender appreciation of the body in such a way through magnified specific body parts. Jaewon Kim’s, Shawna Wu’s, and Jason Vu’s erotic ropework sculptures and video installations use mediums that are also used in psychosomatic sexual practices in aesthetically pleasing ways. Eva Wu’s art in the first gallery space consists of dioramas and light boxes with digitally collaged images of Philadelphia BIPOC cultural workers in intimate backdrops, allowing bodies whose sexuality is commonly ignored, hypersexualized, and/or vilified to be honored in full, uncensored glory.
Yidan Zeng’s poetry printed via typewriter plays with the written art form, where its rules are as undefined as the literary showcase of words: a “sorrow” dripping down where its falling o’s look like tears, a snake-like shape of “desire”, and a “touch” that pulls away to a “too much”. Together, each work of art functions with the neighboring piece like an altar to the multi-faceted erotic appreciation of queer BIPOC.
One of the most subversive parts of this already dynamic exhibits was the pornographic video installations in a separate exhibition room behind the Asian Arts Initiative’s theater room. Curated by and starring Eva Wu, who is also one of the organizers of the Hot Bits queer porn festival and using the moniker Evie Snax for their performances, the looping un-simulated films feature a variety of queer and trans BIPOC adult film performers engaging in different types of sexual play. They feature many erotic practices, like roleplay or impact play, and continue to serve as a shrine to pleasured ecstasy. These films stand out in the world of fabricated, very cisheteronormative big-budget studio pornographic films made with a dopamine-eating white lens and kink practices performed in a way that creates false expectations. Instead, they are sexy, appreciative of marginalized sexual intimacy without staged fetishism for the viewer, expertly visually composed, and show everything and all without needing to cover the most vulnerable of natural human expressions from what a judgmental eye may deem as “too vulgar” as commonly imposed.
The Body You Want is an erotic exhibit that does not hold back or try to solely allude to something bordering on cheeky. It highlights all the variances and appreciations the artists see as part of their pleasure as well as the pleasure of people who hold community with them.
The Body You Want is on view until August 4, 2023 at the Asian Arts Initiative. You must be 18 years or older to visit this exhibit. Please check online for more information about their age requirements, visitation hours, and ongoing COVID-19 safety protocol.
