Barbican Art Gallery, London
Not many press releases come with a condom advertising a new show on the wrapper. But this gift - one that marries exhibitions and exhibitionism somewhat provocatively - is for Seduced: Art and Sex from Antiquity to Now, the latest exhibition in the Barbican's art gallery.
Although the gallery is promoting its latest blockbuster in this mildly titillating fashion, when you visit the exhibition it soon becomes apparent that Seduced is neither a bonkbuster nor the best-hung show in town that headline writers across the land had hoped it might be.
Purporting to be a serious survey of the representation of sex in artworks from approximately 500 BC to the present day, the curators of Seduced have undertaken a huge and barely possible job.
Sex and eroticism - more accurately Seduced's subject matter - have always been central to art, and the wealth of material that could have been included here is immense.
Containing more than 300 works of art - from the oldest, a series of Greek red-figure ceramics, to the most modern, some rather slight neon work from Tracey Emin - and over 70 artists, Seduced has much to tackle. As a result, it is an exhausting, though not necessarily exhaustive, show.
The first item to greet visitors is not an artwork at all. Glowingly lit in a show that is otherwise dimly, pinkly hued, it is an 18-inch plaster fig leaf, made to cover the modesty of Michelangelo's David when a cast of the statue visited the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1857.
Shorn of its statue, the leaf bulges lewdly in all the right places. Far from performing its intended job of de-eroticisation, it achieves the opposite: it invites viewers to exercise their imaginations about what they aren't seeing.
Nookie and crannies
From here, it's into a playground of sexual activity, much of it conducted at full throttle. Video screens hanging from the balconies showing Chris Cunningham's flex (Excerpt) and Andy Warhol's Blowjob play above our heads; at ground level, a nymph is assaulted by a "manifestly excited" (to quote a coy bit of signage) satyr in a statue dating from the 2nd century AD; and a Rodin Minotaur flexes his muscles.
There is also a very beautiful Roman sculpture of a sleeping hermaphrodite dating from the 2nd century occupying a central space downstairs, but other than its androgynous appeal, one wonders how it fits into this show.
Seduced is divided into several sections and by and large, the signage is concise and unobtrusive, even if the designers have chosen an ugly loopy font to present all the material, from signs to catalogue to posters.
Downstairs, a wall panel provides a basic who's who for characters in Biblical and Greek mythologies, although considering the abundance of material from Indian cultures, for example, it's curious that this is so limited.
In terms of physical design, temporary walls are used to create alcoves that both maximise viewing space and separate it from the flow of the main exhibition.
It is these areas that contain sections such as Under Lock and Key (containing material from the Gabinetto Secretum from the Archaeological Museum of Naples and the former Secretum at London's British Museum), Between the Covers (printed material) and spaces for slides from the sex researchers at the Kinsey Institute, for Robert Mapplethorpe's images of hardcore gay S&M and Nan Goldin's slideshow, Heartbeat.
Look away now
While these spaces are not meant to be hermetically sealed, sometimes the way they flow into each other doesn't work. One tacky section, situated near the exit and entitled the Voice of Sex, is intended to "convey the jouissance to be found in the voice".
Consisting of a stereo speaker set in a wall with a bench opposite, listeners are invited to sit while a tape of five actors muttering to their lovers lathers away. It is about as erotic as a bus queue.
Given the nature of the explicit material on view, visitors aged only 18 and over are admitted, and the gallery has whacking great signs in the foyer saying as much. (The under-aged can roam around the gallery's shop instead, inspecting the themed products - Belgian chocolates, volumes by the Marquis de Sade, Michel Foucault and DH Lawrence and a selection of vibrators.)
Even after entry, the signage to various antechambers offers warnings to the easily startled: "This section of the exhibition contains explicit photographs of homosexual and heterosexual intercourse which some may find shocking." Needless to say, the first such alcove, devoted to some films from the Kinsey Institute, is crammed, even on a Monday morning.
Are such signs necessary? Seduced is rammed with images and objects depicting graphic sexual activity - Eastern etchings; phallic wind chimes from ancient Rome; an image of some Turkish men conjoined in an enthusiastic variation of ring-a-ring-of-roses - so why single out some as having the greater propensity to shock?
Goldin's slideshow of friends, lovers, families, gets this treatment, so too, predictably, does Mapplethorpe's X Portfolio, photographs taken in the late 1970s of a very specific subculture, much of it now lost to Aids.
Exactly what is represented in Seduced? An uncritically reproduced male gaze? Yes. While women get a better deal out of this than might be expected in what feels like an essentially conservative show, others do less well.
Homosexual representation in Seduced is concentrated on a tiny, male microcosm and it comes with warning labels. Lesbians don't even exist here, unless one counts the few Sapphic images that have been produced for male enjoyment.
Race and the question of how "the other" has been sexualised in art - something that would prove far more tricky - isn't even approached.
Ultimately, there are a lot of holes in Seduced - and they are not the ones that the curators might want us to think about.
Louise Gray is a freelance arts writer and editor
Project data
Cost: Undisclosed
Curators: Marina Wallace, Martin Kemp, Joanne Bernstein
Exhibition design: Stanton Williams Architects
Exhibition ends: 27 January 2008
Not many press releases come with a condom advertising a new show on the wrapper. But this gift - one that marries exhibitions and exhibitionism somewhat provocatively - is for Seduced: Art and Sex from Antiquity to Now, the latest exhibition in the Barbican's art gallery.
Although the gallery is promoting its latest blockbuster in this mildly titillating fashion, when you visit the exhibition it soon becomes apparent that Seduced is neither a bonkbuster nor the best-hung show in town that headline writers across the land had hoped it might be.
Purporting to be a serious survey of the representation of sex in artworks from approximately 500 BC to the present day, the curators of Seduced have undertaken a huge and barely possible job.
Sex and eroticism - more accurately Seduced's subject matter - have always been central to art, and the wealth of material that could have been included here is immense.
Containing more than 300 works of art - from the oldest, a series of Greek red-figure ceramics, to the most modern, some rather slight neon work from Tracey Emin - and over 70 artists, Seduced has much to tackle. As a result, it is an exhausting, though not necessarily exhaustive, show.
The first item to greet visitors is not an artwork at all. Glowingly lit in a show that is otherwise dimly, pinkly hued, it is an 18-inch plaster fig leaf, made to cover the modesty of Michelangelo's David when a cast of the statue visited the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1857.
Shorn of its statue, the leaf bulges lewdly in all the right places. Far from performing its intended job of de-eroticisation, it achieves the opposite: it invites viewers to exercise their imaginations about what they aren't seeing.
Nookie and crannies
From here, it's into a playground of sexual activity, much of it conducted at full throttle. Video screens hanging from the balconies showing Chris Cunningham's flex (Excerpt) and Andy Warhol's Blowjob play above our heads; at ground level, a nymph is assaulted by a "manifestly excited" (to quote a coy bit of signage) satyr in a statue dating from the 2nd century AD; and a Rodin Minotaur flexes his muscles.
There is also a very beautiful Roman sculpture of a sleeping hermaphrodite dating from the 2nd century occupying a central space downstairs, but other than its androgynous appeal, one wonders how it fits into this show.
Seduced is divided into several sections and by and large, the signage is concise and unobtrusive, even if the designers have chosen an ugly loopy font to present all the material, from signs to catalogue to posters.
Downstairs, a wall panel provides a basic who's who for characters in Biblical and Greek mythologies, although considering the abundance of material from Indian cultures, for example, it's curious that this is so limited.
In terms of physical design, temporary walls are used to create alcoves that both maximise viewing space and separate it from the flow of the main exhibition.
It is these areas that contain sections such as Under Lock and Key (containing material from the Gabinetto Secretum from the Archaeological Museum of Naples and the former Secretum at London's British Museum), Between the Covers (printed material) and spaces for slides from the sex researchers at the Kinsey Institute, for Robert Mapplethorpe's images of hardcore gay S&M and Nan Goldin's slideshow, Heartbeat.
Look away now
While these spaces are not meant to be hermetically sealed, sometimes the way they flow into each other doesn't work. One tacky section, situated near the exit and entitled the Voice of Sex, is intended to "convey the jouissance to be found in the voice".
Consisting of a stereo speaker set in a wall with a bench opposite, listeners are invited to sit while a tape of five actors muttering to their lovers lathers away. It is about as erotic as a bus queue.
Given the nature of the explicit material on view, visitors aged only 18 and over are admitted, and the gallery has whacking great signs in the foyer saying as much. (The under-aged can roam around the gallery's shop instead, inspecting the themed products - Belgian chocolates, volumes by the Marquis de Sade, Michel Foucault and DH Lawrence and a selection of vibrators.)
Even after entry, the signage to various antechambers offers warnings to the easily startled: "This section of the exhibition contains explicit photographs of homosexual and heterosexual intercourse which some may find shocking." Needless to say, the first such alcove, devoted to some films from the Kinsey Institute, is crammed, even on a Monday morning.
Are such signs necessary? Seduced is rammed with images and objects depicting graphic sexual activity - Eastern etchings; phallic wind chimes from ancient Rome; an image of some Turkish men conjoined in an enthusiastic variation of ring-a-ring-of-roses - so why single out some as having the greater propensity to shock?
Goldin's slideshow of friends, lovers, families, gets this treatment, so too, predictably, does Mapplethorpe's X Portfolio, photographs taken in the late 1970s of a very specific subculture, much of it now lost to Aids.
Exactly what is represented in Seduced? An uncritically reproduced male gaze? Yes. While women get a better deal out of this than might be expected in what feels like an essentially conservative show, others do less well.
Homosexual representation in Seduced is concentrated on a tiny, male microcosm and it comes with warning labels. Lesbians don't even exist here, unless one counts the few Sapphic images that have been produced for male enjoyment.
Race and the question of how "the other" has been sexualised in art - something that would prove far more tricky - isn't even approached.
Ultimately, there are a lot of holes in Seduced - and they are not the ones that the curators might want us to think about.
Louise Gray is a freelance arts writer and editor
Project data
Cost: Undisclosed
Curators: Marina Wallace, Martin Kemp, Joanne Bernstein
Exhibition design: Stanton Williams Architects
Exhibition ends: 27 January 2008
