WHAT: “F*CK ART”
WHEN: Through January 21, 2013, Sunday – Thursday 10:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m., Friday – Saturday 10:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m.
WHERE: Museum of Sex, 233 5th Avenue, New York
WHY THIS SHOW MATTERS: Public art has had a long-standing relationship with the intimate lives of its creators. Roman graffiti is a prime example, wherein politics and cultural issues were addressed through various degrees of suggestive public scrawling, defining the society's stance on sexuality, identity, and public space. The Museum of Sex’s current exhibition seeks to do no less, curated by Emilie Baltz and Mark Snyder with chief advisors Meghan Coleman and Alex Tanaka (of the gallery Mighty Tanaka). They recruited 20 international street artists to set up shop on the third floor and make work about space and fornication.
The artists have ended up creating something that resembles an adult playground: a combination of more conventionally installed wall works and site-specific sculptures crafted specifically for the exhibition. Andrew H. Shirley and William Thomas Porter’s 14-foot “Fuck Bike #001” greets visitors at the entrance, a hybrid dildo and stationary bike contraption. That particular installion is complimented in the same room by another re-interpreted piece of technology, this one from Wonderpuss Octopus, titled “The Future Tools Collection,” which sex toys, turned into psychadelic objects via elaborate patterns of paint and glass beads.
The exhibition is not all whimsical sex toys, though — but it is in fact mostly fun and games. Miss Van’s soft and feminine female figure paintings are rococo-esque, while WOLFTITS’s painted floor mural depicting a fuzzy pink she-bear with multiple rows of exposed breasts isn’t exactly for kids. El Celso creates a fun riff on Tom Wesselman's classic "Great American Nude," while the great DICKCHICKEN returned from retirement to present a wheatpaste wallpaper called “Dreams of Childhood,” featuring a plethora of classic cartoon characters with the artist's signature penis motif sprouting from their heads.
To see work from the exhibition click the slide show.