Review of Seattle Erotic Art Festival 2003
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The Seattle Erotic Art Festival, January 31-February 2 2003 at Town Hall, is the first erotic art show I have seen since the Benson Building Valentine's Day show in February 2000. This event was bigger, longer, friendlier, and charged with the excitement of a first event that turns out to be more wildly popular than anyone imagined.
When Wet Spot President Jim Duvall started kicking around the idea of having an erotic art festival, he was thinking small. "I started looking at things we could do," he said, events that fit into the Wet Spot's mandate. The Wet Spot is Seattle's sex positive community center. "We answer the question of 'where' for people who want to do sex-positive things." That question applies to erotic art: where can artists go to show their explicit pieces?
The idea snowballed. "There must have been a need for this event to happen," said Damon Buxton, festival web site designer and exhibiting artist. "So many people volunteered to make it happen." More than 100 artists submitted about 600 pieces. It quickly became apparent that the Wet Spot could not accommodate a large three-day show. Organizers also thought that a mainstream venue would attract a broader audience.
As Duvall had expected, artists had material, lots of material, and no place to present it. Artist Joshua Stewart commented, "Working artists do erotic pieces and throw them in the closet. They brought them out for this show." Artist liason Kozmo Bates was hoping for exactly that response. "My personal vision for being involved was to help bring peoples' fantasies out of the actual and figurative closets, to expose artists' and viewers' fantasies to the world."
While the show gave some artists a place to display what they had already created, others were inspired by the event to create art specifically for the show. Buxton arranged a session with a model to create his soft, sensual charcoal drawings. Then there was artist Wolf's series of images of male penises surrounded by doughnuts. As I admired "Nuts", which featured a chocolate glaze with nutty sprinkles, men wandered up to me and talked about being invited to the artist's house to pose for photographs, the "dicks and doughnuts" party.
A jury of four artists spent two days making their final selection of 300 works. "We wanted to pick things that were erotic and had artistic merit," said juror Randy Wood. At least one juror had to find the piece erotic in addition to screening for quality. "It was really fun. We tried to make it as diverse as we could," he said. Since quite a few submissions featured white women, the jurors especially appreciated images of men and people of color.
Sex sells. At the auction on Friday night, patrons flocked to the show. 800 people passed through the venue by the end of the night. "I am ecstatic," said Festival Director Allena Gabosch. "It's amazing." She was having a good night--the auction pulled in $10,000, half of which went to benefit the Wet Spot. Another 900 viewed the show on Saturday and Sunday, with collectors snapping up the pieces.
Many of the artists had never exhibited at an erotic art show. There were a number of names new to me. Other names I expected to see, like Jeff Hengst. His "Hanged One" featured a lifelike and nearly lifesized male nude, suspended with crossed leg, the strong muscles of his arms and back corded. This piece too came out of a group effort. Every year Hengst puts on a show for men, with volunteers enacting an art theme. This piece came from a show focused on the Tarot. "The Hanged One", Hengst said, "is an analogy for the creative process, you have to literally turn yourself upside down."
At some events it's as much fun to watch the crowd as the art. Friday night's auction patrons turned out dressed in the mix of fetish and formal we have come to expect of erotic art events in Seattle: black, velvet, spangles, corsets, suits, leather kilts, leather hats and pants and boots, low cut blouses, collars and locks. One woman wore a Parisian velvet and gold jacket, a pink pillbox hat, fishnet stockings, and red heels.
Overheard in the crowd: "there's some pretty good stuff here actually." There is an expectation that the quality of erotic art is less than expected of other types of art, a stereotype exploded by this show. Collectors and artists had the chance to view a huge range of media and styles. Artist Stewart commented, "I am amazed at how many I like that are different from what I do."
Given the theme, this was an almost entirely figurative show. The mood ranged from passionate and sincere, through romantic and tentative, to slickly commercial pieces produced for the internet market.
Sexual arousal is a permissible, even expected goal for this art. My favorite was Anne Brochu Lambert's "Music for Four Hands", in which a man with an erect phallus, playing a flute, is embraced from behind by a woman.
Gender analysis is fair game too. Marion Peck's marvelous trio of playful super realist images commented slyly on sexual politics: "Lil' Lesbians", featured women rolling on a pink-and-white, pearls-and-roses bed; "Check Point" showed two male soldiers stripped to nothing but berets and boots, one examining the other's ass; and in "Conan Gets a Blowjob", a woman knelt at the he-man's feet.
Many artists and patrons commented that the atmosphere of the show was respectful, toward the artists, the art, and the people viewing it. Volunteer Courtney Aldrich enthusiastically praised the staff for welcoming her and making her feel at home. This event introduced her to Seattle's sex-positive community. "I'm really impressed with how nice everyone is. There's a safe core here," she said. "I was raised around artists. There's a lot of really good artists here. I think it's wonderful to see the show of support from the community for the arts and for the Wet Spot."
For once I was able to attend a show presented without shame, without giggles, without quotes around the art. When I finally had the opportunity to view Erika Langley's Lusty Lady photos at Seattle Art Museum in 2000, I was confronted with a notice at the door that warned me I might find the images offensive. In contrast, posters advertising this show cheerfully promised arousal. Sure, my ID was checked at the door, but that just guaranteed that I was going to get to see the good stuff.
Given the theme of the show, it is a fair question to ask the artists what makes their work erotic. Said Hengst: "It's an awakening for me, a quickening." Joshua Stewart, whose brightly colored backgrounds highlight the rosy flesh on his pinup girls: "For me the inner quality. The pose, situational, not the body." Tantra Bensko, on her piece "Rose Miracles", women on blue pillars letting their hair blow free: "What makes this erotic is the joy of it, the celebration of being alive." Francis Zera, whose digital photograph "Vampires I" limned a woman's white bare throat threaded with red blood: "I try to be suggestive enough to lead people down the path."
Duvall says the staff plans to double the show next year, extending the show's hours and the amount of art presented. He expects the content of the submissions to expand too as artists feel more confident of the show's support. "I don't think people understood they could push the envelope," he said.
An event like this creates its own critical mass. As artists see what is possible to do, inspired by other artists, and encouraged by the venue itself, the milieu creates the freedom to dig out the boldest pieces from the closet, have even wilder art-making parties, and dare to create new art that is explicit, challenging, and hot.
For more information on the annual Seattle Erotic Art Festival, see their web site at www.seattleerotic.org
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