Erotica comes out of the closet
Portofino Poet
Dave http://www.geocities.com/daily_dose_of_dave
Reuters | AFP | Photos
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Wednesday February 11, 08:47 PM
Erotica arouses art market
By Richard Chang
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Erotic art is stepping out of the closet into
museums and galleries, as a growing mass of collectors are openly
enjoying and willing to pay top dollar for the aesthetic and sensual
thrills of previously forbidden fruit.
"There's a realisation that art can be sexy and erotic and you can
show it in your home. It's becoming more permissible," said Allena
Gabosch, director of The Wet Spot, a not-for-profit group that
organises the annual Seattle Erotic Arts Festival
(http://www.seattleerotic.org). "I find great pleasure in art that
affects all of my senses."
More and more people seem to agree, judging from the festival's
attendance, which doubled to 4,000 in its second annual show in the
first weekend of February -- timed to usher in Valentine's Day. On
display were 500 works priced from $40 to $10,000 (21 to 5,290
pounds), by 187 artists from 10 countries.
Photo-realistic paintings of pin-up fantasy women by Hajime Sorayama
(http://www.sorayama.net) sell for as much as $25,000, while those of
Olivia De Berardinis (http://www.eolivia.com) go for up to $75,000.
"We're moving into a renaissance in that the number of artists
producing erotica is growing," said Durk Dehner, director of the Tom
of Finland Foundation in Los Angeles
(http://www.tomoffinlandfoundation.org).
The nonprofit group was founded in 1984 to preserve and promote the
work of homoerotic Finnish artist Touko Laaksonen, who signed his
drawings "Tom of Finland" when he started submitting them to American
muscle magazines in 1956. The group's mission now extends to erotic
art of all persuasions.
It's a far cry from when "forbidden art" was hidden away or published
only in the underground press. Tom's fantasy sketches, featuring
incredibly well-endowed masculine gay men, are now on permanent
display in museums in Portland, Oregon; Los Angeles; San Francisco;
and Helsinki, Finland. Controversial gay photographer Robert
Mapplethorpe has also become an icon.
With this change in status, a Tom of Finland sketch that cost $350 in
1978 now sells for $12,000, Dehner said. Even so, a 21-inch wide 1989
poster of his is available at the foundation's Web site for as low as
$20.
"We're on the edge of where erotic works will probably start
increasing at faster rates," Dehner said, noting they are now
perceived as fine art. "If people can feel that something is held in
high regard, they're more comfortable with it."
The difference between art and pornography is clear to "Miss Naomi,"
who has acquired 4,000 museum-quality works worth millions of dollars
(http://www.missnaomi.com) over 12 years.
"Pornography gives you one message -- Let's get it on, let's have
sex," said the author of "Forbidden Art: The World of Erotica" and
"Visions of Erotica" (Schiffer, http://www.schifferbooks.com). "Erotic
art engages you in a thoughtful process. It's an interpretation about
it, the talent, the unusual or beautiful way the art is displayed."
Among her notable artefacts is a 31-inch-long white fibreglass phallic
sculpture used as a murder weapon in the movie "Clockwork Orange."
Miss Naomi, who paid $3,000 for it in 2000, has it insured for
$15,000. She estimates that many items have tripled or quadrupled in
value since she bought them.
Paintings and sketches by Etienne, who was strongly influenced by Tom
of Finland, now sell for 10 times their value in the 1970s, said Pet
Sylvia, who runs Art(at)Large, an erotic figurative art gallery in New
York (http://www.artatlarge.com).
Among contemporary works, those of John John Jesse, whose
Catholic-themed paintings cross over into the "lowbrow" category, have
nearly tripled in value over the last 18 months, said Sylvia, a
self-described "heterosexual drag queen."
"Believe it or not, it's through word of mouth. We're dealing with an
inventory of his that we can't keep in the house long enough," he
said.
Nude paintings on wood by Frances Turner, of less-than-perfect human
subjects, have also escalated in value since the British artist died
of a brain tumour last July at age 38, Sylvia said. "She found beauty
in everyone, whether they were heavily tattooed, obese, an amputee."
"Mainstream" artists are finding their way into the market as well.
Jeff Hengst (http://www.hengst.com), largely known for his painting
commissioned by the Seattle Space Needle, showed his edgier works at
the Seattle Erotic Arts Festival, priced as high as $10,000.
"We're moving toward becoming more comfortable with human sexuality,
so that those artists creating (erotic art) will have a lot more
vehicles to showcase their work," said Dehner of the Tom of Finland
Foundation.
As a result of these changes, "now is a very good time to purchase
erotic art," he said. "It's my feeling that, in the next 5 to 10
years, it's going to break and make much deeper inroads into the
mainstream."