Forbidden Fruits (R-18)
A 3D Virtual Online Exhibition • May 2021
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
Saskatchewan Artists:
Joseph Anderson, Xiao Han, Qiming Sun, Marie Webster.
Guest Artists:
Lululily, Sugar SHERRY, Andrew Zealley
INDEX
I: Exhibition Statement
II: Exclusive Artist Interview
III: Artist BIO + Statements
IV: Guided Visual Tour
I: EXHIBITION STATEMENT
Forbidden Fruits gathers artists that share a passion for promoting inclusivity and sex positivity. This exhibition features artwork that explores the sensorial, psychological, and aesthetic aspects of erotic art absent in mainstream contemporary art, such as research in Pleasure, Pornography vs. Erotic Art, and historical and contemporary Queer Erotica and their cultural impact, BDSM and extended cultures, etc. This exhibition demonstrates the dynamic and engaging nature of sexual indulgence of diverse groups and orientations through an intimate, semi-private, and 3D virtual platform. To create a highly engaging experience that retains the physical gallery experience's suspense and excitement by utilizing virtual environments.
As a multi-sensorial praxis, sex is meant to be explored and enjoyed in various manners by humans of diverse groups and orientations. For eons, this carnal knowledge has been exercised in numerous formats, with Erotic Art as one of the earliest means of indulgence. Copious sophisticated erotica could be found on temple murals, ancient scrolls, and sculptural reliefs of many civilizations worldwide; even famous historical pieces like Fragonard’s L’Escarpolette or Bouguereau’s Dante and Virgile, are overflowing with subtly implemented sexual undertones. Over the centuries, countless artistic representations of sensuality were crudely erased or heavily censored by hypocrites and conservative authorities. Erotic art as a genre has also gradually vanished from the public space. This exhibition spires to reintroduce sensuality, joy, desire, and myriad other complex emotions at the moment of intimacy back into the gallery space.
II: EXCLUSIVE ARTIST INTERVIEW
Kyuubi Culture Artist Collective has invited all 7 participating artists of Forbidden Fruits to partake in our Artist Interview to further contextualize and provide exclusive insights for this exhibition. Due to these topics' sensitive nature, all the submitted answers are posted anonymously and in no specific orders. We want to create a casual and cozy atmosphere, encouraging the artists to open up and be bold with their voices.
Q1: What is your perspective on expressing the personal experience of intimacy through visual language?
Image: “You Can't Breathe”, Joseph Anderson, 7 ¼“ x 7 ¾“, Collage, Ink on Paper, 2021.
A1: “I think visual expression is one of the best ways to exude intimacy on a personal level. Intimate moments are so personal and often times the limitation of the spoken word is incapable of inviting and sharing in of said experiences. As they say you eat with your eyes first, why would the sexual experience be any different. I want to engage, I want to entice, I want to pull you in.”
A2: “As artists, we received more training in creative thinking: we pay closer attention to details in life and then associate and expand on these details. When I am in a sexual relationship with a man, this energy will manifest in many visual elements in my life. My main focus is public art, so I will naturally use my creativity to produce a sexy atmosphere with lighting, fragrance, colors, materials, caressing, or teasing. I usually make small erotic drawings at my leisure. Maybe I'm under the influence of many erotic films I have watched, and this is my way of self-insertion while studying the characters in these films.”
A3: “Honestly, one of my first experiences of seeing nude figures was through art history books. When I was younger, I was always amazed and confused by the casualness of nakedness in artwork. It looked both frightening and freeing. I love when artist really push sexual boundaries in their art, even to the point of being controversial.”
A4: “Despite being the most common means of communication, verbal language, has many limitations, which is not the case for visual language. Human intimacy is an emotionally and physically intense experience. It is relatively straightforward yet contains multiple layers of complex sensation that is difficult, if not impossible, to decipher through words alone. Visual arts share such quality with sex, making it the perfect media to capture and express the feral yet delicate energy emanates from ardent love-making.”
A5: “Risking the personal in relation to intimacy and sex is central to my work, and is subject to repetition and re-evaluation over time. As a sexually-active queer-identified person living and aging with HIV, my perspective continually refreshes, organizes, and shapes this self-risk-taking and its representations. Disclosure of HIV status already risks the personal in sexually intimate ways. As Susan Sontag writes, “to get AIDS is precisely to be revealed […] the illness flushes out an identity that might have remained hidden from neighbours, job-mates, family, friends” (AIDS and Its Metaphors, 1988). Homosexuality is actually a behaviour not an identity, but men who have sex with men (so-called MSM) have had to work with ideas of homosexual identity because society decides it. Facing into and challenging this identity is critical in finding individual positions and strategies for living and sexing. In direct response to the question, it’s important for me to point out that my work and the narratives that I put to work extend beyond the visual. My work evolves from processes of sound and listening (as a correlate of sound). Sound and the ways we listen can be particularly affective in relation to risking the personal and intimate, sexual experiences. Sound, like sex, is movement.”
Q2: What inspired/motivated you to incorporate sex into your series of artworks?
Image: “Agony 1 (痛苦)”, Sugar SHERRY, 11’’ x 16’’, Digital Drawing, 2021.
A1: “People always say food and sex are human nature, I am no foodie, yet sex always interests and inspires me. It may also be my long-term curiosity about the world, which has led me to be particularly keen on exploring the limitations of human sensuality.”
A2: “The identity that society projects on me is organized around my sexual desires: I am who I fuck. In creative response, I insist on incorporating real narratives of sex, desire, and intimacy (as I experience them through so-called outlaw, anonymous, or public sex) and resist same-sex narratives constructed by mainstream notions of gayness that seek to assimilate my tribe (like the institution of marriage for example), or gentrifying forces of homonormativity—what I call “gentriqueerification”—that work to assimilate spectral genders and sexualities from within the expanded LGBTQ2+ community and its lexicon. Neutralize the binary!”
A3: “One part is to find a release for all the accumulating emotions, another part is to create documentation for my personal experiences.”
A4: “Sex and human sexuality have always been a part of my work. I think sexuality is part of the human experience. For myself, as well as my practice, the normalization of sexual expression is a focus, whatever that may be for an individual. There is nothing 'taboo' or off-limits. What inspires my work is life. I find the relation of organic matter to the human form fascinating and extremely inspiring.”
A5: “I had made similar work before, but probably not this revealing. I tried to make the images have an element of danger, nothing too vanilla. My inspiration was to push myself beyond what I was comfortable doing. I wanted to be hesitant for people to see the final work.”
Q3: How would you categorize the theme you depicted in this series of your artworks, and how does it connect to your artistic discipline?
Image: “Lululily: The Dark Circles Series (Lululily之黑眼圈系列)”, Lululily, Ink on Paper, 2020.
A1: “I started drawing these tiny erotic pictures after the pandemic to combat the depression of the COVID-19 lockdown. I reconnected with my ex-bf, whom I first met through a hook-up in a foreign country: We checked into the best hotel in the city center, opened the curtains of the floor-length window, and made love in front of the royal palace for the entire afternoon. It was a high-tech hotel with lighting and music, and most importantly, it has a magnificent view. Since then, we always check into hotels with the best views throughout our journey and we were having sex non-stop while speeding down the highway; It was dangerous but left me with unforgettable erotic memories! Although we broke up, this reunion reignited my passion and motivated me to make more erotic drawings, the power of sex is unfathomable!”
A2: “This series, I would categorize as impressions, or ephemeral art. Something that is left behind, a mention of the happening once experienced. Ephemerality is constant theme in my work. The photographs and prints are what is left behind after the moment of initial art/or love making. This is a documentation of process, which I love. I am cognisant of the fact that this moment will never again be felt or experienced in the same way with that same person, as we are at that particular time. But one can look back on what remains and reminisce.”
A3: “The theme of risk is central in this work. The video responds to risk in relation to sex in the era of AIDS industry, and connects to my work through a focus on music. The visuals are organized by the music and the repetition of certain words and phrases (developed and performed by Robert Bolton, who responded to my writings on sex, risk, and explicit queer intimacies in his lyrics). The primary visuals that I use in the video are text and icons of disco culture: the mirror ball, the fog machine, beams and swirling patterns of light in the air and projected on the dance floor. The disco is an important site of queer socio-sonic and -sexual world-making. The disco is a site of queer resistance and celebration, often defiant and rebellious: a queer audiotopia. Text is an ongoing area of work in my practice; disco iconography too.”
A4: “Drawing: When the event is "happening," I sometimes imagine the pictures I saw at that time from the perspective of a third party and then record the images I imagined afterward; some of them are derived from dreams or my own imagination. Photography: Most of it is a record of the bondage process. The out-of-focus shot from slow shutter speed and the high-contrast black and white tones give people visual tingling and dizziness, similar to hallucinations.”
A5: “Almost all of my earlier works are staged and performative "still life" photographs. Practice with BDSM is also a highly theatrical and improvised form of performance. Unlike my previous “still life,” this series of photography possesses the quality of a "decisive moment." It's irreversible and unrepeatable; it is a moment that cannot be "performed." Just like French photographer Henri Cartier Bresson's work Place de l'Europe. Saint Lazare station. (1932) I use photography to capture those irreversible movements: Like the flench right before stomping into a puddle or that split second before orgasm. I seek to capture the human body in its most natural condition, especially when the "true self" emerges: Like the uncontrollable facial expression before climax or the moment of clarity after orgasm.”
Q4: Would you describe your artworks featured in this exhibition as kinky? If so, who would be the intended viewers, and how would you engage with them?
Image: “Upon That Flower Field • All My Peaches”, Qiming Sun, 11’’ x 14’’, Oil on Panel, 2021.
A1: “To a mainstream audience it would definitely be seen as kinky. The intended viewers of this particular body of work would be anyone who has an interest in BDSM play under the umbrellas of Branding, Shibari, Acarophilia, Partialism and Paraphilia. The engagement with any particular audience comes from the subject matter and its handling. I have made a conscious effort to leave identity out of the work itself, using a combination of black and white filter with color focal points on the flesh. This is done to intensify the degree of branding and raised flesh emoting a sense of pain/ pleasure, depending on the viewers experience.”
A2: “I don't have any specific kinks: I wish I do, so I might have more improvement. If there is a kink, I hope everyone who I have been with is my audience. In addition to this exhibition, I will still present to my audience my erotic art. Because I never stopped drawing, more and more people will start to like them.”
A3: “Kinky won't be among the adjectives I'd personally choose to describe my works; what I depicted is simply one of many mundane activities(of course being fun and enjoyable) exercised by most living beings in nature. Yet kinks or fetishes are tricky to define; it is pretty much up to the individual's interpretation. We live in a massive universe; seemingly ordinary matter could be a major turn-on for somebody. A discarded banana peel, for instance, soft it may be, a piece of insignificant waste in most people's eyes. Yet you'll never know if anyone has caressed their genitals with the said soft interior of the fruit peel.”
A4: “Of course it’s kinky. But who does not have a kink？My primary audience collects on niche BDSM platforms such as Twitter. I found many people there with similar interests and they document their fetishes through photography. Many of these photos or textual documentation are of excellent quality and can be classified as fine art, which naturally makes Artists my secondary audience. I usually probe artists with suggestive topics and give up if there are no responses. There are traces of kinky innuendo hidden within the artworks; sometimes, a tiny opening is all it takes to lift that "pretentious" veil. After that, we will become more intimate and sympathetic to each other.”
A5: “I don’t describe this video as kinky. I describe is as a lure. It is intended for discos, private viewing (like an intimate sex booth, what used to be called a buddy-booth), and art and activist spaces and methods. I fantasize seeing the video projected on the screens in The Black Eagle, as part of the cycle of porn that is typically screened.”
Q5: How does your work comment on current social or political issues related to sexuality and kinks?
Image: “Remnants3(a)”, Marie Webster, 24’’ x 48’’, Digital Photography, 2021.
A1: “My work comments on a very prevalent social issue within the kink community. Race play and specifically white dominants in power play dynamics. Even though within my work the black man is in the dominant position, the concept of slave/master play has been an ongoing issue in dealings with interracial partnerships. There is narrative of complete eradication of such dynamics, regardless of how long or common it's been used. To use such terms in play trivializes the experience of any peoples who have suffered the realities of such a dynamic and the choice of those privileged to adopt and easily remove such a role for pleasure's sake, abhorrent. Sensitivity to any personal experience is required. That is the basis of kink. Clear boundaries and limits must be set and within the intimacy of two consenting adults. Who outside of their dynamic gets a say to the depths of their engagement?”
A2: “It's nothing political, but most of my protagonists are female, so there might be some female-dominated views, such as femdom: to make the female the dominant role in a relationship, maybe this is my rebellious response to current mainstream gender roles.”
A3: “For me, sexuality is sacred and sublime. Much like the human body, sexuality is an instinctual and natural part of human existence. Yet, it was often deemed “unclean” or “sinful” by the prudent dominating religious beliefs or conservative societies. Not to mention the never-ending suppression of sexualities outside the arbitrary hereto-normality and countless heinous crimes committed against the LGBTQ2S+ people by the mainstream society ever since certain religions started to plague the Western Civilizations. My work always possesses a consistent undertone in representing the beauty of marginalized groups and rebelling against the hypocrisy of the tyrannical ruling authorities. This particular series of works that focus on nature and Queer sexuality is no exception.”
A4: “Lucid Dreaming Ludic Waking comments on the biopolitics of being sexually-active while living with HIV, continued surveillance and documentation of positive bodies by the State even in an era of industrial risk mitigations where many HIV-positive people are U=U (undetectable = untransmittable). My body is on record. Why is my body on record?”
A5: “I will say "female gaze." Generally, I would avoid political issues since I initially wanted to focus on the pleasure aspect of a BDSM relationship. However, when discussing BDSM-related topics in public, I feel forced to make it a political issue to dignify the topic. This sense of obligation is a demonstration of the “male gaze." I choose girls (Masochist) as my model. On one hand, girls are more intimate; and on the other hand, I want to use my praxis advantages to equalize the "male perspective." Most of my models are Asian lesbians (Masochist) with self-awareness. I deliberately avoid binary relationships and gender roles, such as male vs. female, Sadist vs. Masochist. In my works, the M holds part of the power, and S has weaknesses in the relationship. I believe this contrasting perspective reflects the dynamic of humanity.”
Q6: Do you find it challenging to create artworks that deal with sensitive subject matters such as sex? If so, how would you cope with it?
Image: “Peach”, Xiao Han, Digital Photography, 2019.
A1: “I don’t find the creation itself challenging. I do find it challenging to keep the ideas and their representation up-to-date (in terms of information and the ways I convey the information), relevant, risky, and demanding. I cope by staying true to myself, my desires, and the kinds of sex that I really want.”
A2: “Sex is a susceptible subject, sometimes this lable can be dangerous. As an individual, I have a strong desire to vent and have the ability to make it happen. Yet once I vent, it will surely be rejected by the general public. It's like a confrontation between a rebellious teenager and conservative parents, but this battle is far greater than such a simple single argument. So when making erotic art, I will distinguish my audiences: I want to make extreme content out of my instinct, but I will occasionally compromise with more mainstream erotica for easy public sharing. Sometimes I will secretly draw porn on sample papers in bookstores. This behavior is a bit like secretly urinating in public or discreetly having sex in a crowd. The satisfaction from these pranks is like an orgasm!”
A3: “The biggest challenge is legal restrictions. When I post my drawings or photographs on social media, they can be easily branded as "vulgar, pornographic" content and be banned. Physical artworks may also be classified as illegal. I find it challenging to overcome and may try much more subtle ways of expression in the future.”
A4: “I’ve done quite a few sexualized drawings in the past but many are still hidden in my sketchbooks! I’m not sure why I find it difficult to share art like this, but I think part of it is my religious background. Almost everything sexual was seen as sinful so if you had “bad” feelings or thoughts they had to be private. I still like the secret aspect of making sexy drawing that only I get to see.”
A5: “Never.”
Image: “LUCID DREAMING LUCID WALKING”, Andrew Zealley, new media, 2020.
III. ARTIST BIO + STATEMENTS
My submission to Forbidden Fruits draws on my earliest memories of seeing erotic images, specifically the glossy photographs found in printed pornography (in my case, some old “dirty magazines” hidden in a wood pile at a local park). My recent artistic foray into collage meshes well with his decidedly paper medium. The images in my collages have been taken from Jock Magazine & Machismo Magazine (both from the early 2000s) and overlaid with hand-drawn, cutout text. I wanted the sentences to read as familiar-sounding declarations of love; “I would die for you,” being unable to breathe, or one’s heart stopping. However, these phrases of affection have been taken to an extreme, almost violent, level. The expressions on the men’s faces hover between tenderness and aggression. The placement of the words, and cropping of the images, further obscure the overall picture, making their activities implied but ultimately unclear.
This series of works is a record of me losing control of my emotion. The photograph of the hotel door number, the objects inside of the room, and the portrait with the guest are sketches of my inebriating love. I never wanted commitment, yet I’m tortured by uncertainty. I relish the abuse restrained by the darkness in this chaotic inebriation. BDSM not only refers to physical pain but also psychological torment. And I, addicted to this mental suffering. Two rivals in this emotional tango, confirming each other's kink and torturing to "not satisfying each other." Such a tangled desire and emotion is an inebriating experience.
My painting series "Upon That Flower Field" depicts moments when people share or self-indulge bodily pleasures in the wilderness. The allegorical depictions of each imagery gradually depart from the realistic to the mythological and surreal dream-like narratives. Inspirations of the series are either driven from personal fantasies or from my memories of laying bare beneath the gaze of dazzling constellations, under the shades of primordial sycamore, forgo all the arbitrary conformities and curtailment fabricated by human society and inebriated from the sheer ecstasy of untamed desire. Within the embrace of mother nature is where I find personal solace and where I profoundly connect with my body, with my spirit, and with others. Besides exploring my ongoing interest in the connection between the human body and nature, this series scrutinizes the utmost magical and primal form of blissfulness emanated during these types of untamed yet tender, incredibly intense moments of intimacy.
This series of work explores the tantalizing eroticism I have found in my lifelong exploration of kink. Within the act of play there is an escape from the self. The body and mind are lifted to heights of pleasure unimaginable, no wonder the French call it ‘le petit mort’. As addicting as these moments can be, one of my favourite aspects of kink is the come down. The settling into the body once more, in a quiet hush of the aftermath. The remnants, remaining traces of a moment since past, left like a story upon the flesh. Deepening hues of colour and delicate impressions of rope and bite marks, like intricate lace work unique to each lover. To look upon each mark, to trace your fingers over the swollen soreness, one is brought back to the moment of ecstasy, but even these although lingering, will soon be gone, like the moment. This is the notion of ephemerality, in life, in love making and in art.
This is a complicated story. I have been depressed for a long time brooding in the emotional trauma caused by my ex-boyfriend. During the pandemic, my ex and I reconnected and kept a complicated relationship, which helped me cope with the depressing and boring COVID-Lockdown. This mentally addictive and abusive relationship reminds me of BDSM. I send him erotic art I made for his entertainment. After a while, I found drawing erotica quite amusing. So I continued to draw intermittently, and my life came back on track. Now my most exciting hobby is to draw and share pornographic drawings with my close friends. Many of them enjoyed it. Now I do not need my ex to heal my scars; I can heal myself with these erotic drawings. I also secretly draw them on the test papers in bookstores such as MUJI in Shanghai. It is like a prank to entertain myself and to flirt with the unsuspected customer in the stores.
This series of artworks are about bondage and BDSM. The theme of selected photography is "illusion." I tend to capture the sensation of dreamlike dizziness through photography with an unfocused lens. My drawings theme around "pain," they depict the pain and struggle of bound-up people.
The phrase “lucid dreaming ludic waking” is intended as an axis of understanding, one that connects to notions of the oneiric and ludic work/play as they entangle with conversations about art, risk, sex, and HIV and AIDS. I also use the phrase as a way to understand and express ideas of aesthetic self-creation and agency in practices of “lucid dreaming,” the serious and the playful in “ludic,” and the disruptive borders between dreaming and waking in queer ecologies, spatialities, and temporalities. In ludic, radical, and risky MSM sexual practices normative notions of telos collide with aphrodisiac. Moving visuals of iconic disco objects occupy the screen, drifting slowly and seemingly without linear narrative as a conveyance of the non- and recombinant-teleologies that activate disco, house, and minimalist musics. These musics are, for me, important mapping strategies for understanding historical and evolving narratives of AIDS, the shifting location of risk, and the vital (and necessary) role of music in queer culture.
IV: GUIDED VISUAL TOUR
This exhibition is proudly supported by:
