ShowStudio - Selling Sex

I went back to ShowStudio to see their new exhibition called Selling Sex. To read about their previous exhibition scroll down and read my post ShowStudio - In Your Face. ShowStudio is an amazing place and i would advise everyone to check it out and its free to enter! They always display interesting and unusual work, that in most galleries would not. The exhibition contains a mixture of pieces such as photography, film, painting, fashion, collage and even sex toys.

Selling Sex battles against how many images of women created by the media that are done by men, often using the female body to get out to wider audience. The prospective in this exhibition is changed by featuring all female artists, therefore examining an 'self-other' relationship and examining their unique relationships to sex and the female nude. The exhibition allows women a chance to get there work displayed without the ''male gaze''. only 8% of the work exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art is created by women and at the the Tate’s female holdings amount to a only 15%. The imbalance doesn't only exist in fine art. But also in fashion, nearly all famous designers are male and major shots are done by top male photographers. Film women hold only 33% of all speaking roles and only 7% of all directors in Hollywood are women. And there remain only three industries in which women earn more money than men - pornography, prostitution and modelling.


ShowStudios aim is an exhibition made up of exclusively women artists looking at sex and nudity - examining a woman's version of a woman and asking how it differs from a man’s? Is an image of a nude woman empowered in the hand of a female artist? Does it resist traditionally constructed gender roles? Does it mock a voyeuristic male gaze?



The work I felt most draw towards was Porn sewn on Valentino Advert by Inge Jacobsen. Photography graduate Inge Jacobsen is a London based artist who takes found images and makes them her own through embroidering, cutting, and colleaguing.The images she uses are from women’s high fashion magazines and pornographic images found on the Internet. The reason I felt so draw towards this work is I have a personal passion for embroidery and collage, especially on photographic images.

ShowStudio - In Your Face

I travelled to London with some friends and we came across a gallery called ShowStudio (1 - 9 Bruton Place, London, W1J 6LT) and by came across i mean searched for hours. I really wanted to see the exhibition that was being held called In Your Face, named because the work being shown is very bold and defiant. The exhibition show work ranging from fine art, sculpture, film, fashion and photography, yet they all shared the same idea of being 'in your face'. Coming from a BTEC Art & Design course I always find myself drawn toward all types of mediums in art not only photography, i look at the work displayed and get inspiration to add to my own practice.

I went because i heard that one of Nick Knight's photographic prints was on display but while there i found myself also very interested in the work shown elsewhere around the exhibition. All the work dealed with different ideas of portrait and I found this very interesting. I found the gallery very easy to move around in the and staff very willing to name and explain what the peices were about as none of the work came with text, perhaps to leave the veiwer to make you their own ideas of the work.

The work of Nick Knight that i went to see was 'Devon' (1997). It is a photograph of Japanese/American model/actress Devon Aoki dressed Alexander McQueen shot for the cover of the style magazine Visionaire in 1997. The photo is a combination of two visionaires in the fashion, a world famous fashion photographer and a world famous designer. The work is meant to be confrontational and thought-provoking, and captures Aoki with a dark, futuristic style. The colours are muted and cold, along with Aoki serious expression makes a powerful emotion come from the photo. As i stood in front of the image I felt as if she was also looking back at me, i feel this is very important in portrature.



Another display of work I found interesting was 'Sauna Faces' by Stephen Doherty, 2011. The pieces are created using crayon, coloured-pencil and watercolour on coloured paper. Sauna Faces is a series of illustrated characters of a mixture of regulars, one offs, or first timers at a gay sauna. Some are people he has met, others are constructs of what Doherty imagines must be commonly shared feelings among sauna-goers.

"Lonely, lovelorn, unlucky, messed-up, his drawings trace the lines of psychological tragedy and desire that overspread the faces of men who are constantly looking, and being looked at, on the prowl, yet unmistakably vulnerable and lost."

Though I didn’t know of the meaning behind the work while I was there, I could still understand the ideas of emotion he was trying to show in his use of colours and drawing style. I find it interesting that he is dealing with the emotions of people doing an act that I can imagine much of society look down upon, making them equal human beings.