{"id":55099,"date":"2025-02-13T14:56:22","date_gmt":"2025-02-13T19:56:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/?p=55099"},"modified":"2025-02-14T17:51:36","modified_gmt":"2025-02-14T22:51:36","slug":"the-sex-show-at-gallery-1313","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/?p=55099","title":{"rendered":"The Sex Show at Gallery 1313"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

February has rolled around and it\u2019s time for the The<\/em> Sex Show<\/em> at Gallery 1313 \u2013 a tradition that now spans decades. Call it the Saint Valentine special. As gallery director Phil Anderson often remarks, the show is a clebration of sex. As usual there were many submissions, around 27 artists represented this year. Its popularity, given the theme, is unsurprising. It is especially popular among younger artists, who are naturally more preoccupied with the subject that their older peers. Although, of course, older artists are represented as well.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Installation view of The Sex Show<\/em> at Gallery 1313<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We live in a society that is, comparatively speaking, relaxed about sex. Still, few of the images and sculptures on display could be called graphic, let alone pornographic. On the whole the material is restrained. There is a fair measure of eroticism, e.g., Amanda Claire\u2019s painting titled \u201cStriptease\u201d featuring a hand delicately holding up \u2018a piece of lingerie\u2019, or Brad McDermott\u2019s deftly rendered charcoal drawing of two naked men laying together, titled \u201cBeach House\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Amanda Claire, Striptease, acrylic on panel<\/p>\n\n\n

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Brad McDermott, Beach House, charcoal on paper, 27.5 x 37.5 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some pieces are playful, even humorous. One image that stands out in particular is Joe Cata\u2019s \u201cConnor & Plant\u201d. A naked young man stands, facing the camera, holding a strategically placed potted plant. Its strength is in large part due to its sheer simplicity. More overtly playful are Viz Saraby\u2019s two delightful companion photographs titled \u201cTHRUST\u201d and \u201cVibrator\u201d. In these images, blurred by motion, the artist brandishes a safety cone! So much is suggested with minimal and the most unexpected props.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Joe Cata, Connor & Plant, 35mm print on Inkjet, 12 x 12 inches<\/p>\n\n\n

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Viz Saraby, Vibrator (left) and THRUST (right), both digital photograph, 12 x 12 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the topic of props, these are central features in Kaya Comeau\u2019s two photographs titled \u201cFlesh & Silicone #17\u201d and \u201cFlesh & Silicone #21\u201d. In the former, a semi clad woman sits nonchalantly on a bed, surrounded by various sex toys. Their arrangement is reminiscent of that of weapons and drugs that the police occasionally publish after a raid. Indeed, the image has a slightly menacing air, as if these pleasure tools could be mistaken for instruments of torture. The equally unsettling second image shows a woman seated behind a contraption with a silicone penis at the end. There is something eerily impersonal about these toys, heightened by the women\u2019s detached demeanours. They illustrate the power of sexual pleasure by showing the lengths people go to find ways to obtain this pleasure.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Kaya Comeau, Flesh & Silicone #17 (left) and Flesh & Silicone #21 (right) both photographs<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sexual pleasure is banal. It is so commonplace that it is seen as unremarkable. But in the animal kingdom we humans seem to have an oversized appetite for such pleasure. Indeed, we even talk about it as being addictive no less. The lengths to which people heighten this pleasure is demonstrated in Sophia Poland Noetzel\u2019s photograph titled \u201cShibari\u201d. The title names the Japanese art of binding the body in various ways, especially during sex \u2013 what we call in common parlance \u2018bondage\u2019. A woman dressed in underwear, a tee shirt and socks is lightly strapped to a folding chair. Her neck arches backwards so that her head is hidden from view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On one level this is a literal depiction of mildly kinky sex, but since art is vulnerable to the metaphorical, let me go there. The absence of a sexual partner in this image is disturbing. Is she struggling to escape after a burglary? Of course not. But, the image suggests to me the story of Odysseus, voluntarily strapped to the mast of his ship in order to stop him from making a dash to the deadly sirens on the shore, whose songs, he knows, will overwhelm him with their charm. Likewise, the woman\u2019s pose in Noetzel\u2019s picture suggests her own struggle to contain the draw of sexual pleasure, to regain herself. Because, as is commonly remarked, sex involves losing oneself in a crucial sense \u2013 becoming headless, figuratively speaking. Sex is dangerous.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Sophia Poland Noetzel, Shibari, photo based print, 22 x 25 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much of the art on display is conceived from the personal perspective, that is, telling one\u2019s story. But of course sex is a universal theme, that in a less secular society than ours is often filtered through a religious point of view. A few of the works do take this point of view. John Nobrega, for instance, plays on the familiar trope of the not-so-chaste nun in his two small paintings.<\/p>\n\n\n

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John Nobrega, Greater Than All My Sin, oil on linen, 9 x 12 inches (top) and How Sweet and Awful Is This Place, oil on canvas,16 \u00a0x 20 inches (bottom)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, Sandra Franke has chosen to take a more cosmic perspective on sex, leaving the world of flesh to enter the ethereal world of abstraction. Franke\u2019s painting, titled \u201cSex is the Pivot of All Love\u201d reminds us that to many sex is sacred. It is important to be reminded of this in our secular society, which tends to reduce sex to a bodily function circumscribed by sensual pleasure.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Sandra Franke, Sex Is the Pivot of All Love, mixed media, 24 x 36 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, another more subtle treatment of the subject is offered by Shannon Wallace. Hanging quietly in a corner is her delectable collage titled \u201cI\u2019m so in\u201d, which features images mined from historical archives of beads, shells and other artefacts that are combined to suggest penetration in some way. The subtlety lies in the fact that none of the imagery is literal, but rather is wonderfully suggestive. Again, it is a decidedly secular perspective, and if I lament anything about this show it is the predominance of it.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Shannon Wallace, I\u2019m so in, Collage\/Marker, 9 x 12 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What religion, and classical mythology in particular, offer is a means of communicating the universal stories that touch on the theme of sex that point to the heart of being human \u2013 our moral weaknesses, the limits of our autonomy, love and tragedy, as well as its direct relation to our ability to survive at all. Nonetheless, this show offers a rich selection of artworks that do indeed celebrate sex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hugh Alcock<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Images are courtesy of Gallery 1313.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

*Exhibition information: The Sex Show,<\/em> February 5 \u2013 16, 2025, Gallery 1313, 1313 Queen Street West, Toronto. Gallery hours: Wed \u2013 Sat 1 \u2013 5 pm, Sun 1 \u2013 4 pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Hugh Alcock<\/strong><\/p>\n

This show offers a rich selection of artworks that do indeed celebrate sex.<\/p>\n

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