"If You Think I'm Sexy" Group Exhibition

Group Exhibition  If You Think I’m Sexy

Gallery 461, 461 W 126 St New York, New York 
July 17 – 29, 2012

If you think I’m Sexy examines themes of seduction, lust, and sex through a variety of vantages. The show brings together artists whose work examines both the pleasures and fun of sexuality, as well as its dark, immutable side through the lens of diverse ideologies, races, and sexual orientations. Provocative connections between art and pornography question where one begins and the other ends. From Courbet’s Origins of the World to Vito Acconci’s Seedbed, the history of art has always walked a thin line between pornography and art.

Adam Parker Smith’s Crush is a mixed media installation and cross-fertilization of subjects pulled from the artist’s environment. In Smith’s own words, his work relates to his fears and longings, polluted with filth, obsessions, crushes, jealousy and grace. The installation Crush is tantamount to what popular culture deems desirable—bizarre, made up conceptions of what is considered to be sex appeal. Such imagery has been captured in film and television and embedded in our psyches, ultimately shaping an uncompromising and desirable female identity in American culture. For example, most notably in the 20^th century, the 1955 iconic image of Marilyn Monroe pressing her white dress down in the wind.

Nina Schwanse’s video, If I Knew Then conveys an impervious celebrity appeal. Schwanse states that from operating within, but not bound by, feminist discourse, her work explores the vehicles and effects by which both analog and digital technologies influence the relationship between the self and the object of desire. As noted on the Art21 Blog by Keven McGarry: With a self-proclaimed interest in women “from the pre-internet age of the tabloid 1990s,” Schwanse styles herself as Amy Fisher and monologues on the art of being Amy Fisher, or the work of being the artist Amy Fisher, depending on how you see it and her. “Artists work hard, you know? You have to work hard to be hot.”

I’m Crazy Ripped (Muscle Ball) by Chelsea Seltzer blatantly outpours a shapely, jock torso positioned in a clockwise rotation. The painted surface is traditional in application but seemingly kitsch nonetheless. The painting’s recontextualized appearance culminates into exercise crunches and feel-good muscle balls in the visual of the perfect alpha male with his hands behind his head—eyes open and closed—striking a highly suggestive pose, ultimately raising the question, “If You Think I’m Sexy”. 

Artists: Aaron Peterman, Adam Parker Smith, Adarsh Alphons, Brian Belott, Caitlin Cherry, Carla Edwards, Chelsea Seltzer, Gavin Kenyon, Hein Koh, Inna Babaeva, Irena Jurek, Jennifer Catron and Paul Outlaw, Jesse Edwards, Jesse Greenberg, Kristy Leibowitz, Makibolas (Maki Kitagawa), Michelle Jane Lee, Miz Metro, Molly Weiss, Natalie Colette Wood, Nina Schwanse and Peter Caine. 



Images from the opening reception: