A Group Approach to Sex?
HELEN MURPHY & NICK PELLING
Imagine an art exhibition entitled Sex and Success in Sussex and you might – depending on your personal depravity – envisage a rouged-up room full of orbs and orifices. But we went along to the actual exhibition at the Electro Studios and can report that sex in Sussex has become very tangential.
SEX ON EARTH
This extraordinary exhibition consisted of a group of 58 different artists. What we found is that creatives definitely do not have a one-track mind. Perhaps the dominant theme was the sheer diversity of responses put before us. Indeed, a visitor from Mars (or Venus) might have concluded that sex on planet Earth must be very baffling.
A MAP OF DESIRE
So, the glory of this exhibition was precisely in its jamboree of sensual digressions. Gary Willis’ powerful black-and-white photographs of day-to-day notices – brutally edited to be obscene – sort of harked back to Donald McGill’s saucy postcards, but with a punk edge. Most of the work on show was highly playful. Julia Maddison’s neatly stitched message, ‘I am ready for you, darling,’ brought a little bit of almost quaint and gentle intimacy to the world of tea towels. Jeffrey Louis Reed amusingly found sexy shapes amid dusty old local maps, perhaps lending orienteering a new dimension. Mandee Gage appeared to be interested in ancient totems and fertility and Tom Banks explored the way colour seduces our senses.
MESSY BUT GREAT
There is simply not enough space here to comment on all of the artists, but all together they produced one wonderfully all-over-the-place event. A special word of thanks must be given to Jude Montague who curated the show, and to many others such as Mark Walter, Caroline Gregory, Julia Maddison and Matt Armstrong for making it all happen. Lastly, a special thanks to Chris Simpson, a professional art handler and hanger and artist who put up the show, somehow to fuse it all into one messy triumph. Great Stuff.
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