Seduction: Sex in Art @ The Barbican

Araki

Duchamp

Egon Schiele

Hans Bellmer

Aubrey Beardsley

Shunga

Juliao Sarmento

Then the next day it was Seduction at the Barbican. A multitude of bizzare cocks :D cocks morphing into animals/object, flying around, changing scale. Yes.

I really liked the old stuff, roman pottery depicting sex etc. And Japanese Shunga prints. Indian paintings. There's so much detail. And landscape. And expression. Chinese ones were very landscapey and had poetry :)

Juliao Sarmento did big porn sillhouettes, which naturally interests me. I like sillhouettes. And sex. Pretend I've said something more intelligent. I can't think of anything. Shame.

I have discovered Aubrey Beardsley, an illustrator from 1872-1898. Lots of ink, contrasty black and white, detail and space. His drawings are beautiful and the next exhibition I'm excited to go to is Age of Enchantment at Dulwich Picture Gallery which involves much Beardsley. Mm even his name is excellent.

Hans Bellmer's etchings caught my eye, gorgeous fine twisting delicate lines forming bizarre scenes with surreal genitalia. Apparantly he is best known for dolls but that doesn't really interest me. I like these.

There are Klimt drawings there, I've always liked Klimt. And with him Egon Schiele who I've never paid much attention to before but I actually like his drawings. Intimate and raw. Next to that were etchings by Marcel Duchamp. Which I mention cuz I quite like them despite never liking his urinal rubbish. I find that sort of conceptual thing too pretentious. I like beautiful things. I guess I'm a simple person.

Erotos by Araki is repulsively compulsive. Photography. Really real, detailed and somehow beautiful as well as kind of disgusting. Close ups of hair and tongue and skin and suggestive foods and objects. Why is hair so disgusting? Hair and moisture. Ugh. I guess it's just so personal. It's strange to see it huge on a gallery wall.

Finally Heartbeat by Nan Goldin. A slideshow of photographs of couples, long term in love with families couples interacting and loving set to the sound of bjork. The music was lovely and it set a lovely mood. It was pleasant to sit listening and looking. I never usually bother with the films in galleries.