It’s a sad truth, and something hard for me as an erotically patriotic San Franciscan to admit, but the most significant and exciting fine art erotic event in the U.S., year after year, takes place not in San Francisco but in Seattle, home of the Seattle Erotic Art Festival (SEAF). SEAF just had its seventh annual erotic fine art exhibit and celebration, April 30-May 3, proudly proclaimed to the public at the 30,000-square-foot Seattle Center Exhibition Hall, once home to the World’s Fair.
It was SEAF’s most impressive and inspiring exhibition of erotic art to date — 320 photographs, paintings, drawings, sculptures, installations, and mixed media presentations. Collectively it was a varied, powerful, inspiring smorgasbord of sex-related art, ranging from subtle to graphic, from literal to impressionist, from sensual to sexual, from fierce to tender, from beautiful to painful, from deeply emotional to flamboyantly goofy. Most significantly, the general quality of the material being shown was refreshingly high, potentially of interest to art lovers everywhere, not just those attracted by the erotic and sexual subject matter.
SEAF was the 2002 brainchild of photographer Jim Duvall and the Seattle Foundation for Sex Positive Culture, a collection of sex enthusiasts, explorers, educators, and advocates. Their primary goal was to create a forum where photographers and other artists interested in erotic and sexual themes could display and sell their work with integrity, seriousness of purpose, and dignity. Additionally, they wanted to encourage recognition and respect for genuine erotic art in Seattle, and to educate the general public that sex-positive fine art existed, distinct from pornography, shame, titillation, and general adolescent embarrassment about sex.
“We strive to exhibit work that is not often found in mainstream galleries and museums,” Festival organizers emphasize, “[work] that shows the diversity of human sexual expression, and explores the vast creativity that artists use to approach these subjects. We discourage art that employs stereotypical images and cliche approaches to eroticism. Our curators and jury select work based on quality of execution, originality of subject, and depth of emotion. Our secondary mission is to support artists by keeping our submission fees and commission rate low, and by educating our audiences about the pleasures of purchasing and owning erotic art.”
SEAF is organized each year by a group of dedicated volunteers, savvy not only about erotic imagery but also about the myriad of technical, logistical, and financial details necessary to make an exhibit of this magnitude successful. It has grown steadily over the past seven years into an acknowledged mainstay of Seattle culture, creating a respected niche for itself among those in the media and the non-erotic fine art world, many of whom were initially skeptical about the notion that art and sex could actually exist in the same place and at the same time.
As in past years, this year’s Festival was a weekend-long celebration of erotic creative expression covering a wide spectrum of artistic forms, sexual orientations, sexual preferences, and sexual practices. Seattle Center’s Exhibition Hall was transformed into a huge erotic free space, where everyone from serious art collectors to first-time curiosity-seekers could celebrate the opportunity for unapologetic erotic self-expression, take in the dazzling array of erotic creations on display, dress and act as erotically as their hearts desired (within legal limitations — no exposed genitals or nipples (tape available, if needed), no overt sexual activity), and enjoy evenings of erotic performance art ranging from sensual aerialists to erotic dancers to tongue-in-cheek erotic humor. The stated theme of this year’s festival was Indulge Your Senses, and the thousands who attended SEAF 2009, ranging in age from 18 to 80, were clearly delighted to have the opportunity to do exactly that.
The three jurors for this year’s Festival, owners or curators at three of Seattle’s most widely-respected fine art galleries, selected 220 works from more than 2,200 pieces submitted by artists in 15 countries. In addition to the jurors’ selections, 100 works by 42 invited artists were also included in the exhibit. In all, close to 200 artists were represented in the show — most from the U.S., but many from such countries as Italy, Germany, Belgium, Canada, Israel, Holland, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.
A healthy assortment of San Francisco artists and photographers were represented as well, including myself, photographers Michael Rosen, Craig Morey, James Stanley Daugherty, Michael Thomas Ford, Midori, Shilo McCabe, and Patti Beadles; and sculptor Peter Keresztury.
Photography, painting, and drawing were the predominant media, but sculptures, installations, and live art added to the scope of the Festival as well.
On a small white platform, extending out from one of the Exhibition Hall’s massive pillars, performance artist Coralee Lynn Rose lay motionless for hours on end, her face covered with a black hood, most of her pale body exposed — a live sculpture intriguingly blurring the line between life and art.
Tiberio Simone, of the La Figa Project, spent hours enthusiastically and gracefully arranging thinly sliced fruits and vegetables over the bodies of a variety of male and female models, using food as a visual medium to emphasize and enhance the beauty of the human form.
Twisted Monk demonstrated the erotic and the aesthetic appeal of rope bondage and suspension by tying a succession of women and men in lovely rope forms, eventually raising them off the floor where they could spin in lazy circles, much to to the delight of gathered onlookers.
An imaginative LoveSeat by Midori — dozens of typical porn store blowup dolls bound together into an inviting place to nestle one’s body — was enjoyed by dozens (until it deflated late in the weekend, becoming a statement of erotic exhaustion with a different meaning entirely).
A Literary Art Showcase provided a forum for erotic poets and writers to read from their work.
Workshops on various subjects and issues related to erotic and sexual art were conducted throughout the weekend by a variety of presenters.
Set aside from the rest of the exhibit, a dozen images on one wall offered a visual memorial to Bettie Page, ’50s pinup girl extraordinaire, patron saint of erotic artists through the ’60s and ’70s, who died on December 11, 2008.
As an invited artist who has had work at SEAF for the last five years, I have watched the Seattle Festival develop from a show that teetered between meaningful art and amusing but (to me) less interesting kitsch, into a forum that affirms the breadth, depth, emotional impact, and social perspective that quality erotic and sexual art offers those who see it. It was gratifying to see this year’s exhibit maturing further, clearly focused on work that explored the diverse faces of eroticism and sexuality with subtlety, complexity, depth, creative ingenuity, and artistic skill.
While final figures have yet to be compiled, Festival organizers estimate that close to 5,000 people attended the event during its three-day run, including 1,500 at Friday night’s gala opening, 2,000 at Saturday night’s reprise and performance art spectacle, 650 at the Festival’s experimental Sunday afternoon open house, when admission was free for all (age 18 and over), and 500 at a Thursday night reception for artists and guests.
Of the 320 exhibited works, 78 (close to 25%, valued at $26,000) were sold, an impressive achievement for any exhibition or gallery show. In addition, sales were brisk at the Festival store, where some 4,500 smaller artworks, collectibles, jewelry, cards, oddities, DVDs, prints, and books were on sale. All in all, according to Allena Gabosch, a central Festival coordinator, this year’s Festival sold over $50,000 of erotic art, the best annual showing to date.
San Francisco Chronicle, April 21, 2009
Copyright © 2009 David Steinberg
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