Walter Grio, Room 211 No. 2
Seattle is the home of the largest and highest quality annual exhibition of erotic art in the U.S. — perhaps in the world. Each year the Seattle Erotic Art Festival (SEAF) grows in stature, quality, and public recognition, and this year’s eighth festival, held April 30 – May 2, 2010, at the 30,000-square-foot Seattle Center Exhibition Hall (once home to the World’s Fair), was no exception.
SEAF 2010 featured 228 works of art by 138 artists from seven countries, including Sausalito artist Nancy Peach, and San Francisco photographers Michael Rosen, Michael Thomas Ford, and myself. Exhibited works included photography, paintings, drawings, sculptures, mixed-media presentations, assemblages, prints, and film.
Karl Larson, jamie
Twenty-two innovative installations added variety to the exhibit, ranging from elaborately-crafted, luxurious beds scattered about the exhibit hall on which participants could lounge and play, to an ornate three-story doll’s house where a wide range of sexual activity could be observed by those prepared to peek through the windows as peeping Toms, to Kim Mears’s interactive installation, “Skin Art,” which gave attendees the opportunity to create their own art by writing all on various parts of her body with feathered quills, and then watch their creations appear in bright red on her dermatographic skin moments later.
Ambient performance artists wandered through the show, near-naked women read literary erotica, workshops discussed such topics as bondage photography and diversity in erotic art, and docents and artists conducted tours discussing various aspects of the artwork.
The Love Note, entranceway to SEAF 2010
At the “Love Note” installation, guests were encouraged to write and receive love letters hidden in the pillows of a sumptuous bedroom, complete with huge master bed. Across the hall, artistically-minded guests were invited to help Nancy Peach complete a massive canvas depicting a pan-sexual array of exuberant activities. In the evenings, participants were treated to Cabaret de Curiosités, a 90-minute, lavishly-produced spectacle of erotic theater, commissioned by the Festival from New York director Roger Benington.
Carle Photography, Spank
Festival jurors and curators made their selections this year from over 1,600 submissions by some 400 artists in six countries ranging from Germany to Brazil. Fifty-two pieces of exhibition art (a remarkable 22% of the work exhibited) were sold, in addition to over 1,000 items in the Festival store, with a total value of over $38,000.
Sabina, Sexy Marble Holder
In three days, over 5,000 people attended the Festival, with sell-out crowds on Friday and Saturday nights, and over 900 guests during the Festival’s free Sunday afternoon open house.
Patrick Baroch, Embrace Boys
SEAF began in 2002 with an ambitious vision of providing a place where art would evoke the erotic energy of intimate human expression without shame or apology — a place where art rarely seen in mainstream galleries and museums could be celebrated, discussed and supported, where “tired clichés of sexiness” would be replaced with creative explorations of genuine eroticism. “We envisioned beautiful people in a beautiful place looking at beautiful art, an event at which people were free to be as open and expressive as they wanted to be,” the Festival’s website explains.
A SEAF guest poses with Kim Mearsand his “Skin Art” inscription on her shoulder.
“By 2005, our audience had tripled and we were more than just a beautiful party of sensual delights. Our art sales were phenomenal, with many pieces auctioned for more than their retail value, and our Festival Store became a vital marketplace for artists selling what one patron dubbed ‘the very best in portable erotic art.'”
The organizers of the festival, Seattle’s Foundation for Sex Positive Culture, led by Festival director Anna Hurwitz, Producer Allena Gabosch, Docent Director Sophia Iannicelli, and founder Jim Duvall, bring together a rare combination of sexual and artistic sensibility, organizational efficiency, good business sense, and a genuine spirit of human generosity and warmth. The Festival makes a point of being artist-friendly, taking only modest commissions on works sold, and keeping entrance fees low.
The goal of SEAF’s founders was to create a beautiful, respectful, and respected home for erotic and sexual art of all forms. It has taken eight years, but with this exhibit SEAF has truly arrived as a vehicle bringing quality erotic art out of the shadows and into the bright light of mainstream artistic acceptance.
Testing the cushions at the sexual enhancement furniture exhibit.
Presenting oneself as erotic art has become a SEAF tradition.
Shannon Gallardo, Egg-cellent Ass
Waxie Moon performs in Cabaret de Curiosites
Michael Rosen, Master Bob and saba
Michele Serchuk, Lincoln & Arden #20
Leslie McGrew, joy 2
Taking in the scene from one of eight bed installations scattered about the hall.
San Francisco Chronicle, May 25, 2010
Copyright © 2010 David Steinberg
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