XXX Testimonial at Mercer Union to March 9 (37 Lisgar). 416-536-1519. Rating: NNN
Rating: NNN
with xxx testimonial, curator Deirdre Logue pursues the premise that nowadays, despite appearances, there is very little eroticism left in the world. Has the ubiquity of sex in the media, on the Internet and other communications killed the feeling?Many of the artists debunk the notion that getting naked is the key to getting at the naked truth, be it about sex or about the world. To flash your ass is to flash your ass, they say. There aren’t necessarily any obscure truths to be found in the body.
Much of the film and video component delicately ventures from erotic to pornographic. While filmmaker Wrik Mead’s erotic, gorgeous hand-job piece plays hide-and-seek with its subject, Kika Thorne and Michael Brynntrup go full frontal. Their unsettling images step into porn territory, refusing to make sex look merely pretty.
Similarly, Chantal Rousseau’s painting holds itself at a distance, frontally, like a porn film. Her dual portrait of herself in auto-erotic postures probes the paradox of self-love as performance.
