Image via Complex Original
You'd think that sexuality and nudity in today's culture would no longer be taboo, but somehow, when Rihanna rocks a see-through dress at the CFDAs in 2014, people still freak the f**k out. In the art world, one performance artist recently flashed visitors in a museum to imitate Courbet's The Origin of the World, and another "gave birth" to a painting while completely naked at an art fair, showing that sex and nudity are continually being used (in extremely calculated ways) to communicate impactful (and over-the-top) statements.
So when is something artfully sensual vs. needlessly pornographic? Despite the endlessly controversial displays of nudity throughout art history, the answer is still painfully ambiguous. Often, explicit pieces (like the ones of the aforementioned performance artists) seem like they were made to spark controversy, just like Rihanna's see-through dress. But that doesn't mean there are no lessons to be learned from how shocked the public gets when it all goes down.
Try not to philosophize too hard and check out 15 Sex-Themed Art Exhibitions That Shocked the Public.
"FUNLAND: Pleasures & Peril of the Erotic Playground"
Location: Museum of Sex, 233 5th Ave, New York
Date: June 26, 2014 – Spring 2015
The Museum of Sex is known for its risqué material, but their newest exhibit "FUNLAND: Pleasures & Perils of the Erotic Fairground" goes hard. FUNLAND is filled with inflatable boobs, toy penises, and more dirty puns than you can probably handle. The "Tunnel of Love" brings visitors to the sacred G-spot and "Grope Mountain" is a climbing wall that forces you to grab onto genitals and other body parts instead of colorful rocks. Bompas & Parr, a London-based conceptual art duo, designed the exhibition to tit-illate each of your senses, as well as simulate the "breathless rush" of an orgasm. It's definitely not the kind of carnival you want to bring your kids to. Depending on your style, it could be a good first date spot.
"Science of Sexuality"
Location: Vancouver's Science World, 1455 Quebec St, Vancouver, BC V6A 3Z7, Canada
Date: May 18 – September 2, 2013
The exhibition "Science of Sexuality," originally named "Sex: A Tell-All Exhibition," created a commotion in Vancouver in 2013. It spans the early stages of human development and conception, puberty, love, and procreation, bringing you full-circle. Full life circle. "Science of Sexuality" features mannequins with lit-up erogenous zones, 150 life-sized, untouched photos of naked males and females, and even an animated video about masturbation (which was later removed due to controversy surrounding the exhibition). Though the exhibition itself was educational and done with good intentions, even the preliminary advertisements made the public uncomfortable. One of them depicted two legs in a cast straddling another pair of legs with the caption, "Orgasms can kill pain." Another ad, meant to be about birth control, was deemed too inappropriate for display at Vancouver bus stops.
"The Cycle of Life"
Location: Milwaukee Public Museum, 800 W Wells St, Milwaukee
Date: February 7 - June 29, 2014
Dr. Gunther Von Hagens' groundbreaking series of work titled "Body Worlds" has been controversial since its debut in 1995. Real human bodies that (allegedly) consensually donated their bodies to science have been preserved and reworked into various poses and layers of tissue. They demonstrate the functions of the body in a visual, visceral way (he coined them "plastinates"). Issues of ethics and the source of the bodies have been amongst the public's top complaints regarding Von Hagens' work. But the controversy was taken a step further with an exhibition that opened in 2009. Debuted in Berlin, "The Cycle of Life" includes the conception, maturation, and eventual death of its human specimens. It was most recently showed in Milwaukee, and the displays are everything from slightly creepy to completely disturbing. One features a young, pregnant female with an eight-month-old fetus peaking through her uterus, as well as multiple fetal plastinates at different stages of development. The exhibition even has a female and male plastinate couple mid-sex. The word "necrophilia" has been thrown around. When pressed about this exhibition and his morbid coupling of sex and death, Von Hagens has said, "Death and sex are both taboo topics. I'm bringing them together. Death belongs to life."
"Picasso Erotique"
Location: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2600 Benjamin Franklin Pkwy, Philadelphia
Date: June 14 - September 2001
The exhibition "Picasso Erotique" has more than 350 works by the Cubist artist spanning his entire career. Described as a blockbuster show, the exhibition moved from Paris' Galerie Nationale Jeu de Paume to Montreal and then to Barcelona. Each painting, sculpture, and engraving have one thing in common: sex. The provocative, pleasure-based feel of Picasso's work is because these works are about his sexual experiences in brothels throughout Barcelona and Paris at the turn of the century. It also delves into erotic symbolism, using fictitious beasts and phallic protuberances to convey the darker complexes supposedly hidden in everyone.
"Pop Life: Art in a Material World"
Location: London's Tate Modern Gallery, Bankside, London SE1 9TG, United Kingdom
Date: October 1, 2009 - January 17, 2010
The Tate Modern exhibited the show "Pop Life: Art in a Material World" until early 2010. Featuring artists such as Takashi Murakami, Jeff Koons, and Damien Hirst, some explicit images were to be expected. The complex relationship between media, pop art, and creation processes touch heavily on human sexuality and fetishism, but one piece may have taken it too far. The exhibit included pornographic photographer Garry Gross' 1975 portrait of a nude, 10-year-old Brooke Shields. The public was outraged, and the photograph was removed shortly after the "Pop Life" opening.
"XYZ"
Location: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles
Date: October 21, 2012 – March 24, 2013
Robert Mapplethorpe is not a new name when discussing controversy in the art world. His homoerotic, nude, and overall explicit work pushed boundaries in terms of public funding and showing. "XYZ" is a compilation of his three most foundational portfolios: (X) homosexual sadomasochistic imagery, (Y) floral still lifes, and (Z) nude portraits of African-American men. Though highly sexual and sometimes shocking in their honesty, Mapplethorpe's portraits are still gorgeous and confrontational. The exhibition stands for pure artwork as well as the political Culture Wars of the 1980s.
"Jeff Koons: A Retrospective"
Location: Whitney Museum, 945 Madison Ave, New York
Date: June 27 - October 19, 2014
The Jeff Koons Retrospective at the Whitney Museum includes basically everything worth caring about from the sensational pop artist's career. It is also the first exhibit to essentially fill The Whitney Museum's entire Marcel Breuer building with a single artist's work. His pieces span in years, mediums, and content, but what the iconic Koons continues to do is create a sort of sexuality (if not explicit, then implied) surrounding the fetishism of pop art and consumerism. The third floor of the exhibit, which includes his "Made in Heaven" works (pornographic images of Koons and his ex-wife, the Italian pornstar, IlonaStaller) showcase his uncensored desire to explore shame, sex, and human connection.
"The Legend of Bud Shark and His Indelible Ink"
Location: Denver's Loveland Gallery, 503 N. Lincoln Ave, Loveland, Colo.
Date: September 11 - November 28, 2010
The artwork on display at the "The Legend of Bud Shark and His Indelible Ink" exhibition drove one woman to go at it with a crowbar. The piece that civilian Kathleen Folden ripped apart was by artist and Stanford University professor Enrique Chagoya. The twelve panel lithograph (or what is left of it) is titled The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals, and it depicts Jesus Christ receiving fellatio. Protests ensued at the opening, making the exhibit a point of debate on the legitimacy of art and blasphemy.
"F*CK ART"
Location: Museum of Sex, 233 5th Ave, New York
Date: February 8th – March 17, 2013
The Museum of Sex is not necessarily known for holding back when it comes to the explicit nature of the objects and installations they display. With their 2012 exhibition "F*CKArt," 20 street artists were called upon to create some of their most provocative, anti-institutional works yet. The exhibition pushed the boundaries of the art world's relationship to sexuality in the public space, and it didn't push quietly. There was reportedly police activity, sexual fluid ice cream, and a 14-foot "Fck Bike" that visitors could take for a spin. The street artists exhibited include Lady Aiko, Andrew H. Shirley, DICKCHICKEN, Miss Van, and Wonderpuss Octopuss.
"Who Shot Natalie White?"
Location: Rox Gallery, 86 Delancey St, New York
Date: April 16 - May 18, 2013
The Rox Gallery sure knows how to get its name on the map. The exhibition "Who Shot Natalie White?" prompted outraged neighbors to call the police on photographs of masturbating models. Sure enough, Natalie White herself (the subject of the photographs) greeted the NYPD…topless. The exhibition features photography by Peter Beard and work from artists Michael Dweck, Sean Lennon, Olivier Zahm, and Spencer Tunick. These hypersexualized images of a 17-year-old Natalie solidified her career as both a muse to Beard and overall artists' model. In the end, the police did not close the exhibition but instead were intrigued enough to approach it as innocuous art-goers.
"Sensation"
Location: Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Pkwy, New York
Date: October 2, 1999 - January 9, 2000
"Sensation," the Saatchi Collection exhibition from 1999, brought together young British artists on the forefront of contemporary art at the time. Initially, it generated a huge amount of controversy due to images of the Moors Murderer Myra Hindley and the Virgin Mary amongst other risqué installations. The exhibition has works from Jenny Saville, Damien Hirst, and Tracey Emin's infamous installation "Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995." According to Emin, the piece wasn't necessarily about sex, but about people she's actually fallen asleep with. It caused a backlash from both critics and the public but was an innovative and precious piece…before it was unfortunately destroyed in the 2004 Momart London warehouse fire.
"Salon de 1857"
Location: Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Queen St, Exeter, Devon EX4 3RX, United Kingdom
Date: April 5 - June 29, 2014
The "Intimate Worlds" exhibition's goal is to explore sexual health and education through history and intersectional cultural artifacts. From a more medical than artistic standpoint, the RAMM Museum of Devon engages and plays with the ideas of censorship and how it, along with body image and health, has formed our society today. The objects, like a copulating ivory kimono couple from late 19th century China, separate sexuality from mass-produced images like porn or Terry Richardson photo shoots. Though the phallic images and straightforward pieces make some of the British public uncomfortable, "Intimate Worlds" has gotten its point across.
"Rubbers: The Life, History & Struggle of the Condom"
Location: Museum of Sex, 233 5th Ave, New York
Date: February 4, 2010 – December 5, 2010
The Museum of Sex and Trojan Condoms joined forces for this one. Touching on controversial topics such as contraception and HIV/AIDS, the exhibit showed condoms like you've never seen before…or maybe you have, the MoSex is not here to judge. The seemingly endless variety of condoms come to life in a contemporary fashion. In literal "fashion," there's a dress made of 1,000 condoms on display. It's condom history and outlandish condom art for days.
"4 Eccentrics"
Location: New York's The Proposition, 2 Extra Pl, New York
Date: August 25 - October 17, 2010
Though the craft and artistry of "4 Eccentrics" is gorgeous, the subject matter is a little jolting. Artists Mickalene Thomas, Paul Evans, James Mont, and Balint Zsako came together to create an aesthetically brilliant and sexually subdued show. Using soft watercolors and repetitive shapes, Balint Zsako's paintings are like Freudian dreams floating into nightmares of surrealism and abstracted bodies. Paired with James Mont's antique furniture, it redefines sexuality.
"SEX (Sick Emotions X-ibit)"
Location: London Beach Gallery, 20 Cheshire St, London E2 6EH, United Kingdom
Date: February 27 - March 23, 2014
Jacob Ovgren is the main Swedish graphic artist behind skateboard powerhouse Polar Skateboards. As a former skater and doodler, his comic and street art influenced work is immature in the most entertaining way. His illustrations are the visual equivalent of double entendres; he creatively pairs average images with insanely sexual content that, at first glance, can pass as a normal cartoon. "I feel the need to draw it because it's fucked up," Ovgren says about his exhibition. Glad he's expressing himself…