This is an essay I wrote for the catalogue that accompanies our current show at LxWxH - The City and The City. This exhibition ties together two cities that have historically felt quite separate, in order to build a bridge between communities. These are my thoughts about its meaning to me, and to the future of our continued discourse. 


While I was thinking about Portland in order to write this, I became aware of how difficult it is to see our sister to the south. I suppose it begins geographically - both the northern and southern regions of the Pacific Northwest are made of glacially formed hills and valleys, broad mountain ranges, and split by a giant river. The immediate differences are obvious: Portland is surrounded by rolling hills, and Mount Hood is the only peak in sight. A calm, wide river rests at your feet. Bridges, everywhere. Meanwhile Seattle lives at the lip of a giant fjord, resting between two craggy ranges and a dotted line of dormant volcanoes. Both cities are torn up by rainstorms, and sometimes shaken by earthquakes. The violence and drama of the subduction zone is apparent in the wrinkling of our geography, and our recent memory of Mount St. Helens. Giant waves crash against cliffs along the Washington and Oregon coasts. We live at the edge of the world..

But, ideologically, I have this idea Portland is a city that makes Seattleites reminiscent of days past. It makes us feel romantic, wistful, and nostalgic about a town filled with the faces of old brick buildings, 19th century charm, worn off painted ads and fire escapes on buildings, progressive politics, and small independent businesses. We take leisurely walks through the quiet streets of that small city remembering when we thought Seattle was once like this. Perhaps we have become too big. Perhaps we forgot what it meant to be here. Perhaps we can only survive so much boom and bust.

My boom and bust vision is clouded of course, with our collective history of fires, occupation, protest, logging, fishing, a gold rush, aerospace, and dot coms. The roots of my city are so closely linked to the roots of Portland, and yet from those roots have sprung two different trees.

Portland’s Wikipedia page reveals a section on its cultural life, that out of the ashes of a burnt up dot com industry has risen a city teeming with creativity. That life has brought forth innumerable galleries and independent projects, young emerging artists, and creative enterprises. Donuts are made with bacon, you’re allowed to eat and drink at strip clubs, bicycles are the number one transport, and being an artist or musician is as much an inherent part of what it is to be Portland as ... something that I can’t even think of, because I’m a Seattleite, but likely something to do with brewing beer and independent film making.

But what about the art world, and what does this selection of artists at LxWxH Gallery mean to me, an artist and curator living in Seattle? Who do I imagine living in Portland, and what do I expect to bring to this conversation?

Portland’s art world is revealed to me over time in small pieces - artwork by Patrick Kelly in an obsessive drawing show at Vermillion, writing by Amy Bernstein and Jeff Jahn in PORT Blog, a press release in my email from Disjecta, or a road trip with Jim Demetre to meet Jenene Nagy. I envision the artwork of Portland to be somewhat riskier, as though artists have nothing to lose. Portland feels like there are more independent spaces and less institutional ones. Artists have free reign to speak there for the same reason I feel more freedom here - after living in NYC the West Coast is the last bastion of freedom and entrepreneurship. People move away from the East Coast to get out from under the burden of history, to be freed of the restraints of whatever it is that makes the [art world] machinery turn. As young projects of passion and enthusiasm take shape in an artistically young city the projects could be seen as less refined (they aren't); but they are also more honest.

In order to try and stay abreast of these projects, I tend to collect a mental patchwork of notes from every trip to Portland, never quite grasping a tangible map in my head, nor a real sense of who I've seen or what; or where. It’s like trying to hold a ghost. I just can’t ever hold onto it. Ceramics here, large scale installation in a window there, ah yes - PDX Contemporary and Nationale! But in the last year or so I have begun to focus, and build that map and memory of names and artwork so that I can have something to hold that’s real. So that while I stand in this city, I can still see that one.

Amidst that patchwork, I came across artist Daniel Glendening’s website and discovered a kindred spirit in abstraction, salt, and literature. I made a mental note to try and reach him, to see if he would be interested in working together. Not without some bizarre serendipity, Glendening contacted me in February 2013 to tell me he liked the project and that perhaps we could work together some time to connect our two cities. Without hesitation, I asked what he was doing in May and now we are here.

Our collection of artists in The City and The City isn’t meant to represent a specific aesthetic that is Portland. Nor is this meant to present a full survey of Portland. Rather, this selection represents a small cross-section of what may be found in Portland right now, by artists who are working across varying media - performance, video, installation, drawing, photography, and painting. These are artists Glendening is tracking, among many others, and artists whom we have selected together. The result of any curation is inevitably a thread which can’t help but emerge by virtue of the curators’ line of sight. It is a thread in which we see overlap between artists in their vision, processes, aesthetics, and thought. In this exhibition there is a continuity of perspective - artists who share a city and who are therefore subject to its cultural and geographical influence.

It’s a wonderful thing as I sit in the gallery, quietly preparing for the upcoming show, that I get a quick meeting with Seattle’s Todd Jannausch, an artist and curator known for his unconventional street exhibitions such as Gallery 40 and Gallery 206. Jannausch is getting ready to take his latest project, Small Voids, down to Portland and Oakland at the end of the first week in May. We’ve just agreed to present the grand finale for Small Voids on the street outside of LxWxH on the very same night of the opening that you've just attended. It’s a brilliant end to an epic project.  

But what excites me is the serendipitous timing of Todd’s project to ours; that he is bringing a venue for Seattle artists into other cities. He’s creating opportunities where before, none existed. It will overlap and dovetail with The City and The City in the most perfect way imaginable - once, these were two separate conversations about a similar thing that couldn't meet. Now they have become a conversation about the same thing and are quite literally meeting. The artists in Portland who will be showing in Seattle will have a chance to see Seattle artists on the street of their own town. Seattle will be able to see what I hope is the beginning of a venue for more Portland artists in Seattle. These two things will meet again in Seattle on the same block at the same time on the very night that you pick up this publication.

As citizens of Besźel and Ul Qoma, standing in one city to see the other, perhaps Daniel Glendening and I are building Orciny - the third city in which we seek to reveal and bring the previously suspected but wholly unknown into the known world. We shift our perspective to allow the other to come forward. In this way, the two cities move closer together to coexist in a way that doesn’t leave us closed off, but with solid bridges which allow us to return again and again. Perhaps this began the moment Todd Jannausch chose to set Small Voids in Portland. Perhaps that small shift in perspective began a large shift in action; a kind of ripple or domino effect. It is fitting that these ways of joining should coincide. It is fitting that in a region beset with and formed from dynamic, tectonic activity that this shift shakes us from a comfortable sleep to wonder what’s happening.

This is what The City and The City means to me right now, in the moment I am typing.It means it is not necessarily “the” beginning, but “a” beginning alongside many others. This is a conversation that will not end, here. There is more to  come. 

Let us leave a space for us to stand and see it, and each other, again.

Let us build a history together, not just imagined, but real.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to write about the Seattle Erotic Art Festival, and I’ve been coming up short since I went last weekend. The problem is this is a doubly subjective issue - sex and art. My brain wants to separate the art part from the sex part on all these really formal levels of art criticism, and really that’s not possible or true. And I want to acknowledge there is no perfect recipe for either and you can’t really tell anyone what to do but you know the bad stuff when you see it.  Here’s the thing: nobody’s going to agree with you. Everyone’s going to agree with you. Some people may or may not agree with you. I’m as potentially wrong as I am right about any of this, whether it be sex or art.

Before I start, I’m going to tell you that I was pleased with the number of works that weren't photography. There seemed to be an effort and quality in craft that I've seen missing before. Too much of the work was obviously obvious, but when it wasn't it was really good. I didn't even mind the suspended walls and lighting. And I’m not going to get into performance because that’s not what I went for. So if you want to get turned on, see sexy stuff in a public place and not really think about art or be intellectually challenged; if you really like performance and a great party, an excuse to dress up in something really scandalous, and you want to get all hot and bothered;  then the Seattle Erotic Art Festival is just the thing for you. Have a great time - you’re going to love it. I promise. And there’s really nothing wrong with that. SEAF serves a great purpose which I’ll get into later, and that’s a good thing.

But this is what I am left thinking about, post coital exposure (and now I am about to ensure that I will never again receive a press pass to the festival): :

My attendance was a calculated act, which oddly is the same reason I guest curated in 2009. I wanted to see if art could be art before it was erotic, and thus have more substance. After all, the sexiest art was always the work which was incidentally sensual. I wanted to prove all the people wrong who thought that erotic art meant only one thing, or a limited number of things. I wanted to be wrong in my assumption that the people running the festival felt that way in the first place. But as expected there was just a lot of nakedness and cheap one-liners. That didn't thrill me. It bored me. I can't possibly be alone. 

You might wonder what the problem is and you're totally right if the only thing sex means to you is naked people and straight up porn. However, if you want actual multi-tiered stimulation that excites you beyond whatever gives you an erection then you're probably going to be disappointed [again].

Perhaps we can agree on these things (can we agree on these things?):

Sex is more than a naked person with a hot body. It's more than a naked person with a hot body arranged in an aesthetically pleasing manner with good lighting and/or honey or other questionable wet substance smeared all over it. Sex is more than a vagina presented to the camera with a fist in it. It's more than high-def genitalia, by itself, disembodied as though the person attached to it is nonexistent. Sex is more than just fucking, really, even if you are just submitting to a one night stand. Yes we've all fucked somebody just to fuck them. But what was it about them that got you in the first place, besides a tight ass, big tits, or huge cock? There are a ton of sexy people you've met to whom you've said no. Why is that? Think about it for a minute before you read further.

So without completely slamming the Festival, which I want to fully believe does the best it can with what it gets, I have some questions to present followed by a few suggestions:  

Why would anyone put the bizarre and limiting pressure on themselves to be an “erotic” artist?

The work that should be there is work that is art first, sex later. I'm explicitly saying that erotic art is best when it's not set out to be erotic art. Everything else feels like a cheap attempt to elevate pornography. It’s no better than those really bad drawings you and your friend made in the back of your notebook in 6th grade. Artists have one driving force behind all bodies of work: philosophical intent. There’s always a narrative underneath the imagery. It’s almost as if in art, subject matter is circumstantial - no matter how much an artist claims the subject comes first, it’s really a projection of some underlying problem the artist is trying to solve, much in the manner of a scientific query. If there isn't some kind of philosophical intent behind the work, then the work itself becomes an empty shell. This isn't some kind of art theory, it’s just a fact.

Has the internet ruined it for everyone?

Porn is everywhere - in our magazines, movies, music videos, advertisements, in our fashion, and with our coffee, and I’d argue that most of us are just unimpressed with the abundance of sex we can get for free. Why would we pay? Amateur porn reins supreme. Even the porn industry itself is dying out. Why would anyone pay to see something on the wall that they can view on their screen?

And what about Tumblr?

Porn Tumblrs are everywhere. I have a Google Reader dedicated entirely to porn Tumblrs. On Tumblr you will find no end to an artful array of beautiful pictures having to do with sex: faux vintage shots with sun flares and hipster glasses, women draped artfully across a blanket on the grass with some kind of nostalgic item from 10/20/30 years ago, white skin on black skin on white skin in an gothy pile of glowing flesh, streams of endless looping gasp and lip-bites in the shape of a GIF. Beautiful erect cocks and bountiful breasts against which none of us can possibly compare in perfection, smoothness, brightness, and Photoshop. Maybe the festival could use Tumblr as the bar to beat.

So given the bounty of sex in the world, why is there a festival about it?

To raise awareness? To provoke the Right Wing? To make a statement about acceptance? To get people to talk about it? We’re all having it, and we all enjoy sexy images of sexy people.. What makes us want to pay the full admission price to see it on the wall - is it for the sake of seeing it on the wall? Maybe it’s the titillation itself of viewing it in public, and not being able to do anything about it until we get back behind closed doors. Maybe we’re all walking around hoping that suddenly everything’s going to turn into that party in Eyes Wide Shut. It won't, I can assure you. 

Never mind that, here’s what I really think about why there’s a festival and how it could be better:

Americans still live in a repressed culture that shies away from any kind of open social and political advancement or conversation about the diversity and multiplicity of our very individual sexual lives. Because we can’t talk about it, sex is still ridiculously and adolescently humorous, as though we’re getting away with something that our parents won’t like and that makes  us want it even more. We still have an alarming rate of ignorance about sexual health and function, and we still don’t seem to know how to keep the relationships we have because we’re so afraid of talking about it. Unfortunately, while I believe that the CSPC wants to increase the education and acceptance of our varied and wilder sexual identities, year after year this festival reminds me we're more and more disconnected from sexuality and more specifically, sensuality in our culture than before, and it isn’t promising to get better.

Again I'm just not really clear on the focus of the festival. It isn't entirely their fault - one part of them is heavily entrenched in the world of the Center for Sex Positive Culture while another part of them obviously wants to keep growing beyond it. Another problem is the effort to honour all the past artists who have put them where they are on the map, for fear of alienating their roots. Sadly the Masters of Erotic Art was the most boring wall in the place. SEAF needs to cut the cord. And yet another complication is the effort it takes to navigate through the legion of artwork that is the result of a broad call to art.. That's not even getting into the complicated politics of a multi-staffed jury that is negotiating the work the public gets to see.

Maybe this sort of show would be better served as a purely curated exhibition? 

One or two people could work together to collect a group of artists they think fit their vision. Perhaps there could be a call for curators, with a proposal for a show.  It would be a democratic and diverse process, with a different curator (or curator team) at the helm with either a theme or binding conceptual/aesthetic thread between the artists and the art they choose. There should be a strong curatorial vision and statement, published everywhere, along with a guide that educates viewers about the many different facets of sexuality, explaining some of the imagery in the show (especially the more violent themes found in S&M and bondage), and maybe even a few essays from guest writers or artists. The show could and should be smaller with an emphasis on quality over abundance, and perhaps the performance isn't gone but in an entirely different venue altogether so that people would willingly choose what they’re there for. After all, many festivals are in multiple venues. And it's really hard to look at art when the music is so loud you can't think. It's even harder if the lights are turned down to  focus on the performance.

I conducted an informal poll on Facebook, asking people what they wanted out of an erotic art festival. People generally agreed that they wanted something “more” than what they found. My post reflects the opinions of people I asked, both kink-community involved, mainstream, and Seattle art world; and it does seem to be a general consensus that while people have been having a great time they’re yearning for something more stimulating - an interesting thought given the event is expressly based on stimulation. Almost everyone agreed that while they enjoyed the party, they wanted to enjoy the art more.

If I have any parting words for SEAF, it would be to think hard about the identity and message of the festival. Figure out what it means to talk about sex in a world that’s drenched in it. Allow yourself to open up to ideas that aren’t immediately obvious. And most importantly: make the assumption that your audience is smarter, more intellectual, more experienced, and harder to please than what you have previously thought. You might just be surprised.

The 10th anniversary Seattle Erotic Art Festival celebrates “10 Years of Love and Lust”, June 16-24, 2012.  More than 10,000 attendees are anticipated for this showcase of visual art, interactive installations, performances, short film, literary art, after-parties, workshops and more, at Fremont Studios.

Last July, Shaun Kardinal created an interactive piece for Seattle's web-based gallery project Violet Strays. It blew my mind. At first glance, it's an image. Then it occurs to you to hover your mouse over it, or perhaps this happens accidentally or intuitively. Things start to spin around, and layer up as you move the arrow. Once you click the image, it reloads to start something new and your dance begins again. The joy of the piece is in your discovery of an invitation to play.

This user-dependent browser-based piece is built from a photo feed which accumulated over the course of his one week "installation". The overlays are geometric and graphic but if you know Kardinal's work, you know these marks are essentially a virtual embroidery stitch on a virtual card. The piece is titled "Heptaparaparshinokh" which upon some research was revealed to be "The Law of Seven (or Octave)" - fascinatingly having to do with seven points of swerving from a previous direction of a force's movement. Heptaparaparshinokh is an elegant marriage of concept and aesthetic.

Kardinal's sewing came at a time when there wasn't much sewing going on in Seattle, but it was beginning to creep into view. Unlike large scale projects such as my own where the stitch is large and spans a 13 foot wall; this vein of work brings art down to an intimate level where the work is cherished and hand-held. Artists love postcards. They trade them, they add to them, they become elaborate exquisite corpse projects. But Shaun keeps it quiet, simple, and contained. They are created from his own world but he is offering them to you without pretense or expectation. They are what you want them to be.

I appreciate that Kardinal's stitching has become more integrated with the collaged image, that there is a visual storyline of colour, shape, and form that springs from the composition underneath. The fault of many artists who embroider is that the stitch has little or nothing to do with its source, serving more as an arbitrary treatement of line and colour for the sake of design. That isn't necessarily bad, but it's the particular virtue of Connotations that the hand of the artist aligns itself with the material so well. This integration is what makes it so strong and in my opinion, though it manifests in Connotations it truly culminates in his web project Heptaparaparshinokh. This is an experiment that I look forward to seeing continue both in tactile paper pieces and hopefully, some day on a screen once again.   


GO SEE CONNOTATIONS AT JOE BAR
Capitol Hill Art Walk, 12 April 2012810 East Roy Street @ Harvard
12 April - 8 May