p.s. Hey. ** Minet, Hi. Ah, you found my answer of yesterday after all. No problem whatsoever. Yeah, finding Rimbaud at 15 was the perfect age for the obvious reasons. It totally killed the whole ‘wait until you grow up’ bullshit. Great about the good reception. Yeah, having fans, trippy, huh? It’s still a strange, interesting idea to me even now. I wish I had the self-promoting gene sometimes. It would make things easier, I’m sure. It just isn’t in me. I saw your email. I’ll get to it ASAP. Thank you! ** Dominik, Hi!!! Me too. I mean I’m almost literally jumping out of my skin with excitement to start editing the film, but I’m trying to be patient because it looks like we can’t start until next weekend, grr. That would be a fine and probably very effective first date. Love in a slightly morbid mood offering you the opportunity to design your future gravestone at any expense and eschewing the rules of reality and the laws of gravity, etc., and your assignment to love is …?, G. ** Jack Skelley, Fraternal twin of Dana Skulley! Big agreement with you there, buddy, on the NBC junk. I’m hoping Gary was in his non-drunk, highly amusing mode. Gary knows a lot of scary Los Angelenos I know, so I can probably guess who you mean. Taix is still there? I can’t remember the last time I had a hangover. I hope your wasn’t a tequila hangover. Oh my god. Kill me. ** A, Hurry is my middle name. Don’t know ‘Of an Age’. What a clunky title. The last movie I saw in a theater was Aleksandr Sokurov’s ‘Skazka’, It was completely nuts. Zac just went out of town, so I’m not going to see him until Monday. Your book is such a flirt. ** Bill, Hi. Bill Jones has another novel coming out? Wow, so he’s serious about the novel writing thing? Huh. I think I must’ve just read a piece or two of Chesney’s here and there, in Conjunctions maybe. Moved further up the to-buy list. ** Misanthrope, I try everything possible to avoid looking at photos of myself, so I have no idea how I smile actually. Based on how my smiles feel, I would say, yeah, not so toothy. I’ve never even looked at Grindr. I don’t even know what its design look is. I once looked over a friend’s shoulder when he was hunting on Scruff, but that’s about it. If your doc is Ukrainian I wouldn’t tell them you weren’t sure if they were Russian, piece of advice. ** _Black_Acrylic, Yes, John and Bruce’s book. So good. Wonderful thing. Unsurprisingly, Bruce didn’t get anywhere closer to the credit he deserved, but he’s a pal of mine and let’s just say he did the lion’s share of the picking. ** Jamie, Jamie, old buddy, how wonderful to see you!! I’ve managed to get three substantial-ish posts out of the art/porn axis so far, so it’s a big vein. I’m good. I am basically back to Paris normal, but it’s kind of like a limbo period since I’m mostly just waiting to start editing the film i.e. re-entering that space. Yes, Zac and I are very, very happy with what we shot. Very confident. I mean, the proof is in the pudding and all of that, but hopes are high. You well know that my shoot evidence having unearthed and nailed a screenplay by you, well, that’s the prize. And a novella by you, no credit to me, whoa! Close to finished! Getting ready to sent out. Wow, pray tell of what this novella is, please. Happy those posts unlocked things in you. It would be interesting to try to write a novel that was a scale model of a novel. Hm, I might even try that. Love like an open grave that isn’t a grave, Dennis. ** Nightcrawler, Hey there! Very nice to see you! Things are alright over here as best I can tell. The Broad, yeah. I haven’t been there in ages. His collection is/was something. Did they have a special temp show up? Warhol. I think it’s totally possible his stuff was on my mind back when I made the scrapbooks. His films have always been what interested me the most, by far. They were definitely a big influence. In fact, tomorrow I’m restoring an old post that has a bunch of his films in it, coincidentally. So yeah. I’m a little burnt out on his paintings these days, but the ‘Death and Disaster’ paintings are great, yeah, definitely. What else is new with you? ** Right. Yesterday I gave you a three-quel post, and today I’ve giving you kind of a sequel post in the sense that I did a gravestone-centric post here ages ago. Anyway, I fell down a gravestone google search rabbit hole kind of thing the other day, and I decided to drag you all along for better or worse. See you tomorrow.
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Amalia Ulman Dignity 01, 02, 2017 ‘This work consists of photographs depicting artist Amalia Ulman presented as a beautiful actress on the red carpet, but with the photoshopped addition of sperm ejaculated onto her face. Ulman, who used to be sex worker herself and is familiar with the codes of the porn industry, plays with aspects of the unreal, with lies and how quickly they can affect us.’
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Narcissister The Face (Performing male facial features), 2019 ‘To activate “The Face,” a petite woman with long dark hair walked into the gallery wearing furry chaps, her derriere exposed. She took a seat on a small ledge just above the mouth, facing the artwork. Her back was covered with an enormous, three-dimensional nose accented with a nose ring, completing the face. Once settled, she tugged at red pulleys, raising the eyelids with a clang, revealing warm blue eyes; other pulleys made the mouth open and close.’
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Richard Prince New Figures, 2015 collages with photo gravure cut-outs over etching
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Paul Yore Everything is Fucked, 2014 ‘A Melbourne artist accused of using child pornography in an installation said he knew the work was “teetering on the edge” and “borderline uncomfortable”, a court heard. Paul Yore, 26, has pleaded not guilty to creating and possessing child exploitation material over his “Everything is F***ed” piece, which was on display in St Kilda’s Linden Centre for Contemporary Art last year.’
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Brad Robson WTF!, 2018 painting, oil
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Lynda Benglis, Stanton Kaye The Amazing Bow Wow, 1976 ‘Made with Stanton Kaye, and the only Lynda Benglis video with a discernible plot, The Amazing Bow-Wow follows the adventures of a talking, hermaphroditic dog given to Rexina and Babu by a carnival barker. Rexina and Babu soon decide to make the dog a sideshow act hoping to earn their fortune. Babu eventually becomes jealous of Rexina’s devotion to the dog and one night attempts to castrate it, accidentally cutting off its tongue. The dog’s head becomes hideous and skeletal, ruining its sideshow career and the profits.’
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Cajsa von Zeipel Various, 2014 Styrofoam, Fiberglass, Aqua Resin, Plaster
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Mark McKnight Various, 2017 – 2020 ‘In their portrayal of open-air fetishistic sex, these photographs challenge an idealizing, exemplary image of queer relation as consonant with conventional ideals of straight domesticity, as well as of easy notions of virtue and health. These photographs resist easy readings in all directions; they challenge all our pieties.’
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Stacy Skolnik mrsblueeyes123.com, 2019 ‘For months Skolnik wrote and performed Instagram, posting the sorts of pictures and poems you’d usually only send by direct message, or at least not share to your main, until her account was banned for obscenity. The result is a diary of sexual desire and ambition: nudes covered with kisses and tagged with prominent literary journals; a mouth dripping with cum; the artist posing as a dog while a naked man looks at his laptop. The captions are short poems. While pornography multinationals are moving into the gallery, she’s going in the opposite direction, into the virtual world of thirst traps: “Fuck my image Cut a #hole in your #phone and fuck my image.”’
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Marlene Dumas Fingers, 1999 ‘At the moment my art is situated between the pornographic tendency to reveal everything and the erotic inclination to hide what it’s all about.’— MD
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Eduardo Rocca I Love Double Penetration, 2021 ‘I received my recent beautiful erotic art piece from lovely Mr. Eudardo! His work is always fabulous and perfect. This is my newest addition of many I have purchased from him. As always, is met beyond my expectations and more!! He delivers!! Seeing 2 cocks aiming at such a little butthole is erotic as Hell!! You can almost imagine cum oozing out of it. 😍 Thank you so very much!!’
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Darja Bajagić Tanya versus Irena, 2014 ‘Tanya vs. Irene is a compilation of obscene photographs pulled from the sites of Eastern European fetish porn sites. Each slide in the presentation is broken into two to four panels always depicting Tanya or Irene at a different moment in what is assumed to be a pornographic film. The images vary in their indecency. The show begins with Irene and Tanya fully clothed and depicted in varying degrees of patronization. The scene gradually more explicit. Images alternate between close-ups of the females genitalia and the women posed sexually returning the gaze of the viewer.’
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Maria E. Piñeres Various, 2019 needlepoint
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Unknown Untitled, 2002 ‘Jeju Loveland is conveniently located near Jeju Airport in South Korea, just 10-15 minutes by car. In contrast to most of the attractions, Jeju Loveland, being a sex-themed sculpture park, breaks the traditional taboos regarding sex. It was created in 2002 by several artists and graduates from Hongik University, with a total of 140 installations created within the Loveland.’
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David Murphy Various, 1989 – 2020 Various media
Serial Killer, 1989
Intercourse With Black Streaks No. 1, 1992
Girls on The Run, 1996
Kill Me No. 1, 2000
Obscured Lovers, 1997
Caught, 2013
Self-Portrait as a Sexually Abused Child, 2020
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tag83 Untitled, 2020 ‘After I quit, I honestly never thought I’d return to making Minecraft porn. But here I am. To 2020.’
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Valentina Nappi Senses, 2022 ‘The former porn star Valentina Nappi, during a body art performance, at the Casoria Contemporary Art Museum. Naked, she lets the public sniff her, in various parts of the body, to arouse an olfactory experience.’
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Celia Hempton Eddie, 2016 Oil on polyester
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Anna Uddenberg Savage #s 1 – 5, 2017 Aqua resin on fiberglass, suitcase, acrylic nails, synthetic hair, quilted faux leather, puffed jacket, faux fur, velvet, mesh, crystal, rubber slippers.
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Sue Coe Rape, Woman Walks into Bar–is raped by 4 men on the pool table–while 20 watch, 1984 Photogravure on Rives BFK off-white wove paper
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Takis Male magnetic erotic, 1974 bronze, magnet, painted styrofoam, wooden base
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Hudinilson Jr. Various, 1979 – 1984 ‘The eroticized male body is the matrix of Hudinilson Jr.’s work. The artist, whose brief yet prolific career began in the midst of the AIDS crisis and the downfall of Brazil’s military junta, scanned every inch of his own and other men’s bodies with the use of an office copier, assembling hundreds of tidily gridded and fearlessly homoerotic photocopies and collages. Images of bare flesh – from the artist’s own genitalia to Greek torsos and famous actors, torn and cut out of cheap tabloids and gay porn magazines – papered the nicotine-stained walls of his cramped São Paulo studio apartment, where he spent his last 25 years feverishly selecting, cutting and pasting found images.’
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Megumi Igarashi Vagina Kayak, 2016 ‘A Japanese artist who made a kayak modelled on her vagina has been found guilty of breaking the country’s obscenity laws, in a case that has invited widespread ridicule of attitudes towards images of female genitalia. Megumi Igarashi, who works under the pseudonym Rokudenashiko – or good-for-nothing girl – was arrested in July 2014 after she distributed data that enabled recipients to make 3D prints of her vagina. The 44-year-old was fined 400,000 yen (£2,575), half the penalty demanded by prosecutors, at the Tokyo district court on Monday after she was convicted of distributing “obscene” images. She was cleared of another charge of displaying similar material. Igarashi distributed the data to help raise funds to create a kayak inspired by her genitalia she called “pussy boat”. The judge, Mihoko Tanabe, said that the data, though “flat and inorganic”, realistically portrayed the shape of a vagina and could “sexually arouse viewers”, according to Kyodo News.’
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Martin Eder Various, 2018 ‘Eder is technically accomplished. He has a 19th-century academic painter’s mastery of the figure and a glossy mirror-like accuracy. His nudes have sickly, shiny skins, as if they’ve been body-painted for a disco then danced until they are soaked in sweat. As far as I can see, Eder’s paintings objectify and sexualise the young. Is there some sophisticated arty defence that I am missing? I don’t believe art should ever be censored. I don’t have to like it, though. And his daubs are callous exercises in brutal pornography that reduce painting to a Photoshop shower of hate.’
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Tala Madani Disco Pussy, 2018 oil on linen
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Tyza Stewart Various, 2017 – 2019 ‘Tyza Stewart’s self-portraits extend from experiences of personhood that feel ungraspable or indefinable. As a young teen, Tyza Stewart was frequently preoccupied with a desire to be a man, and more explicitly, a gay man. More than a precocious curiosity about the differences between the human form and a developing sexuality, Tyza’s sense of self grew with new information about masculinity, homosexuality, gender identity and gender modification.’
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Paul McCarthy The Garden, 1992 ‘I made a piece, The Garden [1992], with two animatronic men, an older one and a younger one, in a large fake garden, fornicating with nature. They’re self-consumed. They don’t look outside the garden.’ — PM
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p.s. Hey. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Sollers’s first three or four novels are especially good. Yeah, in editing it becomes about the whole thing/film. When you’re shooting, you (or we) shoot the scenes out of order so they’re more about the scenes on their own at the time, if that makes sense. Still no acceptable explanation of the Michael Douglas thing. I hope the seven hairless hedgehogs were friendly at least. Wow. Love giving me three front row seats for the sold out Sparks concert, G. ** tomk, Hi. It’s a goodie. My favorite by him is the novel ‘Event’. Highly recommended if you can get your hands on it. Fingers stranglingly crossed about that possible job. Tom on Thomas: excellent! Everyone, superb novelist Thomas Kendall has reviewed superb novelist Thomas Moore’s new novel for Lit Reactor, and this is a serious meeting of the minds/talents, so do read it. Day of utter excellence to you too, sir. ** A, I think ‘Suzume’ is still out and about here, but I’d better hurry. Curators are often the means by which you find creators, in my case at least. Still haven’t seen Zac. He’s hold up organising the files of our film so we can start editing. Any day now, hopefully today. ** Misanthrope, If I have a great smile, it’s despite my coffee/cigarette stained teeth, which I suppose I should tidy up one of these days. Oh, fuck, obviously I hope that pain isn’t hernia related. Yeesh. But at least you know the best surgeon. How did that happen? Don’t tell me, you met him, or, wait, the nurse, on Grindr, right? ** Jack Skelley, Yak! Nice, nice, nice. Halloween is a perfect time for everything. Word. Well, except for that stupid Tim Burton makeover of the Haunted Mansion @ Disneyland. Yay, post fodder in process. Yip! Pinecone dildo explosion love, me. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Yes, his work took a turn for the less interesting at a certain point, but he was always an interesting thinker. His non-fiction remained very pleasurably contentious and readable. He was indeed married to Kristeva. ** Cody Goodnight, Hi. Well, I guess I’m doing better than you are. So sorry about the depression. I hope it’s a quickie. ‘Serial Mom’ should take care of that, I reckon. Enjoy. Kathleen Turner is so great in it. She should have won the Oscar for best actress that year. Good, yeah, stay away from artificial tans. You can always tell. It’s the beginning of a day right now, and I’ll try make it great. I hope yours is a huge upper. ** Minet, Hi, Minet. It’s great to see you! I feel pretty much certain that our new film is going to be our best, yeah. I loved ‘Skinamarink’. I still get excited when I think about it. Where would we be without literate stars? I only discovered Rimbaud when I was 15 because Bob Dylan mentioned him in an interview I read. New poems by you! They sound amazing. Wait, did I miss an issue of SCAB while I was filming? Shit, if so. I’ll go find out and rectify that loss if I did. I’d love to read them! And, wow, amazing and congrats about your book! Has it gotten a good reaction? You sound excited. That’s absolutely great news! Lucky Brazil! Take care, me. ** Steve Erickson, And congrats on the laptop. I got a new one not so long ago, and I can leave it unplugged for almost a whole day, as opposed to the old one that ate its battery in about 15 minutes. Maybe you should force yourself to celebrate tomorrow as a kind of reverse masochistic act or something. But, yeah, birthdays get worse every year. But a happy one to you irregardless! I know a few people who are at Cannes, but I don’t think I’ll get reports until it’s over and they’re back here in a week or whatever. ** Darbz, Glad you decided to pony up, comments-wise. I met Trent Reznor once at an art opening a long time ago. He’s very short. I guess everyone really famous is. Or I’m just tall, which I am. I’ll never forgive him for buying the Sharon Tate murder house then tearing it down and building a boring new house in its place and then moving out and selling it about a year later. His name is mud among many Los Angelenos because of that. Huh, I have no mental image of what you look like whatsoever. Maybe you look like this? Or this? Or this? ** Okay. Today: What happens when porn and visual art collide, part 3. See you tomorrow.
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