The blog of author Dennis Cooper

P*rn 3

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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.’

Watch an excerpt here

 

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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

 

 

*

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.

12 Comments

  1. Minet

    Hey Dennis!! Great post. I accidentally commented yesterday under Cody’s reply so I think you missed it lol :(( I’ll just copy and paste my comment if that’s okay:

    Hey, Dennis, how are you? Haven’t written on here in a bit but saw all the filming stuff, super excited. From the little you’ve revealed it kinda sounds like the best one yet??? Did you get to watch that horror film Skinamarink that came out recently? Seemed like something you’d be into. I need to get into it soon.

    Don’t know much about Sollers, but Kristeva is so cool, Powers of Horror is a masterpiece. Thanks K. Acker for mentioning it in so many interviews, along with so many other great books and authors I wouldn’t hear about otherwise… Thanks Kathy in general lol

    I recently wrote these two poems that I really wanted to send you! One of them was featured in the latest SCAB issue (hi Dominik!! ♡) so maybe you’ve read it (but I think it was released when you were out shooting so maybe not), and the other one is pretty fresh. They’re called “My Battered Heart” and “Biopic”. Think you’ll dig ’em, there’s blood-splattered boys and music festivals and Rimbaud and Brad Renfro and David Cassidy… All the good stuff. I can email them to you :))

    Hope everything’s good and you’re getting some rest. My book just got released here in Brazil so it’s been really hectic and overwhelming. Exciting though. The title, “Coleção de Meninos Mortos” basically translates in English to “Dead Boy Collection”, which, not to brag, is kind of a cool ass title lolol

    All the best <3

    • Dominik

  2. Dominik

    Hi!!

    I’ll start there, then. With my Sollers exploration. Thank you!

    Yeah, it makes absolute sense – about shooting individual scenes and then starting to see something bigger, a “whole,” when editing. Ah, I can’t wait to see the final thing, really.

    I had to google Sparks. I hope love miraculously comes through, haha. Love inviting you to a Hudinilson Jr. retrospective for a first date, Od.

  3. Jack Skelley

    Dentopolis Acropolis : “The Nightmare Before Christmas” always bugged for its blatant commercialism. (Duh, I guess). Like, “Let’s make a Halloween movie AND a Christmas movie $$$!”) Next, Disneyland must absorb all content in the universe, therefore Tim Burton Haunted Mansion. Went to Gary Indiana reading last nite at Poetic Research Bureau. Half the audience ended up a Taix and now I’m hungover. That anecdote has no apparent purpose, except you know a lot of those peeps. The Pinecone Dildo Explodes. oh, good naughty post!!!! Luv, Jack

  4. A

    Yeah, you better hurry. Last movie I saw in theatres was Of An Age. Honestly Bret didn’t like Of An Age and he thought the ending was stupid/hysterical but I kind of enjoyed it, obviously reminded me of Andrew Haigh’s Weekend but nothing close to it. All good, re: Zac. Keep me posted, maybe tomorrow it’ll happen and be the magic day. Yeah, I know… The editing k-hole is a real thing. Have a good day.

  5. Minet

    Omg I just realized you did answer my comment!!!! I’m soso embarrassed lol please ignore the copy and paste, my brain really must be malfunctioning from too much stuff happening lately. I gotta get some real rest lol

    Yeah, I first heard about Rimbaud at 13 from my older skater friends but only really “discovered” him at 15/16. Perfect age, as you probably know. Book has been getting a really cool reception here, it’s still pretty weird having “fans” and such, most of them considerably older than me, but it’s fun at the same time. I’m still a newbie though so it’s a daily grind, especially in these dark ages of social media and all that instinctive self-promotion. I might be kind of decent at it though hah

    I’ll send you the poems!!! And so sorry for the confusion lol ugh I feel very silly

    XO

  6. Bill

    The vagina kayak is hilarious. Also Narcisister’s The Face, and the Takis piece with the magnet. And I just watched William Jones’ More British Sounds last night. You know his new novel will be out in weeks?

    Matthew Cheney has an earlier collection, Blood. He’s also in Conjunctions and various interfiction and weird fiction anthologies. (I just came across Samuel Delany’s endorsement of the new book!)

    Bill

  7. Misanthrope

    Dennis, Hmm, I don’t remember you having much of a toothy smile, so I don’t really remember the stains. The STAINS. But hey, I’m right behind you there. #StainsForLife 😀

    Thanks. Yeah, we met on Grindr. Hahahaha. That did make me lol.

    Nah, just someone I met through another friend who happens to work with the dude and I remembered her when this (may have) happened. I’ll see what my doc says. And this doc is Ukrainian. Or Russian. I can’t remember which. Awesome reviews from patients on line, though.

  8. _Black_Acrylic

    Up there with my favourite books is definitely Art: A Sex Book by John Waters and Bruce Hainley, which I got at art school and would pass around at parties to get interested reactions.

  9. Jamie

    Hey Dennis,
    I always think there’s not enough porn/porn-adjacent art and here you are proving me wrong with aplomb. I love it. Think my faves are the needlepoints and I Love Double Penetration (reading that back it’s like I just laid a random fact about myself on you).
    How are you? Are you back to Paris-normal yet? From what I can glean from the ps, the RT shoot was a big success, yay! Are you v happy with what you got? Also, your on-set pics inspired me to pull up a screenplay I’d abandoned four years ago and finish the draft, so thanks for that kick in the ass.
    I’m also close to finishing a novella, which is a big thing for me, even getting close to sending it out, brrr.
    There’s been some great posts on the blog since you returned – I loved some of Werner Nekes films (esp Gurtrug N°1 ) and the restoration of the Scale Models day reminded me of the Isaïe Bloch concert hall, which I loved when the post first went up and have been trying to recall the guy’s name ever since. Imagine a book like that concert hall, or a song??!!
    Hope things are great with you.
    Combine harvester love,
    Jamie

  10. Nightcrawler

    Hi Dennis!

    I hope you have been well since returning to Europe.

    Those Richard Prince pieces are really something! It makes me want to experiment with something similar—they look so deceptively simple.

    Speaking of art, though, I went to the Broad Museum in LA last Friday (the selection of artists is a bit small compared to a lot of big museums, but the collections are amazing). My favorite pieces that they had were the several “Death and Disaster” series of screenprints by Warhol. Looking at them, I immediately thought of some of the images in your “Gone” scrapbook.

    Do you have any thoughts on Warhol? Was he someone you thought about at all while doing that scrapbook?

  11. Mark

    Hi Dennis,

    I worked on installing the Narcissister sculpture for Maccarone Gallery in LA in 2019. The exhibition https://maccarone.net/exhibitions/the-pleasure-principle/ was really cool. It was sponsored by Porn Hub and included works by all-female artists dealing with porn. Karen Finley did a piece about sexting where she had visitors sext her and then she created portraits based on the images/text she received. She wanted to have a few portraits done before the opening, so she asked me to sext her and she did a portrait of me – lol!

    Also, I’m a cemetery nut, loved the recent post <3

    Mark

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