london1967 | Sex and atonement (Reply)

Yesterday we went to see "Seduced: Art and Sex from Antiquity to Now" at the Barbican art gallery.

The exhibition spans over 2000 years of art and - well - pornography (as some of the objects were meant to arouse the viewers) from ancient Greece and Rome (there were even some wall paintingS from Pompeii), and then from the Renaissance to the modern day (Mapplethorpe, Warhol, Koons, Tracey Emin, Thomas Ruff).
And there is not only Western art, but also pieces from India, ChinA and Japan.

This is the only piece that didn't have a penis or a vagina or a hole in it!

(it is a plaster cast of a fig leaf made to cover the pudenda of a lifesize copy of Michelangelo's David, given by the Archduke of Tuscany to Queen Victoria).

It was placed at very start of the exhibition to symbolise the role of censorship in covering up (sometimes literally!) any representations of sex and nudity over the centuries.
The exhibition was for over 18s only but some rooms had further warnings of graphic depiction of heterosexual and homosexual sex; the Mattlethorpe room had warnings about the S&M homosexual contents.

I couldn't help but wonder what the gallery wardens made of some of the visitors examining every piece in great detail...

After a spot of lunch at the Barbican, we went to a cinema in Leicester Square to see "Atonement". It is a lovely movie, beautifully filmed and acted but oh, so sad!