The Last Word: Seduced!

Anna Sayburn reviews the Barbican’s exhibition, ‘Seduced’

The Aubrey Beardsley drawings in DPGs current exhibition reminded me of the last time I’d seen the artist’s work – at the Seduced exhibition at the Barbican Gallery in the City.

Beardsley’s work was represented by his drawings to illustrate Aristophanes’ comedy Lysistrata, known as the sex strike.

The men of the city walk around carrying enormous phalli before them, like men moving lumber.

For once, his witty illustrations were not the most explicit on show.

How exactly do you look at an exhibition of erotic art? Or rather, how do you look at it while surrounded by strangers, trying simultaneously not to look shocked, but not too interested either?

The rather funny result was a gallery full of people attempting to look cooly familiar with depictions of human sexuality ranging from the mundane to the ambitious to the frankly inadvisable.

The curators seemed to understand the problem, warming the audience up with reassuringly ancient pottery and bronze figures, all copulating like mad. Once you’re accustomed to looking at a penis in company, the gloves come off. If that’s the right phrase.

The famously eclectic love lives of the ancient Greeks provide a handy excuse for all sorts of painted shenanigans during the Renaissance and later years. The Bible also provides a few eyebrow raising stories that I don’t remember from my Sunday School picture book of Noah’s Flood.

The Indian and Japanese prints suggest that the Greeks had been on the pedestrian side with their positions, if not their choice of partners. Peering at the exquisite, detailed watercolours, it was impossible not to speculate about the feasibility or otherwise of the feats on display. Even if you do yoga.

Yet looking with modern eyes, it’s hard to imagine the shock once caused by these eastern curiosities. For me, the most shocking images in the Chinese paintings were the women’s cruelly bound feet.

The Surrealists knew how to shock, though. Many of their photographs and artworks still provoke a widened eye or a sharp intake of breath.

By the time I reached the contemporary artists, my palate was a little jaded. I liked Louise Bourgeois’ fabric figures, struggling heavily together, and Nan Goldin’s slideshows of her friends’ lives, sexual and otherwise. But in my favourite piece, k r buxey’s Requiem, the camera concentrated entirely on her face as she enjoyed sexual pleasure. No genitalia required.

Seduced is at the Barbican Art Gallery until 27 January 2008 The catalogue is also for sale in the Dulwich Picture Gallery shop.