The Porn Identity

Exhibition
13/2 2009 — 1/6 2009
Museumsquartier / Halle2

Porn is, so they say, what you do not want to be caught with, or at. And yet it is everywhere. Pornography has infiltrated the mainstream and is booming in the niches. It pervades everyday life, pop, and the arts. ?Pornetration? is flooding the media, which themselves, in their voyeuristic character and greed for signs of excitement, operate in a latently pornographic manner ? always on the search for taboos that may be exhausted, broken, and nevertheless maintained at the same
time. With artists investigating the relationship between power, gaze, and body in regard to pornographic scenarios, ?post-pornographic? counter-images to sexism and hetero-normative screw reviews have recently mobilized in the slipstream of the porn Oscars? stale glamour. The Porn Identity confronts the proliferation of pornography with motion pictures, sculptures, and installation works reflecting sexual desire. The transfer of indecent pictures into the art institutional space not only transcends the porn-typical context of market-oriented publication and reprivatized consumption, but also explores the similarities and differences between art and the visual culture of stimulation.

Participating artists: Louisa Achille, Nic Andrews, Joanna Angel, Kenneth Anger, Fernando Arias, Martin Arnold, James Avalon, Belladonna, Andrew Blake, Monica Bonvicini, Angela Bulloch, Tom Burr, Ellen Cantor, Marilyn Chambers, T. Arthur Cottam, Gerard Damiano, Gregory Dark, Katrina Daschner, Nathalie Djurberg, Marcel Duchamp, Elmgreen & Dragset, Jean Genet, Sachiko Hanai, Marlene Haring, Jenna Jameson, Ron Jeremy, William E. Jones, Richard Kern, Edward Kienholz & Nancy Reddin Kienholz, Terence Koh, Stanley Kubrick, Bruce LaBruce, Michael Laub & Dean Proctor, Joseph Maida, Dorit Margreiter, Dona Ann McAdams, Eon McKai, Olaf Metzel, John Miller, Jim & Artie Mitchell, Robert Müller, Richard Prince, Panik Qulture, Rinse Dream, Iwata Roku, Doug Sakmann, Carolee Schneemann, Rocco Siffredi, Snoop Dogg, Hito Steyerl, Paul Thomas, Tatiana Trouvé, Tobaron Waxman, Lawrence Weiner, Octavio Winkytiki, Johannes Wohnseifer, Tseng Yu-Chin, Nick Zedd, Jack the Zipper

Curators: Thomas Edlinger, Florian Waldvogel, Angela Stief Guided tours: every Saturday and Sunday 4 pm