Art and Sex at Barbican

Exploring the world of art and sex and closely they are related, the Seduced exhibition at Barbican this winter examines the nature of sexually explicit paintings or sculpture and where we draw the line between pornography and art.

Including 250 works from Roman marbles, Indian manuscripts, Renaissance and Baroque paintings, Chinese prints, Japanese woodcuts and contemporary photographs and video, the exhibition of sex and art at Barbican shows some extraordinary works that have never before been seen in the UK.

The exhibition has been curated from important public and private collections from all over the world and features over 70 well known artists that are not necessarily renowned for their sexually explicit work. Pablo Picasso and Robert Mapplethorpe are well known for their erotic art and their use of the nude, whether male or female, in sexually orientated pieces, but also featuring work in the sex and art exhibition at Barbican are the like of JMW Turner, Francis Bacon and Auguste Rodin.

The aim of Seduced exhibition at Barbican is to generate public debate about the lines that are drawn between art and pornography. It aims to encourage people to discuss the reasons why sexually explicit photography is deemed obscene whereas the same figure in the same position in a painting, is called art. Many Greek and Roman pieces of art and sculpture contain explicit heterosexual and homoerotic art which was commonplace in its day, yet these pieces feature very rarely in museum collections on display.

By looking at the nature of exposure and censorship in the world of art and sex, the Barbican exhibition highlights the relationship between the viewer and the art, and provides a historical and cultural background for the visitor to question his or her own stance.

With sound and movement being added to the art and sex at Barbican by an installation called the Voice of Sex reading from erotic texts such as the Karma Sutra and Lolita, and Union Dance performing a specially commissioned series of movement events, this exhibition is bound to cause a stir in London and the rest of the UK.

If you would like to buy tickets for Seduced: Art and Sex at Barbican, visit www.barbican.org.uk for more information.

Venue: Barbican
Nearest tube: Barbican

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