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[NSFW] The Revival of '25 Years Of Sexually X-Plicit Art By Women' Is Glorious

23 years after its original showing, Ellen Cantor's survey of feminist erotic art feels more relevant than ever.
Marilyn Minter, The Supremes, 1990, Collection of Richard Mashaal and Evelyn Jerassy, Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York

This article contains adult content. 

By the early 90s, American society had inched toward sex positivity, but a gallery filled with erotic paintings, BDSM photography, and nude performance art, was still racy. It should come as no surprise, then, that 23 years later, artist and curator Ellen Cantor’s 1993 survey of sexual art—created by and for women—still feels pretty naughty. On view at Maccarone Gallery through October 16, Coming to Power: 25 Years Of Sexually X-Plicit Art By Women, is a restaging of that original show.

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Though Cantor succumbed to cancer in 2013, robbing the world of a visionary artist and advocate, the work of the women she helped put on the map is more relevant than ever. In addition to its groundbreaking display of female sensuality, the original show was one of the first group surveys of feminist art. The breadth of pioneering women was staggering, spanning the late 60s through early 90s. Coming To Power included Yoko Ono’s 1966 trifecta of contraception methods, Object In Three Parts - Revolution, as well as carnal relics from Carolee Schneemann’s body-centric performances in the 70s. Made to look like tiny vaginas, Hannah Wilke’s chewing gum sculptures hung next to Nan Goldin’s softcore portraits of hardcore living.

Coming to Power: 25 Years Of Sexually X-Plicit Art By Women, Installation views staged by Pati Hertling / Julie Tolentino at Maccarone, New York, 2016 (Original exhibition by Ellen Cantor at David Zwirner Gallery in 1993.) Courtesy of the artists and Maccarone, New York / Los Angeles

For the 2016 rendition of the show, curators Pati Hertling and Julie Tolentino managed to recover work by every single artist featured in the original exhibition. “[The artists] all felt that it was a super powerful show for them, but they didn’t see the world accept it the first time around, and that’s why when it came back it was sort of like, ‘We knew this was important!’” Tolentino tells The Creators Project. “It was David Zwirner’s, like, third show ever. Many of them weren’t on the map yet,” Hertling say. “But everybody was excited to come back together. Women can be very collaborative in that way, I feel. Which is really nice.”

When Cantor united her idols and peers for Coming to Power, the canon of sexually explicit work by women was young yet powerful. The show paid homage to an older generation of artists, who fought in the 60s and 70s to reclaim erotica from the male gaze, and a younger generation that was creating art intended to incite sexual excitement. According to Tolentino, a lot of the women worked in isolation, chipping away at misogyny on parallel paths. Video and performance artists, whose work can feel ephemeral, were even more marginalized. Assembling them in one show proved there was strength in numbers.

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Doris Kloster, Bullwhipping, 1993, Courtesy the artist and Maccarone, NY/LA

Cantor made sure female voices were heard, and today the art world recognizes her resonance. This fall alone, seven separate exhibitions honor Cantor, and though it feels bittersweet to be celebrating her work posthumously, it speaks to the slow burn of the fight to validate female sexuality. “It’s a huge arc, those 25 years ending in '93, but it shows the increasing shifts and allowances, the way culture changed along with the pill and with women having the freedom to pursue art as opposed to being a homemaker. That whole span, there was so much happening. That’s art history working on you. That’s just what was going on at the time,” Tolentino says.

Patricia Cronin, girls, 1993, Courtesy of David and Monica Zwirner, New York

Coming to Power also showcases Cantor’s own art. She was a prolific painter, sculptor and video artist—so much so, Hertling and Tolentino weren’t able to find some of her pieces from 1993 for the 2016 show. But combing Cantor’s meticulous archives, the curators unearthed paintings they didn’t know existed. “We didn’t even know they all went together until a week before this show,” Tolentino says. “Then a slide showed up that put it all together, and we found out that it’s called the Clit Club,” also the name of the legendary lesbian bar Tolentino founded in the 90s. “Honestly, this is probably the first time I’ve been able to tell this story without crying. We had to lose everything, including her, but we got this back from her as a gift.”

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Coming to Power: 25 Years Of Sexually X-Plicit Art By Women, Installation views staged by Pati Hertling / Julie Tolentino at Maccarone, New York, 2016 (Original exhibition by Ellen Cantor at David Zwirner Gallery in 1993.) Courtesy of the artists and Maccarone, New York / Los Angeles

Cantor championed the little-known artists of 1993, and the 2016 exhibition is even more inclusive, with a performance program highlighting diverse, queer, trans, and genderqueer artists. But Coming to Power is hardly an exhaustive survey: “The point of the show is that we’re all meant to keep mining history around women,” Tolentino says. “[Cantor] felt the alienation of marginalized, liminal spaces and made things happen. That’s what makes her so heroic to us. That’s active feminism, not theoretical feminism.”

Coming to Power: 25 Years Of Sexually X-Plicit Art By Women is at Maccarone Gallery in New York through October 16. For the complete performance program, check out the exhibition website.

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