At the same time "penis" the word began showing up in newspapers and on television in the mid- 1990s, the image of the penis started to proliferate in New York galleries. The photographs of Pierre Molinier, a French cross-dressing surrealist with a dildo obsession, came into vogue. Andres Serrano showed photographs of couples in which the men as well as the women were naked and aroused. There were so many group shows of erotic images, male and female, that critics began to say they were boring. Nevertheless, a great many people visited galleries to see them.
On the most basic level, an artwork with an erection in it dares the viewer to really look at this thing she's been taught not to think about. The act of viewing such an artwork expands the viewer's visual vocabulary and the ways in which he can think about male sexuality. Artists who work with penises, while using the image itself, are also playing with taboo and the idea of taboo, and with erotic charge and the idea of erotic charge.
For many people it's still jolting, or titillating, to find an erection in an art gallery, no matter what critics say. I asked one heterosexual man in the art business, who's in his forties, what he thought about all those dicks on gallery walls.
He said, "I think one of the last bastions of the male mysteries is the hard-on, and there's some sort of protection of that, we want it to remain a secret."
"You mean seeing an erection up on the wall is annoying?"
"I think it alerts one's senses," he said, "in a 'Maybe I'm about to beat the shit out of that guy' kind of way. There's a certain just animal sensation of 'What is he doing here?' It would be wrong to say one has no feeling about it. I do."
So if hiding erections is a power position, why are they coming out now? The answer must be that more than wanting power of the patriarchal kind, some men are beginning to want to be known, to be seen. There is a power in being known and seen, but it is not power as men traditionally understand it. Being known is a vulnerable position; it also makes communication possible. For this reason modern penis art carries cultural significance. It signifies the dismantling of a barrier, the opening of a door.
Source: The Book of the Penis by Maggie Paley
On the most basic level, an artwork with an erection in it dares the viewer to really look at this thing she's been taught not to think about. The act of viewing such an artwork expands the viewer's visual vocabulary and the ways in which he can think about male sexuality. Artists who work with penises, while using the image itself, are also playing with taboo and the idea of taboo, and with erotic charge and the idea of erotic charge.
For many people it's still jolting, or titillating, to find an erection in an art gallery, no matter what critics say. I asked one heterosexual man in the art business, who's in his forties, what he thought about all those dicks on gallery walls.
He said, "I think one of the last bastions of the male mysteries is the hard-on, and there's some sort of protection of that, we want it to remain a secret."
"You mean seeing an erection up on the wall is annoying?"
"I think it alerts one's senses," he said, "in a 'Maybe I'm about to beat the shit out of that guy' kind of way. There's a certain just animal sensation of 'What is he doing here?' It would be wrong to say one has no feeling about it. I do."
So if hiding erections is a power position, why are they coming out now? The answer must be that more than wanting power of the patriarchal kind, some men are beginning to want to be known, to be seen. There is a power in being known and seen, but it is not power as men traditionally understand it. Being known is a vulnerable position; it also makes communication possible. For this reason modern penis art carries cultural significance. It signifies the dismantling of a barrier, the opening of a door.
Source: The Book of the Penis by Maggie Paley
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