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The Seattle Erotic Art Festival is Coming March 24-26, 2006

Erotica Goes Mainstream

Throughout the weekend of March 24-26, the Seattle Erotic Art Festival (SEAF) will present an expansive exhibition of contemporary fine erotic art, a costume gala, an auction, interactive installations, a gallery store for small works and prints, and opportunities to meet the artists, films, lectures, theater, tours, readings, performance art, and more.

Guest curator Pet Silvia of New York’s Art @ Large will once again present a gallery of ground- breaking artists. SEAF2005 presented 300 pieces of juried and invited work by 187 artists from 12 countries to over 4,000 attendees and received significant media attention. Most importantly, a large portion of the work displayed was sold, in addition to impressive sales in the Festival Store.

The Seattle Erotic Art Festival strives to display work that portrays the diversity of human sexual expression and the incredible creativity with which artists approach the subject; our jury and curators select work based on quality of execution, originality of subject, and depth of emotion.

SEAF was founded in 2002 by Seattle’s Sex Positive Community Center (SPCC) to promote freedom of sexuality, speech and creativity through the erotic expression of fine art. SPCC is a non-profit organization that fosters growth and development of a sex-positive culture.

Erotic art is stepping out of the closet into museums and galleries, as a growing mass of collectors are openly enjoying and willing to pay top dollar for the aesthetic and sensual thrills of previously forbidden fruit. “There’s a realization that art can be sexy and erotic and you can show it in your home. It’s becoming more permissible,” said Allena Gabosch, director of The Wet Spot, a not-for-profit group that organizes the annual Seattle Erotic Art Festival. “I find great pleasure in art that affects all of my senses.” More and more people seem to agree, judging from the festival’s attendance, which doubled to 4,000 in its second annual show in the first weekend of February—timed to usher in Valentine’s Day.

On display will be works priced from $40 to $10,000, by hundreds international artists.  Photo-realistic paintings of pin-up fantasy women by Hajime Sorayama sell for as much as $25,000, while those of Olivia De Berardinis go for up to $75,000. “We’re moving into a renaissance in that the number of artists producing erotica is growing,” said Durk Dehner, director of the Tom of Finland Foundation in Los Angeles.

The nonprofit group was founded in 1984 to preserve and promote the work of homoerotic Finnish artist Touko Laaksonen, who signed his drawings “Tom of Finland” when he started submitting them to American muscle magazines in 1956.

The group’s mission now extends to erotic art of all persuasions. It’s a far cry from when “forbidden art” was hidden away or published only in the underground press. Tom’s fantasy sketches, featuring incredibly well-endowed men, are now on permanent display in museums in Portland, Oregon; Los Angeles; San Francisco; and Helsinki, Finland. Controversial gay photographer Robert Mapplethorpe has also become an icon. With this change in status, a Tom of Finland sketch that cost $350 in 1978 now sells for $12,000, Dehner said. Even so, a 21-inch wide 1989 poster of his is available at the foundation’s Web site for as low as $20. “We’re on the edge of where erotic works will probably start increasing at faster rates,” Dehner said, noting they are now perceived as fine art. “If people can feel that something is held in high regard, they’re more comfortable with it.” The difference between art and pornography is clear to “Miss Naomi,” who has acquired 4,000 museum-quality works worth millions of dollars over 12 years.

“Pornography gives you one message—Let’s get it on, let’s have sex,” said the author of “Forbidden Art: The World of Erotica” and “Visions of Erotica” (Schiffer, http://www.schifferbooks.com ). “Erotic art engages you in a thoughtful process. It’s an interpretation about it, the talent, the unusual or beautiful way the art is displayed.” Among her notable artifacts is a 31-inch-long white fiberglass phallic sculpture used as a murder weapon in the movie “Clockwork Orange.” Miss Naomi, who paid $3,000 for it in 2000, has it insured for $15,000. She estimates that many items have tripled or quadrupled in value since she bought them. Paintings and sketches by Etienne, who was strongly influenced by Tom of Finland, now sell for 10 times their value in the 1970s, said Pet Silvia, who runs Art @ Large, an erotic figurative art gallery in New York.

Among contemporary works, those of John John Jesse, whose Catholic-themed paintings cross over into the “lowbrow” category, have nearly tripled in value over the last 18 months, said Silvia, a self-described “heterosexual drag queen.” “Believe it or not, it’s through word of mouth. We’re dealing with an inventory of his that we can’t keep in the house long enough,” he said. Nude paintings on wood by Frances Turner, of less-than-perfect human subjects, have also escalated in value since the British artist died of a brain tumor last July at age 38, Silvia said. “She found beauty in everyone, whether they were heavily tattooed, obese, or an amputee.”

“Mainstream” artists are finding their way into the market as well. Jeff Hengst, largely known for his painting commissioned by the Seattle Space Needle, showed his edgier works at the Seattle Erotic Art Festival, priced as high as $10,000. “We’re moving toward becoming more comfortable with human sexuality, so that those artists creating (erotic art) will have a lot more vehicles to showcase their work,” said Dehner of the Tom of Finland Foundation. As a result of these changes, “now is a very good time to purchase erotic art,” he said. “It’s my feeling that, in the next 5 to 10 years, it’s going to break and make much deeper inroads into the mainstream.”

So what are people saying about SEAF??

The Seattle Times
“Now in its third year, the festival has turned into a must-see event for the sexually adventurous and the aesthetically conservative.”

The Stranger
“The door that the question “What is erotic?” opens admits artists first (in the form of submissions) and then the audience (many of whom enter Consolidated Works not to look at art so much as to be looked at as art). They, too, answer the ruling question. But whereas the artist says, “This image of a girl wearing a mask and cape and looking rather vampirish as she walks through the night or a dark room is erotic,” the person who is wearing something very tight and revealing says, I’m erotic.”

Tablet Newspaper
“For anyone who attended last year’s Erotic Art Show, the one element that shouldn’t have been missed was the crowd of sex-positive Seattleites that turned the night of the auction into a standing-room-only, line-around-the-block affair. The vibe was very intense – talkative, a little flirtatious, definitely not vanilla. With participants’ dress ranging from the delectable turquoise rubber gown and gloves of Mistress Matisse to the all-chain ensemble of an unknown but still amazing brunette, there was not a direction you could turn and not gawk (although you could pretend you were only looking at the art). This year, I can’t tell which night will be the best — the opening night, with Butoh performance, living statues and a naughty balloon artist, plus the burlesque show? Or will it be Saturday, the night of the benefit auction for the Seattle Sex-Positive Community Center?”

Buzz24.com
“HBO’s pop-com Sex In The City may have recently been all the rage but in our everyday culture going beyond sexual innuendo remains taboo and underground. Here’s some proof that life does exist inside the flannel shirts and jockey shorts of the northwest. For a brief time in February, varying forms of eroticism, sexuality, and sensual play will be represented as erotic art takes a determinate step towards public acceptance at the Historic Town Hall in Seattle.”

Control Tower – Mistress Matisse
“You know an event is a hot ticket when people dressed in scanty, slinky clothing will wait outside in the January cold. Fortunately, my being an artist meant Max and I got right in. Inside, the flashy attendees were a show in themselves. But the art was amazing—so diverse and challenging—and the energy of it all was a little overwhelming. There isn’t room for me to mention every piece I liked. WS Fisher, Krysztof Nemeth, and Ellen Forney showed some great drawings. And Jeff Hengst’s larger-than-life oil paintings always pull me in. Photography is my special love and we have a raft of talented erotic/fetish photographers in Seattle. But local loyalty aside, New York photographer Barbara Nitke had a photo of two leathermen that made me swoon.”

Interested in this gala Erotica Art Festival in Seattle?  Check it out online at  www.SeattleErotic.org .

Edited by
Marilyn Miller
Adult Travel Editor
TravelLady Magazine

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