Andrew Lambirth

Sex with no appeal

Exhibitions 1: Seduced: Art and Sex from Antiquity to Now; Walter Sickert: The Camden Town Nudes

issue 01 December 2007

What has come to be known as the Sex Show at the Barbican has received mixed reports. Some people dismiss it out of hand (and unseen) while others profess to enjoy it immensely. One painter I know loved it, but then he is a voyeur both by profession and inclination. I approached it with an open mind, ready to be seduced (if need be, and strictly for the sake of my readers) but found myself all too soon turning judgmental, as critics tend to do. I also found myself thirsting for an oasis of subtlety among the deserts of brashness: thankfully, there are real works of art here interrupting the tasteful or not-so-tasteful pornography, which provide some respite from the overweening lubricity.

The visitor is greeted by a plaster cast of a fig leaf made in 1857 to disguise the evident manliness of Michelangelo’s ‘David’, and to protect Queen Victoria’s delicate sensibilities from sudden shock.

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