Reclaiming Erotic Art As a Site of Resistance
Paul Cadmus, Reclining Nude NM137, c. 1974, Erotic City exhibit at Eric Firestone Gallery, NYC.
There seems to be a trend of erotic raw expression of the body and sexuality perpetrating into gallery spaces within New York City, from Eric Finestone Gallery's Erotic City, curated by artist and feminist icon Martha Edelheit to James Fuentes Giant Women on New York, and now the newest addition, Cosey Fanny Tutti: Magazine Actions at Maxwell Gallery, closing June 28, 2025. There is a shift towards the unapologetic and explicit despite our current political climate punishing those who express such explicit views.
Alice Neel, Ruth Nude, 1964. Giant Women on New York exhibit at James Fuentes, NYC
You enter the doors into Maxwell Gallery and descend down the flight of stairs to enter the exhibition space. It is like any other typical white cube gallery, with bright lights and a sterile atmosphere; however, what hangs on the walls is anything but that. Archival pornographic photographs of nude women and lesbian sex are spread around the room, confronting the viewer as soon as they walk in. Prints of naked women posing, touching, and performing sexual acts surround all four walls.
The artist responsible for the work is Cosey Fanni Tutti, who has worked as an artist and musician for over 50 years, as well as a pornographic model. During this time, Fanni Tutti began creating a body of work titled Magazine Actions, which spanned from 1972 to 1980. A few weeks after each pornographic shoot, Fanni Tutti would go purchase these magazines and begin to collage them. Fanni Tutti immersed herself within the sex industry to speak on and witness first-hand to explore such ideas of purity, the transgression of specific societal rules, and the male gaze. Through her collage works, she subverts these themes and questions, taking hold of her own body as she takes her image, cuts around it, and recontextualizes it by placing it in a completely new space.
Cosey Fanni Tutti
I was enamored with the images, the story of Cosey Fanni Tutti, and how she reclaimed her body to subvert the male gaze and the assumptions that permeate sex workers, yet I also found myself awkward within the space, thinking of how long I stood in front of certain images, where my gaze lingered, how long I was in there staring at all these naked women, while the man who sat at the front desk of the gallery and I sparsely shared awkward eye contact.
I had to confront my bias within the show and ask myself why I found myself uncomfortable? Was it the overt depiction of sex? Or was it the fact that I knew I was being watched? Was I uncomfortable viewing these images, or only when someone knew I was viewing them? However, I think that these emotions, questions, and this exhibition as a whole allow for discomfort as a site of inquiry, enabling viewers to actively engage with these artworks.
Oftentimes, erotic art gets diluted and regressed to titillation or transgression. However, this exhibition blurs the lines between the two. It creates a new space for examining pleasure as political and reclaiming one's body. Entering the gallery, I was acutely aware that the arrival of the exhibition coincided with a growing trend of conservatism. The "trad-wife aesthetic" becomes popularized on social media, Gen Z surveys show a retreat into more puritanical views on sex, and elected officials are continuing to control and create legislation over individuals' bodily autonomy. With Magazine Actions, this exhibition not only feels provocative and refreshing, but it also feels necessary.
Eroticism, especially about the raw expression of women's bodies and women's pleasure, has historically been a site of tension and suppression, between public and private, desire and shame, and the anesthecized and the obscene. However, with these past shows, we are now not only seeing a celebration but also a reclamation of erotic art as a site resistance.
Lucy White is a senior studying Art History at The New School in New York City.