The b-uncut blog

A “Whore’s Canal” at the “Nat Gal”

// November 16th, 2009 // b-scene // Alya

The Hoerengracht (Whore’s Canal) is a dark, intricate, large-scale installation work by US artists Ed Kienholz (1927-94) and his wife Nancy Reddin Kienholz (b1943). The piece, made between 1983 and 1988, has been shown in venues around the world since 1989, and for the first time this year at the National Gallery’s Sunley Room . The walk-through installation, which evokes Amsterdam’s Red Light District through a series of dense assemblages, denotes a perverse patience for detail and dark humor.

So here we are, listening to Roxanne, walking around in a work of art, in the red light district of Amsterdam – thinking many acne-faced teenagers would envy us – taking notes on this dark and detailed vision of men’s lust. To fully understand the almost sinister and shocking dimension of this exhibition, one must keep in mind Kienholz’s purpose when he made it in 1961 – to convey the feelings of the naïve teenager he was when he visited the original, in Nevada, in 1943. It is only then that our sex, blood and drug-numbed minds can see through the old and hard looking whores lying around.

The contrast between the vulgar figures and the homely flowered wallpaper, plump sofas and perky 1943 magazines, is simply disconcerting. In ‘Roxys’, the madam has a boar’s skull; one splay-legged figure is made of a commode and a dustbin that says Love, another lies on a sewing machine base, a yellow rose at her throat and squirrel on her breast.

But how would a 21st century mind interpret this? Did he cross a line? Which line? Is it shocking? Is it art? Is it eroticism?

“Art-nude and erotic-nude” photographer Thomas Hodges gives us his vision on eroticism. Mind the gap!

Hodges: To describe Eroticism, I will take some extracts from the brief article on pornography I wrote some time back.

“Erotic, Erotica, Erotism, Eroticism, etc., all pertain to the root word “Eros”, Son and lover of Aphrodite (or Venus to the Romans), and all pertain to “sexual desire or excitement”. Erotica is (or at least should be) primarily sensual, sensuality being the primary stimulant.” Thus, I would summarise erotica to me as “sensual stimulation, arousing sexual excitement”.

b-uncut: What do you think is the most erotic city?

Hodges: Now this is a difficult one, because I don’t think there is any one single city. However, if I had to choose, I think I would have to say Paris (with Vienna as a close second!).

Why? Well, I guess it’s not so much what can be seen on the surface, it’s more about what innuendoes, and what goes on behind locked doors and in the very active “Club Privé” environment. Check-out this YouTube video to get a feel for what I mean: Art of Seduction: oh la la

b-uncut: Which piece of art (your own or someone else’s) expresses  your idea of eroticism best?

Hodges: Naturally, I would tend to choose my own artwork, although there are plenty of other artists that spring to mind, especially Klimt and Schiele. However, I don’t really have one single piece that I could say “expresses the most” my idea of eroticism.