Art and porn—are they easy bedfellows? Eyebrows may be raised at the news that Pornhub, a website that streams explicit content daily to 120 million visitors (anything from anal to gay daddy encounters), is sponsoring a new show at Maccarone gallery in Los Angeles called The Pleasure Principle (until 23 November). According to Bloomberg, the dealer Michele Maccarone has selected the 50 works on show, featuring artists and film-makers such as Kathe Burkhart and Doris Wishman; Pornhub meanwhile has “commissioned” the show (i.e. paid for production costs and installation). Maccarone says that she is “interested in reclaiming this history… of female sexuality”, stressing also that she “is pivoting to a new [business] model”. (A)rousing stuff.
In the frameblog
The Moaning Lisa? Pornhub commissions exhibition in LA
12 September 2019
Kathe Burkhart's Pervert, from the X, Y, and Zee series (2007) Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Lumen Travo, Amsterdam.