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Parents warned over hardcore pornography in Hayward Gallery show
By Louise Jury, Evening Standard 22.06.09
Red alert: “Dots Obsession”, by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama is one of the more family-friendly images that has been used to promote the exhibition
Hare-brained: The exhibition at the Hayward Gallery explores the minds of 10 artists and includes explicit installations
On the inside: Cavemanman by Thomas Hirschhorn
Inside perspective: Cavemanman
Organised mess: My Drawing Room
Wild young thing: Fox Mouse Belt
Trapped: Golden Cage
Open plan: Living Room Scene
Look here too
Parents will be warned that part of a new show at the Hayward Gallery is unsuitable for children and under-18s because of hardcore pornography.
A work called The Creation Myth by artist Jason Rhoades includes explicit images such as erect penises and simulated sex acts from porn magazines.
An attendant at the gallery on the South Bank will stand outside the room to reinforce the warning and guide visitors who wish to avoid it on a route around the controversial exhibit.
A more general warning about “sexually explicit imagery” will be displayed at the beginning of the show, Walking in My Mind, which will run on the South Bank throughout the summer.
A network of caves, called “Cavemanman,” by Thomas Hirschhorn incorporates Page 3 girls and the final gallery displays videos of dismembered body parts including a floating penis in “Extremities (smooth, smooth)” by Pipilotti Rist. The sexual content of the work contrasts with the family-friendly image promoting the exhibition which shows an installation of red inflatables with white dots.
The brightly coloured work, “Dots Obsession”, by 80-year-old Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama is also echoed outside the gallery where trees on the South Bank have been wrapped in the striking polka dots for the summer.
Walking in My Mind follows a string of exhibitions in the last couple of years that have attracted big audiences across all ages. Popular exhibits have included Antony Gormley's Blind Light, a walk-in cloud chamber in which it was impossible to see other visitors in the mist and Mark Wallinger's mirrored Tardis.
This year's theme explores the inner working of 10 artists' minds including the 2002 Turner Prize winner Keith Tyson and Scottish artist Charles Avery who has spent several years creating an imaginary island based on his childhood home, Mull, in the Hebrides.
Curator Stephanie Rosenthal defended the inclusion of the giant installation by American artist Rhoades who died of a drugs overdose in 2006, aged 41. “What it is like to create artwork was at the centre of his whole thinking,” she said.
“And the relationship between men and women is about creating life. We were thinking about taking this work out [of the exhibition] because it is not suitable for kids but we thought that would not be right because if you do a show about the mind, it's not just about the beautiful, abstract things, it's also about the difficult aspects of life.”
Co-curator Mami Kataoka described the exhibition as “10 artists projecting their own internal landscapes.”
Walking in My Mind at the Hayward Gallery runs until 6 September, with an admission charge of £9.
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Reader views (6)
Is telling Jason to "get a life" a joke Lucy?
- James, London, UK
Surely "art" should stimulate the mind rather than the groin - the difference between asthetics and porn..... and I'm anything but a prude. Keep porn where it belongs though, not on public display under a halo of innocent "artistic merit" as declared by people who defiantly impose their idea of art on the public - inviting fawning rather than sometimes delightfully dawning appreciation.
- Rogan, Irving
Oh! Jason get a life! Greater artists than you have done all this years and years ago when it probably was controversial. Erect willies and the sex act are hardly new and cutting edge. I mean you only have to buy top shelf mags to see this material; but I suppose because it's displayed in a gallery that makes it ART. I think not! Please go back to the drawing board and do something really radical and interesting.
- Lucy, Kingston
WHY DOES THE PATH OF CREATIVITY LEAD TO THE BOTTOM IN SOME MINDS
- Alan Green, Woodford Green
Outrageous! How can anybody be allowed to put up a sign saying unsuitable for kids. What about free speech, eh? And it's all great art! Really, truly great art! Even if it is the product of clearly disturbed minds. And utter trash. And won't be remembered in ten years' time. One can imagine the artist sitting down and saying 'How am I gonna get noticed, then? I know. Something really porno should do it. Pics of parts will grab 'em by the ....' Who is paying for this appalling drivel? Not the tax-payer again?
- John Problem, Hackney UK
I think it should it be renamed, "Walking in My Warped Mind"? Art certainly has taken a nose-dive since Nu Labour came to power. What ever happened to creativity? Oh! I forgot. It's a 'myth'.
- Lord Pete, Luton
