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Sex Museums : The Politics And Performance Of Display

Decent Essays

Sex is a powerful word that can mean many things to certain people. Not only can it be heard differently but seen in a different context as well. Most museums for the most part hardly dedicate exhibitions to represent the different forms of sex because of the repercussions that can affect its reputation. They abstain from having to deal with controversies and with conservative people who are close-minded from not going to their museums. In this paper, I will explain how I took a patriarchal heterosexual painting and transformed it into a queer masterpiece exhibition by queering the space and sound to portrayed the importance of sex, race, and sexual identity. I visited the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and was surprised to see paintings and …show more content…

One image that I would want to change is one called Prehistoric Figures by Charles Garabein. I was amazed about how it was displayed in the open and without any warning signs. Yet, I did not really feel a connection to it and it did not amuse me in anyway. All I could think about was how bored both the Caucasian woman and man looked. It was not sexy or engaging at all. The exhibition, in which this painting was in was way of context and had no real significance to have been placed there. Therefore, I would like to create a new room specifically only for the display of both hetero and queer sex. I will only introduce two new paintings along with Garabein’s, but without any descriptions on them. I would like for the audience to have the ability to give them each a tittle and will provide them with a pencil and paper. This way the visitors are engaged and force to have to pay close attention to the exhibit. First off, the name I want to give my exhibition is, ‘Breaking Tradition’. I will start with making the exhibition room smaller compared to the rest of the other rooms in the museum. This room will only contain three paintings that are more than enough to portray my message. I will place Charles Garabein’s painting in the middle because of the position in which both the female and male are placed. They are both standing straight, yet looking away from each other while being naked. Therefore,

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