Calendar

Hot Ass Art

Feast your eyes on a well-hung DiverseWorks show

A A A Comments By Steven Devadanam Thursday, Jan 27 2005

The titles read like discount porn DVDs or secretary-startling spam: Hot Ass, Army Meat, Hung Like Whales and even Big Healthy Girl Enjoys Deep Penetration from the Rear. But it's all pure art in "Contemporary Erotic Drawing," which will be unveiled this week along with the underground comics exhibit "Le Dernier Cri: Comix Revolution" at DiverseWorks.

Courtesy of R. Crumb

R. Crumb's Big Healthy Girl Enjoys Deep Penetration from the Rear

Details

Opening reception from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday, January 28. Through March 5. For information, call 713-223-8346 or visit www.diverseworks.org. Free.

1117 East Freeway

More About

The timing of this erotic art show's opening -- just after a presidential inauguration -- is apropos. After Bush Senior was sworn into the White House, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe's sadomasochistic photos were fiercely denounced by conservative politicos, which, of course, helped make him the scandalous darling of the art world. Now, as we prepare for four more years of the younger Bush, conservative government's ironic ability to influence envelope-pushing art continues.

"I think one of the things that inspired the show was an enormous resurgence of this form in the last couple of years," says Sara Kellner, the executive director of DiverseWorks and co-curator of "Erotic." Kellner gathered 34 internationally renowned artists for the show, which will next travel to the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut.

The exhibit's stars are R. Crumb and Chloe Piene. Big Healthy Girl Enjoys Deep Penetration from the Rear comes courtesy of Crumb, who created the iconic and trippy Fritz the Cat and is largely considered the father of underground comics. Piene, who made waves at New York's Whitney Biennial, shares a series of visceral charcoal drawings, Thirty Years Old, which depict a woman in the throes of onanism. The show also spotlights artists on the verge, such as Texan Scott Burns, Canadian Stephen Andrews and Chinese native Su-en Wong. The works, which range from classical to cartoony, include pieces on paper, other materials and even hand-drawn animation. Some, like Kim McCarty's Yellow Boy, are almost disturbingly sensual, while others, like Crumb's Healthy Girl, are just silly.

But they're significant, as is the fact that Houston, a Bush stronghold, is premiering an erotic touring show. "It's big," says Kellner. "We get to show the world that Houston's not just for cowboys."

Check out this week's featured ad for Arts