It’s Your Life / People, Places and Things to do. : Sensuality and Sly Humor on Display in Erotic Art Show

With “Erotikos Too: Thirsting for More,” Eros is again rearing his head at Ventura’s Art City II. Humor and images of genitalia are plentiful, sublimation and discretion less so.

As artist Doug Lipton writes in a statement, “Eroticism is in the mind of the beholder, and mine changes daily.” Likewise, this second annual show is of many minds, sly nods and salacious winks, with a few gentle strokes of sensuality for good measure.

Phallic imagery--not symbolism but the real deal--is amply represented, the funniest example of which is Lipton’s “Tower of Power,” a depiction of penises using Lite-Brite peg boards.

Chris Provenzano’s sculptural conceit is a penis as question mark, while the dramatic and playful “Love Mussels,” by Paul Lindhard and Dan Layman, blends vaginal forms and tide pool sea life. Paco Robles’ silhouette relief figure conveys repression and shame.

Alex Morosco’s “Sacred Places” refers to sacred hunks of stone and erogenous zones. Joanne Duby’s subtler ode to the sensual finds its tender charge in lilies, in the secret sex life of flora.

Needless to say, Jesse Helms, Newt Gingrich or Bob Dole would not be amused by all this. Then again, they couldn’t complain about misuse of public money. Art City is a self-defined enclave, accountable only to itself.

* “Erotikos Too: Thirsting for More,” through Aug. 31 at Art City II, 31 Peking St., Ventura; 648-1690.