A Powerful Exhibit of the Gentler Sex

Call girls, con artists and Hollywood movie hucksters know it well. The art is in the sexy sell.

Such clever come-ons flaunt themselves in a fun-flashy exhibit, “The Velvet Hammer: A Peep at the Neo-Burlesque Show,” on view through Sunday at Cal State Fullerton’s Grand Central Art Gallery in Santa Ana.

Curated by pop culture/fashion writer Rose Apodaca Jones, this provocative ogle at the venerable art of striptease-cum-comedy called burlesque is instant eye candy--underlaid by deeper themes of female sexuality and empowerment.

It trumpets its belief that women have a right to publicly proclaim their sexuality, their physicality, their individuality, their love of self.

It finds affirmation in what some might see as manipulative titillation.

It is successful visually and conceptually, splashing across the gallery in a mix of hotly colored paintings, photographs and costumed mannequins.

It is a small show but it rocks.

It’s all rooted in reality too. The show chronicles the Velvet Hammer burlesque troupe--a group of 12-18 female dancers who twirl tassels in an annual vaudeville act at the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles.

The troupe’s name is that of a vodka-based cocktail--with a play on notions of female strength and softness as well.

These women, including troupe founder Michelle Carr, Rita D’Albert, Maria Basaldu and Halle Pickering, are not professional strippers. Some are performance artists. All are part of the underground culture scene in Los Angeles.

Most seem to have ordinary if reasonably well-endowed bodies. They put on the pasties for the kitsch and the goof and the joy in flawed flesh of it.

They also choose deliciously silly stage names--Senorita Bunnypants, Valentina Violette and more.

Their slinky-glitzy attire--what there is of it--adorns four primary-colored mannequins with a blitz of sequins, ruby rhinestones, Austrian crystals, ostrich and turkey feathers. Their unembarrassed exuberance struts itself in Marc Lecreuil’s grainy black and white photo “Equilibrium,” which captures a catlike dancer on her back onstage, legs in air, apart.

It blazes in Lecreuil’s “Pasty,” an orange-yellow-tinged shot of a troupe member on stage, caught midtorso, breasts tilted proudly.

Sharply caricatured acrylic paintings by Velvet Hammer member Annie Sperling-Cesano celebrate losing oneself in character and fantasy. One work, “Senorita Bunnypants,” shows Annie Oakley minus most of her cowgirl outfit, brandishing revolvers.

Blanca Apodaca--Apodaca Jones’ younger sister--offers a subtler form of female homage with her Dream Girls Series, (a calendar inspired by the Velvet Hammer). The group of 12 oil-on-canvas paintings--one for each month of the year--is gently colored and dreamlike.

Apodaca’s women look fresh-faced, pristine, Donna Reed-domesticated.

But hardly innocent.

Miss February has a big bottle of poison at her disposal in “February/Febrero: La Ruina del Hombre” (the ruin of man). Miss October holds a Chihuahua in a miniature hooded red devil’s outfit.

Be sure to watch a well-crafted documentary of the troupe’s performance last October, running intermittently on a VCR near the gallery’s entrance. It’s a good guide to an exhibit that is a great visual tease--but grows in significance as you linger with it.

SHOW TIMES

“The Velvet Hammer: A Peep at the Neo-Burlesque Show” at Cal State Fullerton’s Grand Central Art Gallery, 125 N. Broadway, Santa Ana. Today, 11 a.m.-4 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Closes Sunday. (714) 567-7233.