The joy of ‘Sex’

With the publication of “Art -- A Sex Book” (Thames & Hudson), John Waters, who’s collected such monikers as “Pope of Trash” and “Archangel of the Outrageous,” can add “curator” to the list. The film director (“Hairspray,” “Pink Flamingos”) recently joined forces with curator and art critic Bruce Hainley to create an “exhibition in a book.”

The book unfolds through six “rooms” -- chapters introduced with a discussion between the men -- and features explicit images along with abstractions and pictures of installations that at first appear to have little to do with sex. (Artist Reiner Ruthenbeck’s roomful of upended furniture, for example.)

At the back of the book, Waters and Hainley have included a Top 10 list of reads about sex (including a male-escort Web site and Freud), as well as nine sex-related questions for a selection of contemporary artists.

The men, who didn’t know each other before their collaboration, quickly found that they have overlapping sensibilities. They agreed on many pieces -- about half their choices were identical -- and in conversation, they finish each other’s sentences.

Some viewers may blush at the images, others may be impervious or puzzled. But this exhibition is never boring.

Many of the pieces you chose are quite funny. What is the relationship between sex, art and humor?

Bruce Hainley: We love the nerve of contemporary artists: The new ways to be witty, to shock. That nerve is related to what makes anyone sexy, which is confidence. You can weigh 400 pounds, have no teeth and still be sexy....

John Waters: As we know from past book signings. [Laughter.] That nerve, that confidence is sexy.

BH: And changing things is sexy.

JW: It’s about wit and self-confidence ... and if you make them laugh first, they will listen to what you have to say.

BH: We are also delighted by seriousness, precise abstract thinking. Precision -- that can be funny too.

JW: The chilly elitism, I find delightful. I’ve always been against art for the people.... To be in on the secret, you have to participate in the art world.

What makes you blush?

JW: Marlene McCarty drawings [in the book, the two included McCarty’s pictures of women virtually undressed]. Both Bruce and I have tried to include what made us blush. Blush and laugh.

BH: One of the funniest things is the Leni Riefenstahl photo in the beginning of the book. It’s such a funny picture. [It depicts the controversial director holding hands with a tall, naked Sudanese man. Riefenstahl wears a hat and a natty outfit.]

What is the relation between decoration and sex?

JW: That’s the most obscene word -- “decoration” -- the only real four-letter word. For someone to have a decorator buy their art is really blasphemy.... The only things that shock me are boring, ugly or stupid.

Was any censorship brought to bear on the book?

BH: We wanted Yuki Kimura’s piece [“Child Network”] for the cover. She’s pinching the fold at her skin at her elbow. It looks at first glance as if it’s a child’s vagina. [The lawyers forced them to change it.]

JW: It wasn’t pornographic, but they didn’t want to use it.

BH: That’s the one thing, the last frontier and a limit that cannot be pushed.

To take a question from your own book: Should anything be off limits?

JW: We’re very much against child pornography. I’m not saying satire [in literature]. I would be uncomfortable with that ... banning “Lolita” for example. The thought police, I’m really against that.

BH: I would agree.... The literary world is different than the world of images.

The book begins with an image of a mirror by Roy Lichtenstein and ends with a mirror image by Richard Artschwager.

JW: You can’t see anything in these mirrors. As I grow older that’s the kind I want.

BH: Sexy is in the eye of the beholder. These are images we found sexy, but some people are going to scratch their heads.

-- Louise Roug