Art Is Magick

Friday Art Find: Five Depictions of Sensuality and Intimacy

IYNX

Mar 6, 2023 • 3 min read

Somehow Friday flew past and it's now a new week. To make up for this, our art find for this post consists of a series of five photographs. These images offer depictions of sensuality, eroticism, and intimacy.

These photographs provoke us to consider: What does sexuality and intimacy look like to you? What parts of your feelings and beliefs around intimacy are molded by your experiences and environment? What would it feel like to explore and inhabit your sexuality fearlessly, with abandon?

Akt mit Flügeln (Nude with Wings; 1996) by Günter Blum

Günter Blum was known for his erotic photographs exuding sexuality and strength. Incorporating a mix of the transgressive, the fantastic, and the intimate, this photograph places the female subject in a heroic realm of sexual expression, dialoguing with and transcending her surroundings.

A Study of 'The Room' (2009) by Hisaji Hara

In the series this image is from, Hisaji Hara reimagines and reconstructs the paintings of Balthus in photographic form. His photographs are filled with nostalgia and the tension between distance, intimacy, and desire; voyeurism and identification. His reworking of these images often empowers or gives depth to the subjects, making explicit the constructed nature and viewership inherent in the pictures in order to question them—rather than positioning the figures in the exploitative manner of the original works by Balthus.

Persy and Krista (2022) by Renée Jacobs

"I needed to make these photos for me. They were also photos the models wanted me to make as they explored their own sexual spectrums — and the infinite and powerful landscape of women's desires made me understand and accept my own. All throughout my different careers, I've been told to stay in the closet. I firmly believe repression is the enemy, especially of women. Lesbian sexuality in particular is either erased or exploited, but rarely empowered."
—Renée Jacobs

French Chris on the Convertible, NYC (1979) by Nan Goldin

Nan Goldin's photographs, especially those from the 1970s, are described as immersing the viewer in an "intense sense of community that made her work so transformative to the medium of photography. They refuse any idea of the truth of the subject that isn’t witnessed by lovers and friends, that isn’t held in a group of people bound together by a mutual sense of rejection from a normative society."

Blum, Günter. 1996. Akt mit Flügeln [Photograph]. Artnet. Retrieved from: https://www.artnet.com/artists/günter-blum/akt-mit-flügeln-tgvbIDiC2SI538o_Xgpt1A2.
Hara, Hisaji. 2009. A Study of 'The Room' [Photograph]. Michael Hoppen Gallery. Retrieved from: https://www.michaelhoppengallery.com/artists/55-hisaji-hara/overview/#/artworks/12240.
Jacobs, Renée. 2022. Persy and Krista [Image]. Polaroids. Retrieved from: https://i-d.vice.com/en/article/v7dqyd/female-erotic-photography.
Jacobs, Renée. 2022. Venice Masks [Image]. Polaroids. Retrieved from: https://i-d.vice.com/en/article/v7dqyd/female-erotic-photography.
Rosen, Miss. 2022, Sep 3. Why the lesbian erotica of photographer Renée Jacobs is still important. Vice. Retrieved from: https://i-d.vice.com/en/article/v7dqyd/female-erotic-photography.
Goldin, Nan. 1979. French Chris on the Convertible [Photograph]. Ocula. Retrieved from: https://ocula.com/art-galleries/marian-goodman-gallery/artworks/nan-goldin/french-chris-on-the-convertible-nyc-(1)/.
Llorens, Natasha Marie. 2022, Dec 28. Nan Goldin's disorienting loss of control. Frieze. Retrieved from: https://www.frieze.com/article/nan-goldin-this-will-not-end-well-2022-review.

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