Sex Reenchanted

In the organizer's words:

EN
The feminist group exhibition Sex Reenchanted presents eight international artists and their decolonial perspectives on sexuality. It is a challenge to detach the history of sexuality from the colonial era, slavery and the rational, misogynistic component of medical history. In this endeavor, the exhibition draws strength from pre-capitalist narratives and practices, some of which have been forgotten, some of which have been repressed or erased.

How can feminists appropriate historical phenomena in order to realize a new society in the sense of re-enchanting the world?

Dalila Dalléas Bouzar traces the emotional power of prehistoric rock paintings in the southern Algerian Sahara; Monia Ben Hamouda practices Islamic calligraphy to question the Christian association of sexuality and original sin; CANAN reinterprets a pre-modern Ottoman literary genre centered on female desire; Şafak Şule Kemancı's wallpapers and objects evoke queer gardens filled with the intoxicating scent of eroticism.

Knowledge is a dynamic entity that is constantly dying and being reborn. Thus, dealing with the meaning of cultural heritage is also a process of constant renegotiation. In the exhibition, this is evident in the dark yet inviting works of Zoe Williams, who uninhibitedly resurrects the homoeroticism of late antiquity; in Anna Ehrenstein's mischievously explicit exploration of Orientalism; in Daphne Ahlers' unmasking of historical and contemporary masculinity in her sculpturally queer treatment of the pubic capsule; and in Tabita Rézaire's powerful critique of Western gynecology, guided by the embodied wisdom of her black ancestors.

Curated by Mehveş Ungan

With the kind support of the Art Innovation Fund of the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts of the State of Baden-Württemberg

EN
The feminist group exhibition Sex Reenchanted presents eight international artists and their decolonial perspectives on sexuality.

While it may seem daunting to disentangle the history of sexuality from the colonial era, slavery, and a rationalized medical history shaped by misogyny, this exhibition seeks to draw strength from forgotten or violently erased pre-capitalist narratives.

How can sensuality and desire emerge from the shadows of histories of colonialism, slavery and misogynistic components of modern medicine? In answering this question, the exhibition draws on pre-capitalist narratives and art forms that have been partly forgotten and partly suppressed. How can feminists appropriate historical practices and forms of knowledge in line with Silvia Federici's call for a 're-enchantment of the world'?

If knowledge is a dynamic entity that is constantly dying and being reborn, then cultural heritage, too, is never constant, always subject to deconstruction. We see this phenomenon in Zoe Williams's dark and inviting works that evoke late antiquity, in Anna Ehrenstein's mischievous engagement with Orientalism, and in Daphne Ahlers's unmasking of Renaissance masculinity through her codpieces; and in Tabita Rézaire's powerful criticism of Western gynecology, guided by the embodied wisdom of her black ancestors.

Curated by Mehveş Ungan

Generously supported by the Innovationsfonds of the Ministry of Science, Research and Art of the State of Baden-Württemberg.