''Post Coitum (Omne Animal Triste)'' Exhibition

MHT Tokyo (Marie-Helene de Taillac)

Finished

Artists

Hiroshi Ega, Missla Libsekal, Megumi Matsubara, Sebastian Mayer, Rajan Mehta, Florent Meng, Micke Thorsby, Valentin

The media, a mirror of our times, seems to focus today more than ever on sexuality and its representations. Often shown outside of its context and used for its attractive and arousing aspects, it seems however that the limits and taboos of sexuality expression have almost totally disappeared. In a similar way, artists, who have been picturing nudity for centuries without showing or even evoking the sexual act, are starting to approach through all media sexually-charged matters while pornography and eroticism have remained until recently the prerogative of appointed craftsmen. Society tolerates more or less this evocation of sexuality outside of its usual realms, and seems to regard the publicist with more indulgence than the artist or the intellectual.

The exhibition does not address the act in itself, rather its dramatical aftermath. The Latin proverb "post coitum omne animal triste est" evokes after-sex nostalgia, similar to the artist's doubt following creation. It will not only be a matter of love or sex, but also, and more importantly, a questioning of the intimate and cathartic feeling of the melancholic mourning of plenitude which happens in the wake of what Georges Bataille called the "little death".

How to talk about sex without remaining on the superficial, physical level? The physiological nostalgia drafted by the Latin proverb appears in its frailty, as the narrative background for the exhibition.

Seven young artists offer a personal interpretation of the adage, yet address the universality of post dionysiac distress.

Schedule

Jan 26 (Sat) 2008-Feb 8 (Fri) 2008