Curating Sex and Sexuality

How and why do curators choose to exhibit sexually provocative works?  How do curators negotiate the challenges of controversy, or counter narratives of censorship? How do images of sexuality function and perform in public spaces? What is their power and what their capacity for transgression?  Can such images lead to social change and transformation? How do curators and/or artists work with and/or against sexual prescription and normativity? Do these questions lead us to different answers if the exhibition deals with historical, rather than contemporary, materials?

Hosted in conjunction with the ROM’s A Third Gender: Beautiful Youth in Japanese Prints exhibition, this panel will explore the questions of curatorial choice in the context of potentially controversial sexual representations.

Speakers include:

Barbara Fischer, Art Museum at the University of Toronto

Sophie Hackett, Art Gallery of Ontario

Asato Ikeda, Fordham University (formerly of the Royal Ontario Museum)

John Paul Ricco, University of Toronto Mississauga

University College, RM 140

Reception to follow.