Books

Sex and art, we're told, are sacred, two spheres that ought to be kept separate from the ravages of the marketplace. Yet both prop up two incredibly lucrative industries, built on the commodification of creativity and desire, authenticity and intimacy. Our reaction to this should not be moral or political outrage, nor legal regulation or denial, but rather-as Sophia Giovannitti argues here-acceptance, through which we can find a more autonomous way to live.

In this searching and provocative work, drawing on cultural and political theory, the contemporary art world, and the author's own experience as a sex worker and artist trying to make a living, Giovannitti argues that if we delve into our anxieties around art and sex, we can instead find new ways to live and spaces, however small, of freedom. When there is nothing left to protect, she argues, everything is possible.

Paige K. Bradley’s Drive It All Over Me was commissioned by the artists Jay Chung and Q Takeki Maeda and concerns their work Bad Driver (2021/23), Jack Goldstein’s Selected Writings (1993–2000), and Vanessa Place’s Gone with the Wind (ca. 2009–15). The book addresses broad themes of subtextual narrative, authorship, and identity in text-based visual artworks while touching upon allegory, elaborately subtle jokes, and writing as a sculptural material.

This Blade Study edition is published to coincide with artist Emma Safir’s exhibition peripeteia (March 30-April 30, 2023). Features contributions by Andrew Gardner, Jennifer Pranolo, Kara Güt, Tobi Kassim, and Blade Study co-founder Brooke Nicholas. Edited by Tess Thackara and designed by Jinu Hong.

“I see my work as hovering in an in-between space, capturing a moment that isn’t easily deciphered, where everything is on the verge of something else.”