Pleasure: digital catalogue
Pleasure presents the work of a diverse group of artists who use the body to celebrate joy, humour, flamboyance and the outrageous. From…
Pleasure
Pleasure presents the work of a diverse group of artists who use the body to celebrate joy, humour, flamboyance and the outrageous. From decoration, embellishment and exaggeration to examinations of identity and beauty and its various interpretations, Pleasure explores how artists and designers have used the body as a personal, provocative and at times political canvas from the flamboyant 1980s to contemporary times.
In Pleasure we are called on to question why we feel the way we do about our bodies and asked to defy the immediate – though hollow – pleasures found in the production and consumption of mass media, pornography and advertising.
The work presented in Pleasure by more than 35 artists challenges our ideas on what pleasure is, and how our bodies give, receive and broadcast pleasure. These works will lift spirits, evoke wonder, make us ponder, perhaps laugh and even flinch. They may be saucy, savvy, erotic and provocative – pleasure after all is a subjective joy.
Pleasure does not take itself seriously and offers a cacophony of resistance through multiple voices both introspective and bold. We invite you on a journey through diverse pleasures and frivolity, into an exuberant world view full of slippages, contradictions and minor perversities.
Delight and embrace. Be pleasured!
Caption: Gerwyn Davies, Bomb, 2017. Image courtesy of the artist.
Artists including
Rose Agnew, Robyn Beeche, Holly Block, Queenie Bon Bon, Gavin Brown, Penny Byrne, Frances Cannon, Nicholas Chilvers, Keith W Clancy, Kate Clark, Ray Cook, Peter Ellis, Dita Gambiro, Gerwyn Davies, Kate Durham with Moira Finucane, Rhett D’Costa, William Eicholtz, Leah Emery, Tarryn Gill, Judith Glover, Gun Shy, Mella Jaarsma, Kate Just, Grace Lillian Lee, Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, David McDiarmid, Louise Meuwissen, Misklectic, Mossy 333 & Misklectic, Ciara Murphy, John Pastoriza-Piñol, Robert Pearce, Mithu Sen, Laksmi Shitaresmi, Cop Shiva, Vipoo Srivilasa, TextaQueen, Christian Thompson, Peter Tully, Wayan Upadana, VERMIN with Jenny Bannister, Xylouris White, William Yang, Paul Yore, Ah Xian, Preston Zly.
Exhibition Catalogue: view the Pleasure digital exhibition catalogue
Gallery
Related
Event6 Feb 2020
Pleasure & Sub Cultures – Documenting Melbourne’s Leather Scene
‘The wearer should fit the leather not the leather fit the wearer’. Artist John Pastoriza-Piñol joins us to talk about documenting a…
Event14 Feb 2020
Pleasure: Valentine’s Day ‘Art Celebrates Love’
Love is in the air! In this Valentine’s Day talk, Pleasure co-curator Julian Goddard asks three artists about the role that love plays in…
Event20 Feb 2020
Pleasure Plus ‘Art or Porn?’
Pleasure celebrates artists who use the body to not only embellish and adorn but also as a personal and intimate metaphor. While we…
Pleasure podcast: curator and artists interview
Pleasure co-curator Evelyn Tsitas speaks to RMIT’s Aeden Ratcliffe about the exhibition, and interviews artists: John Pastoriza-Piñol’s whose series of drawings that document the…
News2 Dec 2019
Provocative Pleasure exhibition at RMIT Gallery set to intrigue
Pleasure opening crowd From embellishment and exaggeration, to examinations of identity, gender and desire, the new exhibition Pleasure presents…
Event29 Nov 2019
Pleasure: Decorating the Body
Join fashion designer Jenny Bannister, jeweller Kate Durham, and artists William Eicholtz and Nick Chilvers as they explore why what we wear…
Event28 Nov 2019
Opening Night: Pleasure Party + Performances & DJ + Prizes for Best Outfit
Pleasure presents the work of a diverse group of artists who use the body to celebrate joy, humour, flamboyance and the outrageous…
Event11 Dec 2019
Pleasure: Curator’s Talk
The works of art in Pleasure force us to examine the human form with a fresh perspective, as well as the complexity of…