Feminist Satire, No Safe Spaces - part 2
Introduction
The featured pot, Pimp State, is one of 23 pots which, along with 2 huge drawings, and 3 videos are on show at Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, one of Poland's most prestigious galleries. This my first ever solo show outside the UK. The Exhibition is now open and runs from July 8th- October 1st, Tuesday - Sunday, 11am-7pm.
Some Background
Feminist Satire is also my first full size museum show in 13 years. None of the pots in this exhibition have been shown in a public space in the UK. They’ve been seen in private galleries – some very private indeed - but never in funded public spaces. All have bumped into one kind of ‘sensitivity issue’ or another. Read the excellent and well informed introduction by Josephine Bartosch here.
The show covers my three main areas of satirical and critical interest: religious extremism, the sex-trade, and gender ideology. All three are forms of ideoglogical extremism. All deserve rigorous mockery, attack, or critique. This post focuses on the pots attacking the sex trade and ridiculing some of the politics that circle around it.
A selection of of the pots
Pimp State is both a bowl and poster. It is a dystopian feminist satire on what I imagine the State would look like under the ‘full decrim’ regime. ‘Full Decriminalisation’ refers to a proposed model of legal reform that seeks to decriminalise men who pay for sex along with all third party profiteers. This would include brothel owners, pimps, traffickers, ‘grooming gangs’ and everyone else. They all have different labels, often depending on what social class they belong to or what country the come from. They’re all doing the same thing though. All are involved in organised commercialised rape. Some profit, some pay, but they’re all part of the same system whether they’re a former prince or a taxi driver.
The bowl resembles a roulette wheel with gambling and gaming terms on the rim. The vertical words are the departments of government: Grooming Gangs Services Commission, Pimplomacy and International Relations, Office for Cuckooing and County Lines, Trafficking Standards Agency, Industrial Pimping Commission – you get the picture.
I'm Not the Criminal presents an image of the sex trade merry-go-round on the outside of the pot. The men who exploit and pay for sex are shown as hideous grotesques. The internal imagery shows Fiona Broadfoot, a sex-trade survivor who campaigns for abolition. She, with two other survivors, brought a successful judicial review to get the legal duty to declare criminal convictions when applying for a job removed. This had been a huge barrier to women trying to get free of the trade so it was a significant victory.
If a Woman is Hungry (left,) and Stigma (right,) are both part of the 'Mind Your Language' series, based on a report by Julie Bindel commissioned by women@thewell. Both use the words of survivors of the sex trade - hard hitting, direct, and unequivocal.
Slogans in full:
If a woman is hungry, the thing to put in her mouth is food, Not your cock.
Stigma doesn't kill women in prostitution, men do.
Both of these pots are also available as posters here.
The Jug, Sink the Sex Trade, is self explanatory. It was commissioned by Filia Feminist Conference and you can read about it here - don't miss the rhyme which is also constructed entirely from the words of survivors. The bucket shaped pot is called The Sanitisation Project. It's another based on the Mind your Language report. It is the first time this pot has been exhibited in a public space. Thank you, Poland. The British art world does not permit art that attacks the men who abuse women and girls in the sex trade.
