An Inclusive Litany

6/10/96

UCLA's Armand Hammer Museum was the site for an exhibit called "Sexual Politics." The show featured a special section called "cunt art," which included Judy Chicago's "Entering the Mystery Through the Blue Rock Cunt"; "Love Story," featuring a man firing a gun into a woman's anus; "Red Flag" and "Menstruation Bathroom," both celebrations of the tampon. The show featured Annie Walsh's "This Summer I Learned a New Way to Masturbate," Hannah Wilke's "Seven Untitled Vaginal-Phallic and Excremental Sculptures," Karen LeCocq's "Feather Cunt," and Nicole Eisenman's "Amazon Competition," which depicted a group of women castrating a man, a "revenge fantasy" which "signals a new approach to Women's position in Western patriarchy in the work of younger feminists." Carolee Schneemann's "Infinity Kisses" includes 136 photos of a woman cavorting erotically with a cat as "a playful alternative to conventional heterosexual eroticism." Museum officials commented that response to the show has been overwhelmingly positive; while some negative statements appeared in a comment book, curator Amelia Jones said "most of those were written by men."

UCLA also mounted an exhibit on "Asian Pacific Islander Sexuality" as part of Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month. The exhibit featured works of student artists "visually exploring the sexual politics of genitalia" and was designed to offer a chance for Asian students to "go beyond 'standards' and freely explore their own issues." The show featured "Post Fu Manchu Tic Tac" (an enormous, erect penis with the caption "This Ain't No Tic Tac"), "Look Ma, No Hands" (a black and white photo of a naked man and his erection, complete with magnifying glass), "Arena" (a woman rising from a toilet, with a magazine spread of two women beheading a man on a nearby counter), an untitled painting of a red-haired woman pointing an automatic pistol at a man's head while blood oozed from a bullet hole in his temple, and a ceramic sculpture of a smiling and bare-chested woman looking down at a severed penis while holding a pair of scissors in one hand and a frying pan in another.

An unusual editorial in UCLA's Daily Bruin indicates the depth of feeling the show aroused. Freshman Edward Hsu took two pages to consider stereotypes concerning the endowment of Asian males, as well as to mull over his own personal insecurities. "I look down and he's there—my Mr. Wang," he writes. "He's not tiny, he's just crushed. Funny, huh? Go ahead, laugh! All yellow people have crushed wangers, right? Laugh!!! Laugh because it's true. Laugh because it's funny to crush Mr. Wang; crush him into submission.... I really don't care if you think my penis is dinky or daring—as long as you've seen it. And while your eyes are open, see me as I am ... At times I can be limp; I may look like a wimp; like all I know is 'Submit!' But listen, but look, and see my balls, and how I stand tall—an Asian erection."