EYE CANDY

These Outsider Artists’ Brand of Erotica Is Kind of Sexy, Definitely Strange


12-Merilena Pelosi Untitled 2010.JPG

Not all erotica is sexy, even at New York’s Museum of Sex, which is known for its expansive latex collections. Opening this week, the same day as the Outsider Art Fair, “Known/Unknown: Private Obsession and Hidden Desire in Outsider Art,” features outsider artists’ takes on erotica, ranging from louche to tasteful, though all definitely delightfully bizarre. From lush drawings made from a psychiatric clinic-turned-gallery in Austria to a very graphic late 19th-century cane, take a look inside.

1
Courtesy of Henry Boxer Gallery, England.

Marilena Pelosi, “Untitled,” 2010.

2
Courtesy Galerie Gugging, Austria

Johann Garber, “A Sexi-Paper,” 2016.

3
Courtesy of Ricco Maresca, New York

Edwin Lawson, “Untitled (Fashions),” c.1970s.

4
Courtesy of John and Barbara Wilkerson

Unidentified Maker, New England, “Erotic Cane,” late nineteenth or early twentieth century.

5
Courtesy of Webb Gallery, Waxahachie TX

Ike Morgan, “Untitled,” 2014.

6
Courtesy of Henry Boxer Gallery, England

Marilena Pelosi, “Untitled,” 2009.

7
Courtesy Galerie Gugging, Austria

Johann Korec, “The Korec Johann,” 1974.

8
Courtesy of Ricco Maresca, New York

Thornton Dial, “Untitled (Two Hands Reaching),” 1993.