« Vol. 3: Nothing to hide », Paris

« Nothing to hide » is one of the best–rated pornographic movies of all time, according to the famous website IMdB. The title of this long-length feature, although released in 1981, seems surprisingly accurate when it comes to define our age. Nowadays, exhibitionism became the rule.

If eroticism is the art of suggestion and privacy, shared by the lovers and potentially violated by the voyeur, how does it manifest itself in this context? Is it still possible in a world where the boundaries between private and public spheres have fallen, where the very notion of private life has been negated by the social media omnipresence in our lives ?

This extreme exposure paradoxically coexists with a renewed prudishness that seems to characterize our society and which encourages the fear of others and their judgment.
“Nothing to hide” is also the name of a website meant to protect one’s e–reputation, isn’t it?

Contrary to those dismantling attitudes, it seems that a new generation of artists intend to re–sublimate sexuality. And it appears that if eroticism had been a subject developed by men for men over centuries, it now is mostly embraced by young women.
Their elders sometimes made the choice to represent a body of which the sensual dimension was neglected. It was used as a political tool, becoming the object of their crusade for gender equality and the recognition of their role in society.

If the fight is all the more current in our political and social context it’s now taking new forms. Sex is not anymore only shown through its pornographic or documentary side, but artists are reintegrating oneirism, humour, and the supernatural in their representation of the body.

Although the subjects remain pretty raw, tough and suggestive, they’re always subject to a double interpretation. Could it be the sign of a new surrealism?