Luscious `Seductive Matter' sculptures titillate observers

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by Ann Abel

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This symbiotic relationship between seduction and education provides the basis for "Seductive Matter," the current sculpture exhibition at the Rice University Art Gallery. Pieces from 11 contemporary American artists unite the concept of "higher learning" with the equally important notion of carnal knowledge.

Artists represented in "Seductive Matter" include Phoebe Adams, Patricia Anderson, Nancy Bowen, Jackie Brookner, Saint Clair Cemin, Alyssa Dee Krauss, Heidi Lasher-Oakes, Ross Rudel, Carole Seborovski, Carol Shuford and Charles Simonds. The exhibit also screens a new video work by Alain Favre, Clin d'Oeil .

Some of the pieces are wonderful. In this classroom of sensation, the largest objects speak the loudest. The full-bodied sculptures of Carol Shuford, Heidi Laher-Oakes and Jackie Brookner particularly arouse the viewer.

Sculpture speaks directly to the body; some of this exhibition especially inspires tactile urges. The organic creations cry out to be touched, caressed and even entered. The viewer wants to envelop or intertwine her body with the works of art.

Guest curator Suzanne Ramlijak calls the sculptures "erotic abstraction," and sayseach piece "arouses our desire without the direct display of anatomical parts." Nonetheless, certain pieces are implicitly phallic or vaginal; the exhibition seems like a Freudian -- well -- wet dream.

The works that most blatantly represent erogenous zones are the least effective. "Faux Fondle," which looks like breasts with long hair, and the nipple-laden collection from Carole Seborovski fail to elicit the same response as subtler pieces, such as Nancy Bower's "Listening Venus." Bower's plaster, steel, glass and oil paint sculpture quietly evokes sensual pleasure.

The small pieces from Alyssa Dee Krauss also lack the organic pull of the titillating larger pieces. Krauss' "inside rings" and fur manipulations seem gimmicky and contrived to force pleasure. They stand out against the other works that gently call it forth.

Overall, "Seductive Matter" lacks continuity. Some works seem like luscious celebrations of sexual union and sexual anatomy. Others speak of the commodification and appropriation of physical parts. The softness of some sculpture stands in harsh juxtaposition with the phallic protrusions of others.

As a whole, the collection may seduce, but it proves hard to synthesize.

This item appeared in the Arts & Entertainment section of the September 15, 1995 issue.

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