Last weekend, the Cute-Little-Red-Headed-Girlfriend and I went to see the "Shared Women" exhibit of lesbian feminist art at LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) in Hollywood. The show was brought to my attention by the New York Times, where it was favorably reviewed alongside the massive WACK! exhibit happening at MOCA. I also discovered, via art.blogging.la, that there are a number of female-focused shows being held across Los Angeles to coincide with WACK!

Stepping into the "Shared Women" show transported me back to the mid-80s, when so many gay and lesbian artistic endeavors were overtly activist and mobilized around the issue of AIDS. It was a time when gays and lesbians in the U.S. still thought of themselves as part of a liberation movement, as opposed to a highly focused consumer segment or an incredibly large and enthusiastic group of wedding planners. (Sorry. That was bitter.)

I had a small point-and-shoot camera with me, so I was able to take a bunch of photos at the exhibit, which I've put up as a set at the photo-sharing site Zooomr. They're not great quality, but you can view the photos in whatever size you wish, download them, read my embedded notes, or comment on them. Warning: these photos are not even remotely work safe. There are many, many vaginas and sex acts represented. Click on this link to view the set.

The exhibit's title, "Shared Women," brought to mind a number of associations: sharing, sampling, collectivism, wife-swapping. After seeing the show, all of those meanings seem to have been intended, plus a few more: sharing of bodies and identities, sharing as a group celebration, and sharing as the result of exclusion or "non-sharing."

Sharing through exclusion was the theme of the first piece I saw, a collection of homemade commemorative plates depicting the First Ladies of the United States. Their photos had been taped on a hodge-podge collection of cheap, transparent glass plates. The DIY nature of the piece was certainly contemporary, while also underlining the relationship between craft, kitsch and women's work.

There weren't any exhibit notes that I could take home with me, so I can't identify most of the artists in the show for you now. But I recognized the work of the next artist I saw, Nicole Eisenman, who I've previously written about. Spread across two walls and the floor below, Eisenman's work focused on the lesbian body.

Looming large over the installation was an image of the L Word's iconic character Shane, pregnant, with a phallic arm ending in a clenched fist emerging from her vagina. In a word balloon Shane asks, "How can I get people to pour their love into my emptyness?" On the floor beneath Eisenman's assemblage lay a sculpture of two lifesized beavers engaging in oral sex. The receiving beaver lay in ecstasy on her back, tiny paws waving in the air.

At the other end of the room was a large purple mural by a Canadian group of artists called "Welcome to Gayside." The mural was of a large fantasy landmass with gay-, lesbian- and transgender-themed geographic features and populations. Interspersed on the map were small drawings showing gays communing with the natural world. My favorite of these showed a naked lesbian finger-fucking a sheep.

Someone working at the gallery told me the sheep picture had caused some consternation among visitors to the gallery. I thought it was a hilarious send-up of the belief that lesbians, and women generally, are not as sexually aggressive as men, nor as depraved in their tastes. I also loved the way the image parodied lesbians' own beliefs about themselves, in this case, the idea that lesbians are all animal lovers.

I was really excited to see four pieces by G.B. Jones included in the show. Her drawings depict lesbian dramas in the style of the infamous gay artist and pornographer, Tom of Finland. The stylistic translation from gay male to lesbian subject matter serves to highlight cultural differences between the sexes, yet her drawings still retain the erotic charge of Tom of Finland's work.

There was a video piece by Tara Mateik on display called P.Y.T. In this faux-music video, an androgynous figure dressed as Peter Pan dances and and lip-synchs to the Michael Jackson song "Pretty Young Thing" while clips from filmed productions of Peter Pan roll in the background. You can watch a clip from the video here.

The "Shared Women" exhibit is on view at LACE through April 9.

View more photos at my page.