Bringing together seven international artists, some showing for the first time in the UK.
The exhibition curated by Caroline May explores issues of sexuality and homosexuality, eroticism and desire. In Freud’s world sexuality is always disturbing because it is always the site of a psychical conflict. Opposed by other ‘mental forces’ such as shame, disgust and the demands of morality (Three Essays on Sexuality, 1905) it follows that sexual imagery itself may elicit feelings of aversion by undermining ideals about ourselves and others.
Les Paris sont Ouverts explores inclusion and exclusion, repression and trauma in a way that challenges normative thinking and proposes alternative modes of thinking about the self and ‘the other’, addressing the idea of openness and possibility in gender and sexuality.
The title can be literally translated as ‘the bets are open’, while a looser translation suggests that ‘everything is possible, anything can happen’.
Artists include Dimitris Dokatzis, Maria Fin, Eve Fowler, Sharon Kivland, Linder, Jeff Ono, Paul P.
Curated by Caroline May, whose solo exhibition The Killing Pictures is also displayed. Caroline May’s work deals with issues of identity in relation to desire, sexuality and “otherness”. In her series shown at the Freud Museum, May researched the homophobic murders that took place in London parks during the past decade. She photographed the murder locations devoid of any indexes to these events.
Kindly supported by Chrysolite Ltd, London, and The Danish Arts Council, Copenhagen.