ABSTRACT

This text explores parallels in the precarious working conditions of art workers and erotic labourers/sex workers, the impulse to perform sex as artistic practice, and contemporary strategies of representing erotic labour within curatorial and artistic contexts. The first section argues that artists such as Andrea Fraser and Marina Abramović, who perform the sale of sex for metaphoric value rather than financial necessity, ultimately appropriate and oversimplify the experience of erotic labour. The second section presents a variety of artistic works and exhibitions that involve contemporary erotic labourers and sex workers as artists, curators, and contributors: the archival project Objects of Desire (2016, 2019), the digital immersive performance E-Viction organised by Veil Machine (2020), the exhibition No Human Involved curated by STROLL PDX and Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (2019), and the participatory performance Play4UsNow which the author co-produced (2020). Through interviews with the curators and artistic producers, the analysis reflects on strategies that respond to current political events, support existing grassroots organising, and model more equitable forms of compensation and representation within the arts. By platforming erotic labourers and sex workers themselves, these projects transcend the realm of the metaphoric to depict lived experience and enact material consequences.