Sylvia Ji & Joshua Petker opened their Behind Bedroom Doors this past Friday (03.09.07) @ Thinkspace Gallery. Godsgirls.com models posed for several of the paintings and also put on a racy crowd-stopping show in the front window installation area. Missed it? Never fear, here are shots of the opening and a few of the "live" installation featuring a pair of godsgirls.com models. Be sure to check out the show prints and all the show pieces. Note: some of the images after the jump are NOT work-safe.
I have always been a fan of the Vinyl Pulse site. I am greatly offended this time by the display of Nudie pics. To some it may be art, but I am trying to avoid pornography and keep its influence out of my life. My kids work with me on toy stuff and do not need to be exposed to porn / soft porn. Perhaps a link to the picks and a statement CONTAINS NUDITY for those of us who want to keep our minds clean.
Thanks,
Alan Richardson
“Behind Bedroom Doors”…” Godsgirls.com”…”racy crowd-stopping show”…
“live” installation featuring a pair of godsgirls.com models”…”Note: some of the images after the jump are NOT work-safe”…
I deeply respect the fact that you want to keep nude and/or erotic images out of your life, but just before the pics, there was 5 warnings signs that said a lot about the content…
And, please don’t call it porn…it’s art, ok…You can see a psycho Mickey Mouse on this site for 3 weeks, monsters, blood, skeletons, more blood, sexy cartoon,violent scenery but no nude art shows coverage?
i mean, the world is covered with war and blood right now, but you can’t show the most beautiful thing in the whole world!
You mister, have a perspective problem…
PS: By the way, I too am greatly offended…by your misjudgement!
Gotta go with Mr Goo on this one . . . Necromorth the Christraper and a rabid Mickey Mouse are OK but you have issues with a lil’ boobage?
Nice Tatts BTW 🙂
Andy
We received some negative feedback this morning ourselves on postings about this show and it has greatly saddened us. Both Sylvia and Joshua looked at the installation photo shoot as the one thing that really pulled the whole exhibit together and was a celebration of the female form that they both primarily paint. Sylvia and Joshua both really pushed to make this all come together, we mearly provided the venue for them to realize their concept and vision for this body of work. The show is entitled “Behind Bedroom Doors” afterall and this was a peak behind those doors. I must admit we had our reservations about this, but at the same time we are here to provide a venue for our artists to give birth to their vision, not to censor their vision. Their vision was to have the show come to life and to have a live photo shoot in their installation – all of which came about due to much hard work and networking on their part with contacts they had in place. We wanted them to be happy with their show and they were over the moon with how all came together.
I just can’t stress enough how this was not a publicity stunt of any kind, nor intended to degrade women in any way. There have been numerous art exhibitions throughout history where nudity or some form of sexual expression were major parts of the exhibition, so by no means is this something to be considered totally off base or such. Both artists are aware of the word of mouth on this event and are very hurt to hear it had that kind of impression on anyone. It was intended as an extension of their artwork and we stick by that, as do they. We are going to shoot to post a statment on our site from them soon regarding this situation.
Sorry to anyone out there that was offended in any way. That was so not the intent of the artists or the gallery.
Rich, get over it.
There was a warning.
Next time you want to avoid ‘pornography’, heed not work-safe warnings. 😉
The show was fun.
Definitely happy that the gallery was packed for pretty much the entire night and almost every single painting both Joshua’s and Sylvia’s work is now sold.
I got painted twice for the show by Joshua and both of my paintings will be off to their new homes as soon as the show is done running. 😀
Sorry kids, but I have to agree that this was somewhat distatsteful. Yes, this has been done before, so what makes it new? Try to be original and not just shocking for the sake of shock. Exploitation is exploitation and I feel sorry for those girls who need this kind of attention. Artists need to own up to their social responsibility, not just for moral or ethical issues, but for the sake of good original art.
Shameless.
ok… ok… ok….
First off, you douche rockets need to relax. Secondly, you guys need to realize that you are offended by these images because you are conditioned to fear your own sexuality, as well as embed the idea that sex is an ugly and wrong act. If you have problems with it, you have problems with yourselves that need to be addressed first.
Finally, once you realize that ART is anything thing you can get away with, and that sanity has nothing to do with it, then you will understand that these things are ok. If you have problems with it, then this is not the world for you. Move on and take your “Asshole-trust-fund-hippie” ways and kick rocks. Find a new hobby or something else you can attempt to destroy with your horrible parenting skills and your lack of taste for anything ressembling reality.
Try enjoying the beuty that this world offers, instead of trying to hide it from people because YOU feel it is wrong and “distasteful”. Your embedded FEARS are what cause you to have a lack of taste. I hate people like you guys. Why dont you get back to church and continue trying to hide the rampant child molestations and sexual harassment suits due to your objectification of women and emotional oppression.
i am very surprised and disappointed that people from within the art community— collectors or attendees and, in particular, other artists– took offense to the live “performance” element of this show. i cannot even begin to understand why paintings of nude models are acceptable but the nudity of the actual girls is offensive? the two models that took part in the photoshoot that happened at thinkspace gallery were two of the models who were painted NUDE for the show.
are the artists themselves degrading the women by asking them to pose for the paintings or are the girls degrading themselves by taking part in the works?
this gallery show, the website containing the images that the paintings were based on, the artists, and the girls themselves all intended for this to be a celebration of female beauty and that is exactly what it was.
What is and isn’t a form of exploitation is a matter of opinion.
I model for GodsGirls and love it.
also, ROBBY, your social mores have no place in art. i see no problem with artists exploring so-called taboos in search of beauty.
i can’t, because i don’t have the time to give you all an art history lesson, begin to tell you how many beautiful pieces would have never been created had the artists and the models taken the moral core into consideration before they began to create.
Sure no one wants little kids minds to be warped. At the same time by throwing a tarp over the images from kids you create a powerful intrigue. which will inevitably lead into an uncomfortable occurance of mom or dad walking in on little timmy with a sears catalog. Sex is nothing you can hide from anyone. Forced control leads to revolt and even worse problems. In religious terms it took sin to realize shame in nudity. There are no dildos or boners post up here. The very odd thing is that those paintings actually are very beautifully done and original. When did nudity constitute pornography? Would you hiss in a figure drawing class? Do you blindfold when you shower?
To yell Exploitation! Exploitation! is that not an unoriginal response? Someone from outside the situation throwing their beliefs as if they can stop an art movement. Especially when it deals with the human body? Have you not always seen the more scandal you give, the more publicity? Let the ones actually taking part scream of their exploitation then you can join in.
But here is a problem. The word toys gets its roots from middle english “toye” which mean piece of fun. But now we all know toys to be considered as child play things. But what an artist does is push moral, political, and social boundaries. If you take objects like toys and add these tasks of an artist you cannot always shy away from adult themes. As much as I love toys and would of killed to have some of these crazy characters when i was young, artist toys or designer toys are not meant to be played with by children. They dwell in a liminal state between a child play thing and a work of art. What “art” is really cannot be defined more than an extension of someone that makes it. We are not looking at the next line up of barney dolls here. It is a very grey area of where these toys lay in respect to “toys” besides being collector items.
So what do you do if you don’t want adult themes in your toys? If need be can there be a new area separate from crap corporate advertising toys and adult themes?
No ones side is right. It is all opinion. That is what makes Art.
Let’s be clear here; I have no objection to nudity. But let’s also be critical of what is cliche; and this, in my opinion, has been done before, many, many times, and its been done better. If you are going to try to shock us with naked chicks in a window from a self-declared porn site (read the site info, it’s there)present it with some originality and a unique perspective that does not cheapen your art. I feel these artists’ work is fairly straightforward, not too much thinking required, but aesthetically they are quite beautiful, so why re-associate it back with pornography? What makes the work significant is the artist’s perspective and how it is translated, not the subject matter. It just comes across as a cheap publicity stunt; why else take away from the art?
being effective as an artist sometimes means pissing people off.
I am not offended or upset at the comments directed towards Swindle and myself (we are the naked girls in the window) but rather I am proud, and I am smirking at the people who call themselves “artists” yet fear sexuality.
Cheap publicity stunt? Nah. I mostly just thought it would make a really good set for the site.
First off, I didn’t see any warning. It may be there, but I didn’t see it. Second I don’t have a problem with the nudity being shown, just not on the front page where kids tend to look. If people want to do stuff like this,…fine, but not right up front . Third there is a big difference in seeing the twisted Mickey Mouse and a bit of blood to seeing Pictures that are considered soft porn or porn by a good percentage of the world. I for one love Vinyl Pulse, but with more and more people losing moral values every day I am not surprised that this is being shown. I will either need to be more careful in the future or avoid this site. Do you people realize how many kids come to this site??!! There are alot of kids in this hobby!! Do we really need to expose them to Nude pictures? My kids are both into vinyl. I can’t show them pics on this site…they would think I was a hippocrit because I am anti – porn. To some it may be art, and I respect that, but the whole world doesn’t need to see it on the front page. Some of us still have values.
1. Violence is ok but sex is not? Do you tell your kids that the stork dropped them off?
2. H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-T-E…now let’s all spell it out loud, together. That’s a funny word you picked to misspell.
Before the performance piece/photoshoot in the “bedroom” (the show is titled “Behind Bedroom Doors”, what did you expect???), before I realized they were “God’s Girls”, I took particular notice of each of the two girls at the gallery. I could sense that they were very sexually confident women. It was something you could just tell. They smiled broadly, looked right at the cameras (there was much photography /before/ the performance), they laughed loudly, their body language was self-possessed and proud… They are not stereotypically beautiful women, but they clearly don’t care that they don’t look like Barbie dolls and have decided to feel good about themselves anyway. Those girls don’t need your pity. It was not Girls Gone Wild…
The artists, both of whom I know very well, don’t have a misogynist bone in their body. They created their work based on photographs of the God’s Girls, so the performance piece was a bit of actually relevant fun added to what is often a very typical event. Art shows almost always consist of socializing, enjoying the art, and drinking. At least we had a laugh and a voyeuristic thrill. It was “fun”. Remember fun??? To take the gallery and the artists to task over a ten minute performance piece of naked frolicking, is taking things a bit too seriously. It’s a waste of time to get upset about this show or the photographs that have been published of it.
It’s rude to insinuate that other people, who you don’t know, don’t have values. Everyone has values, just not the same ones. The artists, gallery owners, and performance artists are hardly immoral – it’s not like they held the show at a daycare center… Saying “some of us still have values” reeks of someone getting up on their high horse and looking down on other people in order to feel superior about themselves. It is not respectful.
As a parent, I sympathize with wanting to protect “the children”, but as a rational human being, I have to recognize that I can’t shield myself or my child from the world around us and participate in it at the same time. Better to prepare our kids to process reality, than pointlessly try to censor everything we don’t like. All you have to do to keep your kids clear on your values is be consistent. When you come across something that you think is wrong, that’s the perfect time to re-iterate your perspective… to your children; maybe not so much to other adults who aren’t seeking your moral guidance and judgements.
Shock value bullshit tactics.
LAME.
If they REALLY wanted to admire and bring praise to the female form, they should have just had some nude models sitting there. No reason to devalue the art by having two chicks make out and get lewd.
“but it’s aaaarrtt…”
Wonder if there would have been this much hub-bub if it were called “THE DONG SHOW”, and you had a buncha nekkid guys standing around at attention and rubbing each other off all night long.
What’s wrong with Alan voicing his opinion about trying to protect his kids from seeing skanks online at a toy site? If he missed the NSFW disclaimer, oh well, accidents happen, but his morals shouldn’t be brought into question.
Hey, I like nasty trollops as much as the next guy. But that doesn’t mean I want my kids getting a front row view into their privates that should be reserved for their gyno and a dude in perv row with a fistfulla singles.
I think it takes a lot of balls to stand up and say that you’re going to try to live decently in this society. A helluva lot tougher than just going with the flow, plopping your kid down in front of MTV and letting the public at large raise your kids. Kudos Alan.
This whole thing is sad really.
Sad, because the work on the walls is awesome.
Too bad they had to cheapen it and draw attention AWAY from the art by using some low-budget Suicide girls wannabes showing off their cootches.
trucka,
your post was sooooo mature, worldly and eloquent that i’m pretty sure you just proved the point of your opposition.
I believe it was a photoshoot, not girls rubbing eachothers vaginas?
Actually, Im sure of it.
I was one of them.
Since when is photography not art?
Annaliese,
You’re just mad because I called Godgirls trollops.
Too bad you slovenly tarts overshadowed the nice art that was on the walls.
Trucka,
I’m a little curious how to find us to all be “low budget Suicide Girls” simply because there was a shoot done live. The whole gallery was full of paintings of nude girls based off previous sets.
Are you opposed to all nudity and porn simply because you find it to mean we are just “dumb porn stars”?
Really, you interest me with your narrow-minded point of view on this whole event. Mostly because you’ve made yourself out to be the nude-women fearing type.
i’m actually not angry at all, trucka. i am really amused. i love those slovenly tarts and so did the people who bought every piece at the show.
so obviously everyone is taking this way off course and now the girls pictured are involved. First, you two girls need to quiet down and step away. It is better to be thought of as stupid, then to open your mouths and remove all doubt. Let these christ-core mongoloids remove all doubt for us so we can all go to sleep better.
secondly, you other morons need to remember that, in america, WE really do whatever the hell we please. That includes you too. However, you need to go have your opinions where they are welcome, rather than where they are unwelcome. Your colsed minds have no place in this world and i personaly would like you to wander off away from here. I am politely asking all of you to step away from this topic, and for some of you to step away from this world completely. You are hindering our ability to be as creative as we want to be and so therefore you are unwelcome in my book.
Quoting Mark Twain. While I agree with this statement depending on the context, I have to say I don’t see that working in our favor in this particular thread.
When girls are under direct negative commentary for their nudity which directly relates to the gallery and the purpose of the show, I see no reason not to stand up for it.
Julene,
Nope. Not the “nude-woman fearing type” at all. Quite the contrary. In fact, I used to frequent strip clubs quite often and I was best friends with many of the dancers and a few REAL porno stars in LA during the 90’s. I love women, nude and otherwise. I even married one.
I don’t consider you guys TRUE porn stars. You’re around because after Suicide Girls exploded, you saw a chance to glom onto a lucrative niche market of horny frat boys who are too scared to talk to you type of girls ( ie: “punk rock” or should I say “hot topic” chicks) in public, but will gladly pay to get their rocks off spanking it to your pix on the net in the privvy of their frat houses.
Initially, I came here to defend Alan’s statements that he didn’t want his children in his studio to see naked pics of girls when they came to a daily toy news and information site. Sounds like a sensible man to me. Plus, I also came to comment on the paintings.
Yet now, I find it incredibly interesting that you godgirls come here and actually try to defend and consider what you do as “art”. It’s barely even performance art.
Let’s call a spade a spade.
It’s low budget soft-core porn.
Personally, I would have found it infinitely more classy had the artists invited you guys to the opening and just had you partake of the festivities, mingle, clothes ON, and not get naked and have a grope-fest.
A move like that would make the general public who came to the gallery to view the paintings wonder if that’s what the girls really look like under their street clothes. If they hadn’t of seen them naked in the gallery, then they might have hit the godgirls site, and pay to see for themselves.
It’s much more titillating that way. Leaves much more to the imagination.
You gave them the show for free.
To wrap things up, I find it sad that you think i’m narrow-minded because I find it lame that the artists opted against good taste and decency and had you girls feel each other up in public during their show. Although I know why, because sex sells.
But that wasn’t the purpose of the show, was it…? I thought it was to look at and sell paintings.
Although, if that was the only way that the artists thought that their work would sell, to rely on cheap skin tactics, well, I find it very unfortunate that they think so little of their artistic talents.
Too bad they didn’t have more faith in the work, that it could have spoken for itself.
They felt it needed a live T&A show to move it out the door.
Annaliese,
I’m sure you DO love all the tarts who “work” for godgirls.com. Money in the bank is a good thing. Although, some folks actually CARE how they get the money they make, I’m sure that’s not the point with you though.
I’m sure your parents are VERY proud of you all.
Rather ironic that those promote free thinking only do so when others agree with their point of view. You don’t need to agree with someone’s opinion, but at least give them respect. Calling people names does nothing for your argument (on either side of the issue) – all it does is expose what little thinking you did to argue your point of view. This all started because someone asked politely that he (and possibly his kid) not be exposed to nudity on a site that has primarily in the past focused on toys. Let’s be intellectually honest, this basically came out of left field, I can remember only one other time when nudity (in the form of pictures) was posted on this site. Vinyl Pulse broke from a precedent they initially set up and stuck to – until now. Yes there was a warning about the pics, but it could have been more clearly and prominently posted. Was it necessary to post nudity right on the front page? If you want to debate then let’s all debate – but enough of this 3rd grade bickering…
Amazingly enough, there were only two naked females. There were quite a few of us in the gallery, talking to patrons and each other, and enjoying the event as a whole. We didn’t stand around naked touching each other’s privates as some sort of “publicity stunt.” As I mentioned previously, considering these paintings were based of photos of sets from the website, why not take the opportunity to also shoot a set live surrounded by art celebrating the female form and the way GodsGirls chooses to present it?
There were more than a few people that came up to me personally asking questions about the site, what it’s like, where to find it. Obviously our nudity didn’t prevent them from being interested in the actual site.
And as far as you saying you aren’t narrow-minded, perhaps you should look at the definition. “Lacking in tolerance.” Just because you wouldn’t personally have done that at the gallery doesn’t make it wrong, cheap, or any of the other words you chose to use.
So yes, I do consider you to be narrow-minded. Is this right for everyone? No. Do I happen to enjoy it and the fact I have become involved with the site? Yes.
Who are you to tell me making money from modeling for this site is somehow reproachable? If you were so buddy-buddy with porn stars and strippers alike, I hardly see how you could try to justify looking down on me and everyone else involved in the site for what we do.
know what really “pisses” me off?
Duchamp’s fountain!
hahaha. oh “art” and what it can be.
well that was my joke.
I think that the bottom line is you cannot tell someone what is and is not “art.” and bashing at each other is just going to go on and on. Everyone becoming either wittier or meaner by the moment.
Hi all. It was certainly not our intention to offend anyone with our coverage of Slyvia and Joshua’s show. We will try to be more careful in the future when posting potentially objectionable material.
We’re pleased that the discussion has raised some important and timeless questions. At this point though, there’s little new being discussed. Instead, the rehashing and back forth has esclated into name-calling and near personal attacks. Therefore, we’ve closed comments on this post.