Pornographisches Kabinett du XXe Siècle

Pornography has become part of everyday life. The availability, seduction and appeal of sexuality are omnipresent, intruding into our consciousness uninvited and intrusively through advertising and the media. Bodies are objects, sex is a consumable commodity.
In his exhibition at the message salon, Zurich artist Alexis Saile reveals a divided relationship with this flood of sex. His drawings in black ink and lemon juice are poetic, delicate, seductive, imaginative, explicit, manic, desperate. An insatiable lust means that the craving for ever new stimuli hardly ever subsides.
With the title ‘Pornographisches Kabinett du XXe Siècle’ (Pornographic Cabinet of the 20th Century), the artist refers to the history of the representation of eroticism and sexuality in the context of art. In reference to the cabinets that present graphic art or small treasures to a select audience in small, secluded rooms, Alexis Saile installs a display in the message salon by candlelight, which unfolds its effect in the dim light of Langstrasse.