This title critically surveys art's identification with desire, self-performance and self-representation via key texts by artists an theorists from the mid 20th century to the present. It has been argued, most notably in psychoanalytic and modernist art discourse, that the production of works of art is fundamentally driven by sexual desire. It has further been argued, particularly since the early 1970s, that sexual drives and desires also condition the distribution, display and reception of art. This anthology traces how and why this identification of art with sexual expression or repression arose and how the terms have shifted in tandem with artistic and theoretical debates, from the era of the rights movements to the present.

Specialized.