If the func­tion of the artist is to engage the viewer, per­haps the most sub­lime avenue is the erotic. Sex­u­al­ity is, after all, the uni­ver­sal lan­guage, an unspo­ken con­ver­sa­tion that can draw or repel. When the world of secrets is taken out of the bed­room and dis­played, it feeds our curios­ity, ques­tions our morals and demands our imme­di­ate judg­ment. View­ing erot­ica can trans­port us to places we have never been, often inside the artist or our­selves, and it always plays with our inner­most thoughts, desires and fears. It is also a lot of fun.

For rea­sons unknown to most any­one, over five thou­sand souls brave the bone-chilling Feb­ru­ary weather and descend to the des­o­late indus­trial sec­tors in dreary Detroit, Michi­gan. For the last three years, a crum­bling ware­house space known as the Tan­gent has been home to the Dirty Show, an erotic art exhi­bi­tion which has become one of the largest inde­pen­dent art events in America.

We never intended to cre­ate a fes­ti­val, an event or what­ever one calls it. The Dirty Show more or less cre­ated itself. Even the name, which was given a trade­mark by the gov­ern­ment, was orig­i­nally just Dirty. It was intended more as an affront to the art estab­lish­ment (which tra­di­tion­ally tries to soften the shock of erot­ica with taste­ful names, typ­i­cally French in ori­gin). Dirty was an invi­ta­tional; a small, under­ground art open­ing held in an aban­doned office over a bump shop. What didn’t hurt was that a who’s who of Detroit van­guard artists par­tic­i­pated from the start. Low­brow art stars such as Glenn Barr, Nia­gar and Camilo hung side by side with up & com­ing artists and totally unknowns. Every­one seemed to be ask­ing “When will there be another Dirty show?” Demand pre­vailed, and the name stuck.

It was not until four years later, when the event was held at the now defunct Museum Of New Art, that Dirty trans­formed. Word of mouth had spread through­out dif­fer­ent artis­tic com­mu­ni­ties. It seemed every genre of local artist was rep­re­sented, and art started mak­ing its way in from all over the USA, even though the show was still local. A mix of con­tem­po­rary, tra­di­tional and some stuff that was so out­side of it all that we are still try­ing to clas­sify it began to arrive. Fine art nudes hung next to sloppy por­traits of fel­la­tio, pho­to­re­al­is­tic oils min­gled with folk, erotic graf­fiti and think pieces cohabitated—all of which were sub­mit­ted by a range of artists from col­lege pro­fes­sors to pris­on­ers. Large crowds and TV News crews alike came for a peek. It appeared The Dirty Show might be some­thing more than just an art open­ing. The news­pa­per arti­cles debated the art or pornog­ra­phy aspect and the con­tro­versy played out on the walls of the museum. When it was over, land­lords bounced the museum out of its space and Dirty was now too big to hold in any Detroit area gallery.

We could not have held Dirty in any tra­di­tional event venue, even if they would have had us. A con­cep­tual art space was attached to a the­atre which was inside a large ware­house that had been used for raves. The prob­lem here was that the direc­tor of the gallery space was a lit­tle ret­i­cent. He did not want any­thing to do with the Dirty Show (although he had never actu­ally been to one). For­tu­nately, greed pre­vailed and the building’s own­ers rented the space—a move that caused the pre­vi­ous direc­tor to quit his posi­tion. We invested in a web­site and opened it up to the world. Soon, we had too many artists and too many patrons who wanted to see the work. We insti­tuted a jury, cre­ated a sub­mis­sion fee, hired peo­ple to help us and sold lots of tick­ets. The rest is liv­ing history.

Around Valentine’s week­end in Feb­ru­ary 2006, the sev­enth annual Dirty Show broke all records. Both an invi­ta­tional and a juried show­case, close to four hun­dred pieces of erot­ica from over 200 artists were exhib­ited. Many are from the Detroit area or the Mid­west, but a large per­cent­age was selected via inter­net with sub­mis­sions from vir­tu­ally every state and all con­ti­nents except that one on which only pen­guins march. Our cri­te­ria for selec­tion starts with “bet­ter than aver­age,” and we are drawn to style, qual­ity, tech­nique and orig­i­nal­ity. Edgier pieces, espe­cially those that cross the line of typ­i­cal social accept­abil­ity are always wel­come. Fine art nudes, fig­u­ra­tive and occa­sion­ally faces hang side by side with explicit images. Artists here explore vir­tu­ally every sex­ual act. In every show, a select num­ber of sub­mis­sions attain show-stopper status—these are truly unfor­get­table works of art that cre­ate a stir and some real excitement.

One of our artists, awed by the beauty yet dis­gusted and dis­mayed by some of the more graphic pieces, sug­gested we move the rougher art to a sin­gle room where a warn­ing could be posted. We told him the warn­ing was our name, and that the room started at the front door. As taste­ful as his work may have been, there are those in the world who would still take offense. If The Dirty Show is an affront to your sen­si­bil­ity, for­tu­nately our door works in both direc­tions. Our job is not to cen­sor the con­tent, we instead judge solely on exe­cu­tion. The only rules are that the mod­els must be of legal age and the work must be cre­ated by the artist. Con­tro­versy in art is always good, but, at the same time, it is not nec­es­sary. All forms of art are con­sid­ered and displayed—some con­cep­tual think pieces and abstracts have even been crit­i­cized for “not being dirty enough” by our patrons. The amount of flesh revealed or sex acts depicted are not the decid­ing fac­tors in select­ing erot­ica. A hand over gen­i­talia is often more erotic than a splayed vagina and a well-heeled foot may be dirt­ier than an act of dou­ble pen­e­tra­tion. It boils down to this—dirty is in the eye of the beholder.

That said, we do tend to select pieces that push the enve­lope. Humor plays a huge role in the show as well. Audi­ence reac­tion is per­haps the most impor­tant aspect of any art show. Laugh­ter is a rel­e­vant reac­tion, and if a piece impresses us aes­thet­i­cally and can make us smile, laugh or react, then the artist has truly cap­tured some­thing. If the artist can make us think as well, they have done it all.

When it is all thrown together, The Dirty Show can be over­whelm­ing. The viewer is sur­rounded by sex­u­al­ity, sen­su­al­ity and shocks. A num­ber of pieces may push the enve­lope, ask­ing the viewer to ques­tion the lim­its of artis­tic expres­sion or sex­ual free­dom. Bet­ter known pho­tog­ra­phers such as Eric Kroll, Charles Gate­wood, Craig Morely and Tegar hang with com­plete unknowns. Up and com­ers like Aaron Hawkes and BT Charles shine as the next gen­er­a­tion of names unfold­ing on the walls.
The exhi­bi­tion is not about names and artis­tic star­dom, yet it man­ages to show a who’s who of well known artists. Last Feb­ru­ary, 90-year-old Pablo Davis (who worked with Diego Rivera on the Detroit Insti­tute of Arts famous indus­try mural) was one of the par­tic­i­pants. Colin Chris­t­ian made his mid-west debut with his incred­i­ble, larger than life futur­is­tic fiber­glass sculp­ture. Tom Porta, whose dis­tinct oils of faces in latex bondage masks cre­ated a huge buzz in the fetish world, flew in from Italy for the show. A 10-foot mural of an orgy by the late, great Rus­sel Keeter was unveiled for the first time since his death. These names were not used to lure an audi­ence. The Dirty Show is com­mit­ted to being about all the artists as a whole. Since we have the lux­ury of hav­ing the largest atten­dance in Detroit his­tory, and a draw beyond capac­ity, we don’t exactly need a patron who comes to the show only because they are inter­ested in see­ing the work of one artist.

The work these artists do is more impor­tant to us than who they are. The artist does not have to be known for erot­ica. We feel, how­ever, that all artists are at their best when they dab­ble in this genre. They engage us, which is the rea­son we go to any art show.

Art­work by Danielle Kaltz